10 Easy Lifestyle Ideas for Healthier Living
Your body is a remarkable marvel, consisting of 37 trillion cells and over 100 trillion “hitchhikers” residing in your gut, working together through a complex network of chemical reactions. Among the seven vital systems in your body, the immune system plays a crucial role as your protector, defense force, and waste management team. It distinguishes between self and non-self, eliminating harmful invaders while preserving the beneficial components. To promote a robust immune system and a healthy life, incorporate these simple lifestyle ideas into your daily routine for healthier living.
Build a Healthier Circulatory System – Key Steps for Optimal Cardiovascular Health
The immune system can function at varying levels of efficiency, just like any of the other systems of the body. For instance, your circulatory system includes the heart pump and the 60,000 miles (96,500 km) of blood vessels that bring nutrients to your cells and remove waste products. Some people have a heart that is in great shape, with strong ejection fraction and low resting pulse. Some people, mostly through an unhealthy lifestyle, have a weak heart, possibly congestive heart failure, or hardened arteries, or high blood pressure. These people have a circulatory system. But not a healthy one.
Same goes for the immune system. Immune cells include antibodies, white blood cells, natural killer cells that are “born” in the bone marrow, then matured in the spleen or thymus glands, then travel through the lymphatic ducts, all regulated by the complement system to keep things effective and in balance.
Many people have a compromised immune system. If you have an infection, or cancer, or an autoimmune disease; then your immune system is not working properly.
Easy Lifestyle Ideas to Keep Your Thriving
Covid was a classic example of a virus attacking the old, the sick, and the infirmed. 90% of the mortality from covid in the US is among people over age 70 with a comorbidity such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, smoking, malnutrition. There are ways to keep yourself health. The primary vectors supporting the immune system include (for more information, see 12 KEYS TO A HEALTHIER CANCER PATIENT.
Aging
As we age, our immune system wears out. You can slow down the aging process through the lifestyle factors mentioned below, but you cannot stop it.
Genetics
We inherit “hard” coding in our genes that cannot be changed, such as skin and eye color. We also inherit “soft” DNA coding (aka epigenetics) that can be modified through lifestyle. Dr. Dean Ornish is a Harvard trained cardiologist who has demonstrated beyond argument that a lifestyle program of low fat plant based food coupled with meditation and exercise and a socialization process (loners die sooner) can reverse both heart disease and prostate cancer. We may look like some of our ancestors, but we do not have to die from the same conditions as our ancestors.
Secrets to a long and healthy life
Attitude and Mind
“Every cell in your body is eavesdropping on your thoughts.” Is an eloquent expression from mind/body expert Deepak Chopra, MD. Stress lowers the immune system quickly and measurably. Fear, worry, depression, anger, isolation, helplessness are all hallmarks of emotions that will lower immune functions. Positive attitude and mind thoughts are essential healthy lifestyle ideas.
Winter Illnesses
Epidemiologists refer to the late winter and early spring as the “killing season”, but the predominant morbidity (sickness) and mortality (death) occur when people have been inside, cooped up with others, no sun, little exercise, etc. Low vitamin D is a primary risk factor for low immune functions. Get some sun or take some vitamin D through nutrition supplements or fish oil.
Good Nutrition for a Healthy Lifestyle
You are what you eat. The typical American diet is fertilizer for cancer and infections. The average American consumes 150 pounds of sugar per year, which is killing us. Studies show that up to 140,000 Americans die every year from a deficiency of fruit, which is rich in vitamin C, potassium, bioflavonoids, carotenoids and other immune supportive nutrients. In our next newsletter we will focus on specific nutrients that can make your body nearly invincible from infections. Vitamin D, A, C, E, selenium, magnesium, potassium, iodine are among the nutrients we will discuss.
Exercise Promotes a Healthy Lifestyle
Many diseases are from “dis-use” of the body. Daily exercise brings a sense of calm and alertness that no drug can duplicate. Exercise detoxifies the body while fine tuning the many components of the immune system. Exercised animals with cancer had a 60% reduction in the size and metastases of implanted tumors. If exercise were a drug, it would be a blockbuster for the patent holder. But it’s free. Exercise should be incorporated into daily life and it should be high on the list of healthy lifestyle ideas.
