6 Tips For Strong Immune Support During the Heat of Summer

It’s a common mistake for people to think of the flu, common cold, and other ailments as winter diseases. Just because it’s hot outside during the summer doesn’t mean illness can’t thrive. As such, it’s just as important to have strong immune support during the summer as during the winter.

If you want to stay healthy and make the most of your summer, this article contains tips and tricks for boosting your immune system. The methods we’ll look at are similar to those that you would use during winter. However, they’ll serve as a good reminder because it’s easy to let health practices slip when summer rolls around.

Load Up on Fruits and Veggies

What you eat and drink has a bigger impact on your immune system than most other factors. As such, it’s vital to maintain a healthy, well-balanced diet during summer. More specifically, however, you should load up on fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are packed with numerous important vitamins and minerals for immune support. This includes Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, and many more.

On a similar note, you want to avoid processed sugars, processed foods, fried food, and other unhealthy foods. While fruits and veggies build up your immunity, these unhealthy foods have the opposite effect and destroy it.

Drink Lots of Water

Because of how hot it is during the summer, it’s easier to remember to drink lots of water and stay hydrated. However, this practice isn’t always as easy if you have an inside job or it’s an unusually cool summer.

At any rate, drinking water is essential for immune support because it helps expel unwanted toxins and bacteria from your body. These toxins and bacteria attack your immune system, attempting to break it down. Water, however, helps increase the flow of white blood cells, which are the frontline defenders of your immune system.

Water also affects how well your body can absorb vitamins and nutrients. You can consume all the vitamins and nutrients in the world, but your body can only absorb so many of them if it’s dehydrated.

Get Plenty of Exercises

In addition to helping you build muscle and lose weight, exercise is essential for your immune health. There are several ways in which exercise helps support a healthy immune system. First, exercise speeds up blood flow and stimulates your circulatory system. Increased blood flow is crucial because blood carries white blood cells that fight infection and nutrients that promote immune health.

The second way exercise provides immune support is by blocking the flow of cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that plays a vital role in many different functions of the body, including metabolism and stress regulation. However, excess cortisol can also wreak havoc on your immune system, so suppressing it is necessary for immune support.

Take Care of Your Gut Health

Something that many people don’t realize is that your gut and your immune system are closely intertwined with one another. Therefore, it’s tough to have strong immune support if you don’t have a healthy gut, and vice versa.

If you want to maintain your gut health, it’s crucial to consume lots of magnesium and probiotics. Magnesium improves regular bowel movements, which keeps your gut from getting blocked up and retaining unwanted waste. By getting rid of unwanted waste, the number of healthy bacteria in your gut will increase, which is important because these bacteria interact with your immune cells. *

In addition to increasing magnesium intake, you should also consider taking a probiotic. Probiotics help you maintain a healthy microbiome, the collective name for the fungi, bacteria, and cells in your gut. Because your immune cells interact and feed off of the things in your microbiome, it must remain as healthy as possible. *

Reduce Stress

While it’s important to up your intake of certain things, such as fruits, veggies, and magnesium, to have a healthy immune system, there are also things you want to avoid. One of these things is stress. *

As we mentioned earlier, stress initiates a hormonal reaction that releases cortisol. While cortisol is important for managing stress and physical healing, excess cortisol restricts your immune system. This results in a higher possibility that you won’t have the necessary immune support to fight off infection if you start getting sick. Therefore, it’s important to find ways to cope with stress. Here are a few suggestions.

Practice meditation or sophrology
Spend time outdoors
Try journaling or tracking your thoughts
Try natural supplements like magnesium or ashwagandha

Get Lots of Sleep

When it comes to the level of importance of things that support immune health, there’s no substitute for a good night’s sleep. Numerous studies show a direct correlation between sleep and immune health. These studies show that people who don’t get enough sleep are more prone to disease and infection, while those who get adequate sleep are far less likely.

First, sleep promotes the release of cytokines, a type of protein in your immune system. Cytokines help fight infection and inflammation and are vital to your immune support. Conversely, not getting enough sleep will restrict the release of cytokines, putting you at higher risk for sickness.

Inadequate amounts of sleep will also restrict the release of other antibodies and vitamins that boost your immune system and fight infection. Ideally, adults should try to get between seven and eight hours of quality sleep each night, but not more than ten.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, while disease and infection aren’t as common during the summer, it’s still possible to get sick when it’s hot outside. In most cases, getting sick during summer directly results from not caring for yourself mentally and physically. Therefore, by exercising regularly, drinking lots of water, eating a healthy diet, and getting plenty of sleep, you can increase your immune support for the summer.