Many peo­ple are look­ing out for a mir­a­cle drug or cure to help us in this COVID19 pan­dem­ic, there are oth­ers who are hop­ing for a suc­cess­ful vac­cine. How­ev­er, a few seem to re­alise that our body has a nat­ur­al de­fense sys­tem, which can help to give us pro­tec­tion from many ail­ments and help us to over­come them. This de­fense is the im­mune sys­tem which is a group of or­gans, tis­sues and cells which pro­tect the body against virus­es (to in­clude coro­n­avirus­es), bac­te­ria and oth­er par­a­sites. White blood cells are an es­sen­tial com­po­nent of the im­mune sys­tem; they fight against in­fec­tious agents and de­stroy them (to in­clude can­cer­ous cells) and they cre­ate an­ti­bod­ies af­ter ex­po­sure to virus­es or bac­te­ria.

Op­ti­mal func­tion of our im­mune sys­tem is re­al­ly im­por­tant all the time, and not just now dur­ing the COVID19 pan­dem­ic. Many per­sons may or may not have heard about the eight laws of health or the NEW­START prin­ci­ples and how they are im­por­tant for our over­all health, but these prin­ci­ples can al­so help our im­mune sys­tem to func­tion op­ti­mal­ly. These are nu­tri­tion, ex­er­cise, wa­ter, sun­light, tem­per­ance, air, rest and trust in God (NEW­START).

Nu­tri­tion There are foods and bev­er­ages that im­pair the func­tion of the im­mune sys­tem, es­pe­cial­ly those in high sug­ars, such as processed foods (re­fined car­bo­hy­drates). Foods and di­ets high in fats nor­mal­ly con­tribute to in­creased ox­ida­tive stress in the body, and when some is in­fect­ed by virus­es or pathogens, this al­so caus­es in­creased ox­ida­tive stress, which can af­fect the func­tion of healthy cells in the body.

A good whole­some, healthy and bal­anced di­et sup­ports a healthy im­mune sys­tem. This should in­clude a va­ri­ety of fresh fruits, veg­eta­bles and food prod­ucts, which we can ac­cess in many places across the coun­try. Try new healthy plant-based dish­es, while you are home now.

Ex­er­cise- Ex­er­cise of a mod­er­ate in­ten­si­ty caus­es more of the white blood cells and oth­er im­mune fac­tors to en­ter the blood­stream, so when we ex­er­cise reg­u­lar­ly there is in­creased sur­veil­lance of white blood cells through­out our bod­ies. Mod­er­ate in­ten­si­ty means that while we are ex­er­cis­ing, we are breath­ing faster, how­ev­er we should still be able to have a con­ver­sa­tion. High­er in­ten­si­ty ex­er­cis­es such as marathon run­ning can put high stress on the cells and cause the im­mune sys­tem to not func­tion prop­er­ly, so mod­er­ate in­ten­si­ty ac­tiv­i­ty is the best for now.

Stress and anx­i­ety is not un­com­mon now and they can al­so im­pair im­mune func­tion. How­ev­er, ex­er­cise can as­sist in re­duc­ing stress and anx­i­ety. In a pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle I dis­cussed a va­ri­ety of ex­er­cis­es and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties we can do at home, aim for at least an ac­cu­mu­lat­ed 30 min­utes of mod­er­ate in­ten­si­ty ac­tiv­i­ty 5 days for the week.

Wa­ter There is a treat­ment modal­i­ty called “ther­mal hy­drother­a­py”, where con­trast­ing dif­fer­ent tem­per­a­tures of wa­ter (hot and cold) on the skin can lead to in­creased im­mune re­sponse and white blood cell ac­tiv­i­ty. An ex­am­ple of this we can do at home is af­ter tak­ing a hot show­er (or af­ter ex­er­cis­ing), fin­ish your bath with 30-90 sec­onds of cold show­er. This might sound crazy to many, but re­search­es have shown where per­sons who have done this have im­proved im­mune re­sponse and less sick­ness ab­sence days from work.

Let us con­sid­er Fin­land, which has far less cas­es of COVID19 and far more re­cov­er­ies by num­bers com­pared to sur­round­ing coun­tries Nor­way, Swe­den and oth­er larg­er Eu­ro­pean coun­tries. Fin­land, which is a cold coun­try, has a pop­u­la­tion of over 5.3 mil­lion per­sons and has over two mil­lion saunas (hot steamy en­vi­ron­ment) which are used reg­u­lar­ly. The con­trast­ing of their bod­ies be­tween hot and cold tem­per­a­tures have been pos­tu­lat­ed has pos­si­ble meth­ods of op­ti­miz­ing their im­mune re­sponse.