Toxins
Of the 60,000 chemicals that Americans are regularly exposed to, few have been tested for safety. Food additives; pesticides, herbicides and fungicide chemicals on our food supply; heavy metals, air pollution, water pollution, and auto pollution from chemicals produced in an unhealthy gut. All of these substances can suppress immune functions.
Microbiome
Our gut is headquarters for about 70% of our immune system. Our diet directly affects the balance of power in our gut, whether microbes that help our health, or pathogens that disrupt our health. Eating a diet rich in whole plant food: fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, seaweed, mushrooms, and medicinal spices (like turmeric) can keep your gut supportive of optimal immune functioning.
Easy steps for a healthy microbiome
Energy Alignment
We are the body electric. A healthy cell generates -24 millivolts. A sick cell generates less voltage. A healthy lifestyle keeps the “battery” of our cells at peak performance.
Damage report. Wuhan China is a city of 11 million people and the original site of the covid outbreak. China claims 82,000 cases and 3200 deaths in a country of 1.4 billion people, which makes the infection rate so low that there are endless zeros to the right of the decimal point. If covid was as infectious, virulent, and lethal as originally estimated by the CDC, then Wuhan would be a giant graveyard.
Comorbidity
Less than 1% of the people who come in routine contact with covid will become infected. Nearly zero percent of people under 18 have become infected. If you do contract covid, the survival rate is 97%. As mentioned, 90% of the deaths from covid are from old AND sick people. You need a comorbidity, such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, hypertension, prescription drug use to push covid into a dangerous condition.
As of today, there have been 112,000 deaths from covid around the world. Out of 7.8 billion, that means 0.001% of the planet has died from this condition, which the mainstream media has hammered on for 3 months. And for that, the governments have effectively shut down the airline industry, travel and tourism (an $8 trillion/yr business), hotels, restaurants, conventions, schools, churches, and more.
Health, Finance & Politics
Our beat is health, not finance or politics. Yet the three subjects are inseparable, since health is of paramount importance to most people. Has the “cure” (lockdown, quarantine, isolation, distancing, shuttering of many businesses and schools) been worse than the covid itself? In the past 3 weeks, 17 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits, by far beating the previous record. Many financial experts warn of an impending recession or depression. The federal government has passed a $2.2 trillion relief bill, from digital magic money. Whether the money gets to the people who need it has yet to be seen. 40% of New Yorkers say they can’t pay their rent.
The US has 573,000 cases and 23,000 deaths in 3 months of covid. The CDC estimates that between 29,000 and 59,000 will die from the flu this season. There are 49,000 deaths and 1.3 million hospitalizations per year from pneumonia. California has 22,000 covid cases out of 39.5 million people with 672 deaths, meaning 0.001% of the population death rate.
Public Gathering Bans
All state, county, and city parks and facilities have been closed. Surfers are fined $1000 or led away in handcuffs for surfing in the ocean. A family tried to have a sunset party at the beach and was fined $1000. A father was playing baseball with his son in a nearby ball park and was led away by police in handcuffs. Is this the level of government involvement envisioned by the founding fathers? Have these draconian measures been necessary or effective? Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University has stated: “…bans on public gatherings have not proven effective at limiting viruses.”
Dr. Fauci and his team at the Center for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health admit that their “projections” were dramatically inaccurate, changing total US death estimates from their original 240,000 to now 60,000. If a chief financial officer of a multi-billion dollar company (the NIH) missed his/her projections by 75%, they would be looking for work elsewhere.
Economic Recovery
Was all of this interruption in the world’s greatest economy worthwhile? In 1918 the Spanish flu pandemia killed 50 million people worldwide and 675,000 Americans. Other than routine health measures, America did not change its business flow during that difficult time. America will emerge from the covid with 99% of us unscathed. We can only hope that the social and financial impact of these severe government measures can be overcome.
Meanwhile, you can keep yourself safe by following routine public health measures and observing my recommendations of the above vectors that dictate the health of your immune system, and ultimately your health and lifespan.
Part 1 – Get Healthy Staying Healthy
Part 2 – Boost the Immune System
Part 3 – Healthy Lifestyle
Part 4 – Fight Infections Naturally
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