Lorelei Wakefield, DC
Written by Dr. Lorelei Wakefield
As a Doctor of Chiropractic, health and wellness is my main focus. We have all been given the right components to keep ourselves healthy. Our immune system is our defense to keep pathogens out. Health comes from the inside out, so what you do to keep your immune system healthy is important. It isn’t up to anyone else but you to take care of your immune system to keep your good health. You don’t have to become a victim to poor health or give in to Pathogens, you can become a champion and win the battle against them.
Here are proven ways to improve immune health as well as overall health:
Chiropractic Adjustments: These have been proven to help strengthen the immune system, by improving nervous system function to keep the whole body functioning at its optimum.
Eat Clean: Eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meats and dairy, try to eat organic when you can. Stay away from sugars and processed foods both cause inflammation in the body that leads to disease. Add more garlic, ginger, turmeric, and pepper to food.
Drink Water: Dehydration weakens the immune system. Everyone needs to drink half their body weight in ounces of water per day! So if you weigh 100 pounds you need 50 ounces/day. On days you drink soda, coffee or alcohol you need to increase your water intake to flush the chemicals out from these products. So if you have a 12 ounce beverage increase water intake by that same amount.
Exercise Regularly: Just 10-30 minutes per day of walking, yoga, stretching, dancing, or whatever you can do to get your heart rate up to sweat. This helps release toxins and flushes out pathogens.
Supplements: Research has shown for many years that increased antioxidants such as vitamin C help support and boost our immune systems. Children need 200mg/day for maintenance dose and 800-1000mg when starting an illness. Adults need 1000mg/day maintenance dose and 3,000-4,000 mg/ day when starting cold or flu. Vitamin C reduces the duration of the common cold by 8% in adults and 14-18% in adults, along with providing a number of other wellness benefits.
Zinc: Within 24 hours of the onset of common cold symptoms, take daily for 1-2 weeks. It can reduce the length of cold symptoms by 33% and can reduce the incidence of common colds.
Vitamin D3: This vitamin is essential to your overall wellness. Adults need 1,000- 5,000 IU’s daily.
Probiotics: Healthy gut flora is the first line of defense against pathogens. Adults need 15 billion cultures daily and 5 billion cultures for kids.
Relax and Rest: De stress! The less stress on your body, the more strength it has to fight off any disease.
Detox your environment: Not only is there a lot of toxins in our food, there are a lot in our environment, so going through all cleaning, hair care, etc. products you use and evaluate which products are toxic and what you can replace them with will help your health.
Good luck on your journey to good immune health. We can all be Champions!
Dr. Lorelei Wakefield is a Chiropractor at NorthLakes Community Clinic – Park Falls.
