It’s that time of year again… the weather gets colder and the Holiday madness begins. Working, planning, traveling, and constant running around means you need to be performing at your best.
Unfortunately, this is also the time of year that colds and other illnesses run rampant, affecting compromised immune systems and knocking you down for the count when you need to be at your best. While there is no sure fire way to combat sickness, the key to fighting them off is a strong immune system.
Keeping a strong immune system can be as easy as small changes and additions to your daily routine, and the difference can go a long way. Pairing these tips with preventative measures like washing your hands, staying socially distanced from people who are sick, and regularly disinfecting surfaces to keep harmful bacteria and viruses away from you will give you the best fighting chance to stay healthy and run your holiday season!
Stay Hydrated
This is key for your body functioning at its best at any time. Staying hydrated helps keep your body in its best working order by delivering the nutrients your cells need, aiding in digestion, and keeping your brain and organs functioning properly. Once you're sick, your body also loses fluids faster than normal, so it’s important to keep up on your water intake to prevent illness and to make your illness go away faster. It’s recommended that you drink 8 16oz glasses of water a day for optimal health and performance!
Taking your hydration up a notch with additives like hydration multipliers and electrolytes will also help keep your body hydrated faster and easier if you’re on the go!
Stay Active
The best way to keep your body moving is to, well, keep your body moving! Just like a healthy diet, exercise can contribute to general good health and therefore to a healthy immune system. It may contribute even more directly by promoting good circulation, which allows the cells and substances of the immune system to move through the body freely and do their job efficiently.
While exercising is important to prevent illness, it’s important to rest your body once you’re feeling under the weather- this can include low impact exercises or taking a few days off for your body to expend all of its energy healing!
Get Your Rest
Our immune systems are closely linked with our sleep schedules, believe it or not. When you need to heal from an illness, your immune response requires more sleep than normal, which is why we often find ourselves fatigued when we are not feeling well.
On the other hand, long term sleep deprivation or low quality sleep can cause low grade inflammation over time and affect our immune system’s ability to respond to bacterias and antigens in the body, causing us to fall ill easier; our immune systems are highest at night! Here are some tips to keep yourself sleeping at your best:
- Go to bed at the same time every night to keep your circadian rhythm steady!
- Get enough sleep each night. For adults this ranges from 7-9 hours!
- Make sure your sleep is uninterrupted. This allows us to fall into healing REM sleep where our immune system needs it the most.
Eat a Balanced Diet
Your diet is just as important during the cold and flu season as it is any other time of the year. Making sure your diet is balanced with the appropriate amount of vitamins and minerals is your first line of defense against illness. Here’s a guide to foods with immune boosting properties:
- Vitamin C: Kiwi fruit, red bell peppers, citrus fruits (oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit), pineapple, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, spinach
- Beta Carotene: Sweet potatoes, carrots, yellow/ orange squash, dark green leafy veggies
- Vitamin D: fortified cereals, plant based milks (naturally from sunlight)
- Vitamin E: nuts, seeds, spinach, broccoli
- Zinc: nuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, beans, lentils
Take Supplements
While following a balanced diet, it can still be hard to get the hard hitting immune boosting ingredients your body needs to fight off free radicals in the body, and sometimes your body just needs the extra boost to really fortify your immune system.
This is why we created Run Gum Immunity! We’ve spent years perfecting a formula that is fast absorbing (through sublingual and buccal absorption in the lining of the mouth) for our signature energy gum, and we’ve brought that same method to our new line of immune boosting gum chock full of the supplements you need that are proven to strengthen your immune system.
Here’s what you can find in Run Gum Immunity:
Elderberry: Elderberry is widely used for immune support because of its high volume of vitamins and minerals combined with powerful antioxidants to battle free radicals in the body.
B Vitamins: B Vitamins are essential for immune function, and many variations of B Vitamins aren’t found in foods, making this supplement one that is extremely easy and useful to keep up on your health.
Probiotics: The probiotic in Run Gum Immunity, Bacillus Subtilus, is clinically proven to directly support the growth and increase of your body’s first line of defense, the sglA antibodies.
By partnering these immune boosting agents with our original gum formula, we’re bringing our signature fast absorbing products into a new functionality. Not only do we still provide our signature energy boosting formula, but we understand how important it is to keep your immune system running its best when cold/ flu season hits to keep you going at your best!
Want our secret weapon to a stronger immune system for yourself?
SHOP IMMUNITY
Sources:
1: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/how-to-boost-your-immune-system
2: https://www.lancastergeneralhealth.org/health-hub-home/2020/march/how-to-boost-your-immune-system-with-nutrition#:~:text=Stay%20Hydrated%20to%20Help%20Avoid,extra%20boost%20of%20vitamin%20C