8 Tips to Strengthen Your Immune System This Flu Season

Participating in flu season isn’t mandatory. In fact, it’s not recommended. Just because there’s a chill in the air doesn’t mean a bout of the flu or a cold is inevitable; even if you have pre-schoolers in your house! You can abstain from the so-called season through boosting your immune system naturally.

The viruses that cause coughs, colds and flu, and even the opportunistic bacteria that can lead to sinus infections and bronchitis, are just part of the natural ecosystem all around us. How our body reacts to them is almost entirely in our hands.

Immune System 101

Your immune system has all the mechanisms it needs to attack pathogens when encountered. From the gatekeepers known as your tonsils which immediately fight any microbes as well as alert your other defenses, to the many types of specialized cells created in your bone marrow and circulating in your blood to neutralize invaders, the antibodies created in your spleen and the filtering processes managed by your lymphatic system - it’s a magical orchestra working together.

Illustration from Emma’s book How to Be a Healthy Human

Doctors and scientists have barely scratched the surface of how it all works. New discoveries tend to create more questions than they answer, such as the recent discovery that your microbiome is involved in generating white blood cells when levels are low.

What we do know is that it is important to keep all the individual elements healthy so that the orchestra can play in tune. Poor lifestyle habits inflict daily damage. The biggest culprits are a lack of nutritious food, too much sugar and chemical additives, not enough exercise (to boost our lymph circulation), inadequate sleep, and poor stress management.

Another culprit often overlooked as detrimental to our health is the pharmaceuticals being advertised as the solution to flu season when in fact their synthetic ingredients impose an extra burden for our detoxification processes and immune function.

Pharmaceuticals Are Not the Answer

The marketing messages to go get your flu shot are ubiquitous nowadays. Big pharma uses language that normalizes the process as if it’s a regular part of life. Selling the shots through retail outlets further propagates the illusion of plain common sense that should apply to everyone. But a closer inspection of the facts reveals that flu shots usually have efficacy rates lower than 50 percent and that more than 70 percent of the respiratory viruses that make people ill in any given season are due to the many other viruses and bacteria that cause “flu-like” symptoms.

If the flu shots were ineffective but basically benign it would be less of a problem. But the plethora of ingredients that go into their manufacture include preservatives such as mercury (a known neurotoxin) and formaldehyde (a carcinogen), as well as adjuvants which are toxic by design to hyper-stimulate your immune system into producing an antibody response. One potential negative effect is for your body to create a response to a healthy cell in the body instead (leading to an autoimmune condition like psoriasis) or to a nutritious food you happened to be eating in the same timeframe (leading to an allergy).

The pharmaceuticals you are encouraged to get before you get sick are bad enough but then you are sold additional pharmaceuticals once you do succumb to illness. Drugs such as Tamiflu and its cousins have “had their effectiveness overplayed and harms underplayed” according to the editor of the British Medical Journal.

A natural approach is far more effective to support you this flu season and beyond.

8 Tips to Boost Your Immune System Naturally

1. Improve your nutrition through adding a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables to your meals. Cut back on added sugar, processed foods and eating out at low quality restaurants. Eat more meals at home where you can ensure quality ingredients that limit additives and industrial seed and vegetable oils. Cook with olive, coconut or avocado oil, grass-fed butter or ghee.

2. Boost your microbiome with a high-quality probiotic supplement and/or adding fermented foods to your routine such as kimchi, sauerkraut or kombucha. A simple teaspoon of raw apple cider vinegar in salad dressings or a glass of water before a meal is very beneficial. Increasing your fiber intake (through fruits and vegetables) is also important as microbes need fiber to thrive.

3. Vitamin D is crucial for a healthy immune system. Adding a high-quality daily supplement is helpful particularly in the winter months. 4,000IU per day is a good start.

4. Vitamin C is another crucial nutrient that your body uses up more quickly when fighting a virus. Adding 1,000mg a day during winter and doubling or tripling the amount at the first signs of a cold will help. Splitting up the dosage through the day works best.

5. Other useful supplements include Zinc (especially for vegetarians and vegans), quercetin, and NAC (N-acetyl cysteine) particularly if you’re feeling run-down and susceptible to illness. Elderberry, available in the form of lozenges and tinctures, has been known for thousands of years for its bug-fighting qualities.

6. Keep well hydrated. Your body is over 70 percent water and can dehydrate easily particularly if you drink caffeinated coffee and tea which are diuretics. Aim to drink 8 glasses of pure water a day plus chicken broths and other soups are helpful and comforting in winter.

7. Get outside more. It may seem counter-intuitive when the weather turns colder but the Open-Air Factor (OAF) has been studied since the 1960s as a germicidal agent. For a start ultra-violet light has been shown to inactivate viruses, plus sunlight boosts your vitamin D level. Ozone is a another known germicidal element used in medicine today. Spending time in nature has been shown to boost mental health. But the OAF is most likely a synergistic blend of multiple elements that work together to promote good health.

8. Practice stress mitigation techniques. We all have stress in our lives whether it’s due to our schedules, our finances or our relationships. But ongoing stress depresses our immune system and can be a major factor in succumbing to a circulating virus. Find what works for you from going for a brisk walk or pumping iron in a gym, listening to some calming music, or practicing yoga and/or deep breathing exercises. Getting together with friends or watching a funny movie also counts.

This holiday season I hope you get to enjoy the positives and avoid the potential pitfalls of the season by staying healthy!

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About the author: Emma Tekstra is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, an independent health researcher, and author of “How to Be a Healthy Human; What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Health and Longevity.” With a 30-year background in employee benefits and corporate health and wellbeing, she consults with employers looking for real solutions to runaway health care costs, and to startup companies bringing health solutions to market. Read more at About page.

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