With all that’s going on right now with the fear and stress of coronavirus illness. I feel like so many people have forgotten that we have an immune system that’s designed to fight off infection and disease. So many people have been so inundated with anxiety, stress, and fear from what’s going on in the media, what they’ve seen around them, the restrictions that have been placed upon us, many of which are actually untrue and not nearly as bad as we talk about.
But the purpose of this video is to help you understand how powerful your immune system is and what you can do to strengthen your immune system to help fight off infection and disease. And that’s not just for what we are currently dealing with as far as COVID-19.
How Do I Fight Off Sickness, Illness and Immune Disorders?
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How To Strengthen Your Immune System
How do you get fewer colds?
How do you decrease your risk of cancer and auto-immune disorders?
Your immune system is what fights off everything!
We’re constantly surrounded by germs, viruses, bacteria, and parasites. We all have this innate natural immune response to effectively fight off these infections and diseases.
How To Build Up Immunity Naturally
So today we want to talk about how do you build immunity up naturally so that way next time you come in contact with something, your body does exactly what it’s designed to do, which is healing itself. And I hope by the end of this you have more faith in your body’s ability to heal itself than the fear of getting sick or that a medication or a vaccine will fix your problem.
The best way to get and stay healthy and to prevent sickness and disease is to invest in your own personal health. And that’s exactly what we teach here in the office through the 5 Essentials of Max Living.
If you’ve never seen any of our videos before, I want to help you understand exactly how these five essentials help you build up your immune system and how you can start implementing these immediately today.
1. Core Chiropractic
Number one, the most important essential is core chiropractic. That’s because your brain and your nervous system are ultimately what communicates and regulates your immune function. So when you have a problem with your spine, a condition called subluxation, it causes stress in your nervous system.
This stress down-regulates your immune system and makes you more susceptible to disease. So we’re going to talk about how you can start changing that.
2. Nutrition
Number two is nutrition. There are many things in nutrition right now that people eat that are going to weaken the immune system. Things like too much sugar, toxic food, stress food.
But there are also nutrients that were created to strengthen your immune system, to build up what’s called antioxidant defense, to protect you from foreign invaders.
3. Mindset
Number three is mindset. Is your mindset right now:
- stress
- anxiety
- fear
- stay at home
- listen to what the news tells me
Or is your mindset positive:
- I have faith in my body.
- I know what to do.
- I surround myself with like-minded people.
- I know how to take care of yourself in a natural drug-free way.
4. Exercise & Oxygen
Number four is exercise and oxygen. Some of the things that fight off infection are oxygen, sunlight, vitamin D. It’s important to get outside and move.
5. Reducing Toxins
And then number five is toxins. Toxins damage your gut, which we can see in our immune system. Toxins overwhelm your body’s systems so they can’t focus on fighting off infection and disease.
It’s these five essentials that will help you build a natural, healthy lifestyle so that you can have faith in your body’s ability to heal itself, and fight off infection and disease.
A Closer Look At How Stress Affects the Immune System
So let’s look number one at stress. We know without a doubt, through multiple research studies done over decades that stress down-regulates your immune system. The reason why is that when you’re under stress, it creates what’s called fight or flight or sympathetic overdrive.
Sympathetic overdrive is a situation when your body thinks it needs to fight off to survive or run away to survive. And in that time, what it does is:
- It temporarily turns off your immune system.
- It temporarily shuts off your digestive system.
- It temporarily switches you from the forward brain, which is connection and health and healing, to hind-brain, which is survival.
So basically your body’s going into a survival state. This is great in that situation temporarily. But if you do this all the time, this is a major source of stress.
If you’re under constant stress from:
- fear of losing your job,
- financial stress,
- relationship stress,
- fear from watching the news,
- fear that coronavirus is the biggest pandemic we’ve ever had and you need to wear a mask and you need to stay home and avoid everybody you know and care about.
This stress is making your immune system weaker and making you more susceptible to getting a disease, and all the things they’ve said you should do are actually incorrect!
Social distancing. Well, that’s a 50-year study to say that you should stay six feet away. The most recent studies from the journal of American medical association says you have to be at least 27 feet away!
They said we need to wear a mask, but don’t wear the good N95 high level medical mask. Wear a cloth mask. Well, what does the research show on a cloth mask? Well, it blocks 0% of the virus. ZERO!
The virus may be up to 500 times smaller than the fabric of your clock mask. And cloth masks may cause what’s called hypoxia, which is a lack of oxygen to your body. Masks also block great things like glutathione and superoxide dismutase production, which strengthen your immune system.
So what’s happening when you wear a cloth mask? You’re causing stress to your nervous system, which is making your immune system weaker and you’re more likely to get sick.
So these things don’t work and it’s causing stress and anxiety with everybody, which is making the immune system worse.
So what’s my best recommendation to reduce stress?