Sun­light Sun­light is al­so es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant to our im­mune health. Sun­light be­gins the con­ver­sion of cho­les­terols in the skin in­to vi­t­a­min D. This vi­t­a­min has been proven to im­prove the re­sponse of the im­mune sys­tem, and low­ers the risk of in­fec­tions, in­clud­ing in­fluen­za. Med­ical his­to­ry, in the past when Sana­to­ri­ums were the des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas for treat­ing pa­tients with tu­ber­cu­lo­sis (TB), be­fore an­tibi­otics were used in the treat­ment regime, doc­tors in­struct­ed to have the pa­tients in sun­light.

They be­lieved at that time that the sun­light was killing the bac­te­ria, how­ev­er sci­ence lat­er re­vealed that sun­light ex­po­sure in­creased vi­t­a­min D pro­duc­tion which helped to op­ti­mize the im­mune sys­tem func­tion. Please aim to get at least 20-30 mins of sun­light, two to three times for the week.

Tem­per­ance Tem­per­ance is ba­si­cal­ly us­ing good things in mod­er­a­tion and avoid­ing bad things. Two (2) things we should avoid if we wish to pro­tect our im­mune health are smok­ing and drink­ing al­co­hol. Smok­ers have com­pro­mised lung health, and hence they are at in­creased risk of in­fec­tions, for ex­am­ple in­fluen­za, pneu­mo­nia and COVID19. Smok­ing al­so caus­es low­er lev­els of an­tiox­i­dants, such as vi­t­a­min C. Al­co­hol drink­ing has been as­so­ci­at­ed with in­creased sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to in­fluen­za and acute res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress syn­drome. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, al­co­hol im­pairs the func­tions of the im­mune sys­tem in the gut and lungs.

Air Fresh air is re­al­ly im­por­tant to health. While we are iso­lat­ed at home, our win­dows should be opened, and we should go out in yards or by our bal­conies and get some fresh air. Pol­lut­ed air has been as­so­ci­at­ed with greater risk of lung in­fec­tions and is a cause of ex­ac­er­ba­tion of lung con­di­tions such as asth­ma and COPD. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it is known that virus­es such as COVID19 will dis­perse quick­ly in an open air, small en­closed ar­eas will in­crease chances of con­tract­ing the virus.

Rest The ap­peal is to every­one, that while we have ex­tra hours at home please catch up on some need­ed sleep and get in­to the habit of at­tain­ing eight (8) hours of sleep each night. This is im­por­tant for our im­mune sys­tem be­cause chron­ic sleep loss is as­so­ci­at­ed with im­mun­od­e­fi­cien­cy, in­creased sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to in­fec­tions (for ex­am­ple, the com­mon cold) and even re­duced im­mune re­sponse to vac­cines. These are in­di­ca­tions that the im­mune needs our body to get enough rest so that it can func­tion op­ti­mal­ly.

Trust (in GOD) There are re­search­es which have shown where faith and prayers have im­proved per­sons’ health in var­i­ous re­li­gions. Dr. Harold Koenig, renowned Psy­chi­a­trist, states that re­li­gious per­sons tend to have bet­ter im­mune sys­tems, less like­ly to be hos­pi­tal­ized and if they are, they tend to have soon­er dis­charges. Trust in God al­so helps with a lot of fear and anx­i­ety many peo­ple are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing with the pan­dem­ic and the ef­fects of it, now more than ever in­di­vid­u­al­ly and as a na­tion we need to pray and have faith.

Please re­mem­ber wear­ing a mask in pub­lic, wash­ing or san­i­tiz­ing hands and clean­ing com­mon­ly used sur­faces reg­u­lar­ly, good hy­giene and so­cial dis­tanc­ing are still im­por­tant meth­ods of pre­vent­ing the spread of coro­n­avirus­es, and should al­ways be prac­ticed. The eight (8) laws of health or N.E.W. S.T.A.R.T. will help to im­prove our health and op­ti­mize our im­mune sys­tem’s func­tion, and can be in­cor­po­rat­ed eas­i­ly in­to our lives, an ex­am­ple is giv­en:

You go to bed ear­ly and get around 8 hours of sleep (rest), you get up the next morn­ing and prayed for good health and strength (trust in God), then went for 30 min­utes of brisk walk­ing (ex­er­cise) in open fresh air (air) with your skin ap­pro­pri­ate­ly ex­posed to the sun­shine (sun­light). On ar­riv­ing home you drank some wa­ter, and have the show­er end­ing with 30-90 sec­onds of cold show­er (wa­ter), then have a fruit and bal­anced break­fast with more veg­eta­bles and less sug­ars and fats (nu­tri­tion) and the pace your­self with ac­tiv­i­ties and mon­i­tor your di­et through­out the day and avoid smok­ing and drink­ing (tem­per­ance).

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Adri­an Palmer, PT, BScPT, PAPHS Clin­ic Di­rec­tor - Arukah Physio + Ltd. Reg­is­tered Phys­i­cal Ther­a­pist (RPT) AC­SM/NPAS Phys­i­cal Ac­tiv­i­ty in Pub­lic Health Spe­cial­ist Arukah.physio.plus@gmail.com Tel/What­sApp: 868-314-3639