How To Keep Your Immune System Healthy While In Quarantine
The whole world is suffering from the Coronavirus. It mainly affects your Immune System. I explain How To Keep Your Immune System Healthy While In Quarantine.
With the novel coronavirus in full swing, everyone is doing their part and staying at home. It’s a great way to help against the spread of the disease, but at the same time it disrupts our lives in huge ways.
While these preventive measures are crucial in our fight against covid-19, it can be a challenge staying healthy because a lot of the things we used to take for granted are now barred from us.
Something as simple as getting out for a walk around town is not allowed in most places where lockdowns and quarantines are in place, and it is a risk to do so as you can never tell who is a carrier for the virus.
Still, there are things we need to do to ensure we stay healthy. Cabin fever is a real thing and a lot of people are going to feel the stress on their systems as they stay cooped up in their homes.
Here are some things to keep in mind while in quarantine to keep your health up.
How To Keep Your Immune System Healthy While In Quarantine
Table of Contents
1. Find ways to Exercise Indoors
There is a whole body of scientific work affirming how exercise strengthens our immune system. Exercise enhances vaccine response, ups T-Cell count improves antibody and white blood cell function in rooting out foreign microbes, and can help dislodge bacteria from the body’s airways and from the lungs.
Most people though get their exercise outdoors or in external facilities like a gym. If you aren’t one of those people who have a gym in their home, it’s best to find some way to do exercise within your home.
Popular alternatives are yoga, dancing, playing with children, doing domestic chores, and walking around the house. If you have a game system with VR or an old system like the Nintendo Wii which uses physical movements for input, those are also great options while in quarantine.
2. Cook Nutritious Meals
While in quarantine it can be tempting to just subsist on canned goods and other non-perishable food items you might have stocked up in the pantry. However, one of the most important components of keeping your immune system healthy is having proper nutrition.
Make sure you aren’t just eating hot dogs, corned beef, canned tuna and other preserved or ready-to-eat foods out of the freezer. While filling, these foods may not have all the nutrients your body needs. It is well-documented how malnutrition weakens the immune system.
If that’s the bulk of what’s in your emergency stores for the quarantine, take the time to go to the supermarket or order groceries online to get fresh produce, especially fruits and vegetables. Citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables, bell peppers, and garlic, are great choices and are known to strengthen the immune system.
A good mix of these foods will ensure you are getting all the vitamins and micronutrients you need. Deficiencies in these nutrients are what weaken the immune system and make you vulnerable to illness. Eating right is the best kind of preventive medicine you can take.
3. Have a Good Night’s Rest
It may be tempting to binge out on Netflix while in quarantine, but make sure you aren’t sacrificing sleep for it. The effect sleep has on the immune system has been widely studied. It’s not just important to get a good amount of sleep (about 8 hours), it’s important to have nocturnal sleep, and to have it at a regular time.
Sleeping at night allows the body to release prolactin and GH (growth hormone) which repair the body and keep it in running order. It also allows T cells to create the proper cytokine balance which creates stronger immunological responses.
In addition, sleeping regularly syncs with the circadian rhythm, which promotes the action of NK (natural killer) cells and CTLs (cytotoxic T cells) which root out viruses.
This is also why exercise is important; it helps burn your energy so you are ready for a good night’s sleep, instead of feeling restless in bed unable to sleep.
4. Keep the Stress Down
Finally, it’s important to just relax. It may seem like such a small thing, but stress has a steady and negative effect on your immune system. The connection between stress and the immune system was discovered in the ’80s when scientists noticed that students taking their finals had much lower NK cell and CTL counts in their bodies during the exam period.
When stress takes over your body for a prolonged time (from a few days to a period of years), your immune system simply shuts down and is incapable of fighting off infections.
Long-term or chronic stress is one of the biggest threats to your immune system, and being kept in quarantine for long periods of time, being afraid of every single bit of news about the SARS-CoV-2 virus, can have huge negative effects on your health, even if you never get in contact with the virus itself.
It’s important to take a deep breath, take the time to pray or meditate to relax your body, and find ways to entertain yourself while in quarantine. Humans are not made to sit still and be isolated in a building for prolonged periods of time, but that is exactly what we face with the quarantines and lockdowns imposed by our governments.
Conclusion
In this crucial time it’s important you stay relaxed, find ways to occupy yourself, get enough exercise and sleep, and eat healthy meals. If you can do that, you are sure to keep your immune system strong and healthy, so you can fight off infection when it finally does find its way to you, your home or your family.
Stay Home And Stay Safe
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