- Turn off the news.
- Don’t surround yourself with negative people.
- Start looking at the real research which says this is no worse than a standard cold or flu, that more people died from the flu last year than have died from coronavirus so far, that other countries who didn’t do any of this sheltering at home are actually healthy and reached herd immunity already and are getting back to regular life.
That’s the stuff that you want to surround yourself with. Positive, optimistic people who understand the same thing that you do, your body’s designed to heal itself.
Can Chiropractic Care Improve Immune Function?
What about chiropractic care? Many people think it’s about neck pain or back pain. There’re chiropractors that had to shut down during this pandemic because all their patients went away. Well, our office has been getting busier because people understand that the nervous system and the immune system are directly linked.
We read and understand studies that show that when you get adjusted, it can increase what’s called interleukin 2 which is an immune hormone that stimulates the immune response.
Studies that show that over time patients who are getting regular chiropractic care for five years or more actually saw a 200% increase in their immune function, that white blood cell count increased, that their immune cells actually doubled in their body over time because of how effectively the nervous system communicates with immune function.
There are so many great studies linking chiropractic care to immune function. And one of the coolest things is when you look back to 1918 in the flu pandemic, they found that people who are going to chiropractors were 98% less likely to die from the flu than those who were going to their medical doctor.
Now, is chiropractic, the solution for coronavirus? No.
Is chiropractic going to help you fight off infection disease? Not necessarily. But what the research suggests is that with regular chiropractic care, your nervous system is functioning at a higher level, which helps improve the function of your immune health and is more likely to help you stage a healthier, stronger defense.
This is why I haven’t missed a day for sickness in the last 10 years.
This Is why we see our patients and our families get sick far less often and recover quickly.
And it’s also why I have zero fear of getting sick and that being the thing that takes me down. And I want you to have the same faith.
So what can you do?
- Pay attention to your posture.
- Spend less time on your cell phone, your computer, your laptop.
- If you’re not seeing chiropractor already, find a corrective care chiropractor who does x-rays, who has a plan for you and who knows how to correct these conditions going on with your spine and make sure that these are regular things that you do as part of a healthy lifestyle.
Another thing that we know is that the spine, the nervous system is directly connected to your brain and your brain is what helps your body adapt to stress. So if you want to adapt better to stress and help your organs and systems create a strong defense and fight off an infectious disease, then you need to take care of your spine and your nervous system.
That’s the number one thing that we do here as a corrective chiropractic office is correct the spine and the nervous system so your body can better heal itself naturally.
What Is The Role of Gut Health and Immune Health?
The next thing we look at is the gut. Now we’ve done other videos on digestive health, on the importance of the gut. What you need to know is that your gut health makes up 70 to 80% of your immune function. So if you’re doing things to damage your gut like:
- high sugar diets,
- processed foods,
- foods with herbicides or pesticides,
- You’re taking medications on a regular basis. Something as simple as ibuprofen has been shown to cause leaky gut issues as have Advil and Tylenol.
- You’re getting regular vaccines, especially things like the flu shot. These contain heavy metal toxicities, MSG, glyphosate, and other things that are known to cause leaky gut issues.
You’re weakening your immune response, so you want to take care of your gut, which will have a direct effect on your immune system.
What about nutrition?
You want to get healthy, life-giving foods, colorful foods like berries and fruits, nutrient-dense foods like cruciferous vegetables, garlic, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts. We know that these things help detox your body and can build your immune system.
You want to get lots of healthy fats. You want to avoid simple carbohydrates like bread and pasta and grains. These things cause damage to your gut. These things are full of toxins and sugars that weaken your immune system. Just one teaspoon of sugar can slow down your immune response for up to four hours.
So avoid alcohol, candy, sweets, and sugar-laden foods. These things are all toxic to your body.
And the number one most important thing as we’ve talked about multiple times, cut the sugar! Get the sugar out of there. Pay attention to your nutrients in your diet.
How Physical Activity Improves Immune Function
Then you want to get your body moving again. We’re told to stay inside. You need to get outside, get in the sun, do activities, be around people! When you’re around people, that secretes what’s called oxytocin, which is a healthy hormone that we need to improve immune function and to be healthy long term.
So get around like-minded people. Get outside, get in the sun, get moving. Make sure you stay consistent with exercise.
When you put all these things together, this five essentials approach will strengthen your immune system, which will help your body build a strong, natural, healthy defense, and is the best way for you to get and stay well so that way you don’t have to fear sickness and disease, but you are empowered to live a healthy life naturally and help your body heal itself through the 5 Essentials of Max Living.
Have you had the opportunity to join us at one of our community education events yet? During the community education events, Dr. Tim sifts through all of the knowledge out there to bring you key information about how to get healthy and stay that way and shares answers to frequently asked questions on chiropractic care and healthy eating. Enjoy the clips of previous events here.