Traveling and Your Immune System:
How to Prevent Sickness
Traveling puts your body through quite a lot of stress, even if you don’t realize it. When you travel, you subject your body to changes in air pressure, climate and temperature, loss of sleep, and stress of staying on schedule or leaving the routine behind. Traveling makes you more likely to be around crowds, and your chances of catching viruses and bacteria increase. Recent studies suggest that traveling, especially flying, can impact your immune system, thus making it easier for you to get sick.
Knowledge is power: it’s essential to know why you’re so much more likely to get sick when you travel so you can take proactive measures with TravelSana® natural solutions to support your biological system and immune response.
Understanding The Immune System
By Dr. Deborah Fratantonio
As a fortress against pathogens, the immune system deploys various defense strategies every second of our existence. Sometimes under pressure, over-or under-performing, it can fail. Understanding the immune system will help you stay protected.
The Immune System
The immune response is the set of machineries the body has at its disposal to fight against the attack of an external agent. This may involve fighting against pathogens such as viruses, bacteria or fungi, but also other types of physical aggressions such as shocks, toxins, acids, or dusts.
-
General Functioning Of The Immune System
- Our immune system identifies and destroys harmful foreign organisms (pathogenic agents) in the body and neutralizes them.
- The immune system reacts to bacteria and viruses very complexly: it recognizes unique molecules (antigens of bacteria or viruses). It then produces antibodies (a type of protein) and special white blood cells (lymphocytes) that mark the antigens for destruction.
- These mechanisms regulated by numerous proteins and enzymes are complicated and are still studied worldwide. One of the objectives is to understand which compounds must be present and in what concentration to ensure excellent health and the best immune protection.
4 Tips To Boost Your Immune System
-
1. Stay Fit
- There is no need to be a great athlete to boost your immune system. Recent studies have shown that regular and moderate exercise significantly improves the efficiency of virus-killing cells, decreasing the chances of catching the flu or cold.
- We recommend fitness, jogging, cycling, body pump, and pilates to improve your immune system. While moderate exercise is good for enhancing immune protection, intense and prolonged efforts can make you more fragile and susceptible to contamination (especially during the hours following the effort).
-
2. Eat A Varied Diet
- Nutrition plays a key role in your health and immune system. Vitamins (A, C, D, B6, B9, B12), trace elements, and heavy metals (zinc and selenium), and certain fatty acids are the main compounds that improve immunity.
- Immunity-boosting foods include vegetables, fruits, cereals, nuts, and seeds. Eat dairy-based meals, eggs, red meats, and stews in moderation.
- Dietary supplements can also help you balance your body to improve your immune protection in a short period.
-
3. Sleep Well
- This advice may seem simple, but getting 6 to 8 hours of restorative sleep each night is essential for your body's balance and significantly improves your immune system's effectiveness.
- Sufficient rest increases cell division and better protection against viruses and bacteria.
-
4. Reduce Stress
- Excessive stress makes immune cells hyperactive. Research shows that intense and regular stress modifies the expression of genes present in blood cells. These modified cells have excessive immune reaction (that can lead to inflammation) or a decrease in the efficiency of the immune system.
- Try activities that lower your stress levels (e.g., meditation, reading, yoga, Tai chi, and body balance) to improve your immunity and protect you from possible viral and bacterial infections.