NAWHO

Staying healthy is harder than you think and – in addition to raising a family and working 40 hours a week – it can seem utterly daunting. It seems like someone in the office is always coming down with something and that can spread real fast in the work environment. Not to mention that it’s just so easy to get worn down from time to time with everything going on.

Lucky for you, there are five things you can do that will help promote a healthier immune system:

Get some sleep. The human body needs a minimum of 6 hours of sleep, but you should always try to make sure you get a full 8 hours whenever possible. Sleep reinvigorates the body’s natural immune system and is the only chance your body has to really shut down and repair itself. If you go too long without sleep, you could not only suffer mental but physical consequences, as well.

Drink plenty of liquids. The recommended daily requirement of water is somewhere around 64 oz. That could be 8 or 9 glasses spread out of over the course of the day and evening. Drinking plenty of water helps flush out your system of any nasty germs or toxins. It’s also a great way to filter out your immune system.

Exercise regularly. Last month, we published an article on this site about the importance of exercise as a way of life – it’s also crucial to your immune system. Continuous exercise gets the blood pumping, circulating all the bad stuff and switching it for the new. Keeping an active lifestyle helps promote an active immune system.

Eat healthy. It sounds like a cliché, but there is an element of truth in all of it and the fact of the matter is that if you want to stay healthy, you have to eat healthy. Getting the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables each day gives the body plenty of vitamins and nutrients necessary to fight against germs and infection.

Wash your hands. You don’t need to become obsessive about it, but you should wash your hands whenever you have interacted with something that you know has been touched by countless others. The gas pump at a station, a restroom door knob, the railing on a staircase – if thousands of people have touched it, you had better wash your hands before touching your mouth, eyes or any other crucial part of your body.

Your immune system is very important, but it can only do so much. You have to meet it halfway when it comes to how you conduct yourself in public. That means getting enough sleep, washing your hands and eating right to promote a healthier, stronger immune system.

There are many excuses a person might come up with for not wanting to make the switch from mass-produced to organic. Some people cite the expenses as the major reason why they don’t shop organic. Other people say that it’s because they trust the industries over the organic food stores.

While these might be valid reasons, you owe it to yourself and your continued health to weigh both sides of the argument. There are many reasons why you should switch to organic foods and we are going to talk about a few of them today.

• It’s healthier. Organic foods are typically free from all the pesticides (when it comes to vegetables) and growth hormones (when it comes to the meats). That means that none of those nasty toxins or additives are being passed onto you as the consumer.
• Organic markets support local farms. Every year, small, family-run farms are put out of business by the major industries. These industries produce more, faster, but at the cost of both cheapening the produce and passing on harmful additives to the consumer.
• Organic food is more humane. When you bite into a hamburger you bought at a fast food chain, do you ever stop to think about where it came from. Sure, it came from a cow, but how was the cow treated? Did it suffer in the creation of that hamburger you are enjoying? Major industries have a nasty reputation for brutally and needlessly mistreating the livestock under their care – something you won’t be hearing about in the organic food market any time soon.

And those are just a few of the many reasons why you should switch to organic. Yes, in some cases, organic food might be more expensive than the regular, mass-produced stuff you can buy anywhere but, as we’ve said before, it’s also healthier. Another way of looking at it is simply this: pay now for healthy organic food or pay later at the doctor’s office.