Foods/Health & Wellness

Top 10 Lifestyle Habits That Are Worth Cultivating

Eating the relevant foods will help you stay on top of your health at this critical time.

It was the French Artist, Antoine Bechamp, who deduced that a healthy lifestyle keeps illness away and that given what it needs the body has a way of balancing and automatically healing itself. This hypothesis is called The Terrain Theory.

Beauchamp believes that diseases like bacteria and viruses will only invade the body if the terrain is faulty. He said diseases invade a poorly acidic or poorly oxygenated terrain. The terrain is the body’s internal system, and diseases are the after-effect of a poor terrain, NOT the cause of the disease.

So How Do We Get A Healthy Terrain?

Antoine Bechamp said developing a healthy terrain is possible with a healthy lifestyle like nutritional meals, exercise, good hygiene, adequate fresh air, and hydrating the body are all important. If your body's terrain is healthy, pathogens that cause diseases cannot flourish.

Naturopathy is a study based on The Terrain Theory of a system of lifestyle that encourages and promotes the body’s own self-healing mechanisms. The body is able to heal itself given the right conditions and treatment.

The Importance Of Gut Health

We cannot speak about healthy terrain without mentioning gut health or gut flora. It is known that 70% of the immune system resides in the gut. The gut contains more than 100 trillion microbes, whose main function is to digest foods, separate what is useful (micronutrients) to nourish our body and eliminate what is not useful by way of waste from the body.

These beneficial microorganisms help our Immune System work efficiently as they protect us against pathogens. Any imbalance in our gastrointestinal system or with our gut microflora could lead to our immune system being compromised, including inflammation and autoimmune conditions. We may also become more susceptible to viruses and bacteria.

Top Ten Lifestyle Habits To Boost Your Immune System Naturally

1. Avoid smoking — Or quit if you are already smoking. Smoking is a toxin with a negative effect on the immune system.

2. Reduce Alcohol consumption — Too much alcohol deprives the body of absorbing good nutrients, which can also have a negative impact on your body.

3. Optimize your Vitamin D Status — Having an adequate vitamin D level tremendously enhances the function of our immune function, and it is particularly good to fight infection. Exposing the skin to about 5–10 minutes of sunlight daily is all you need.

4. Moderate Exercise Is Key — Most of us believe exercise has to be gym-based, this is not true. Keep an active life both in and outdoors.

5. Reduce Sugar Intake — Sugar is dealy, including alternative sweeteners. Sugar eats up the gut cells thereby compromising the effective working of the gut flora.

6. Ensure Good Quality Sleep — Research indicates that sleep enhances BOTH the function of the brain, as well as the immune system. Good quality sleep cannot be obtained by medication, so it is best to treat insomnia by any underlying factors. These can be stress, depression, or wrong foods.

7. Avoid Toxic Cosmetics and Cleaning Products — Most regular cleaning agents and cosmetics are highly toxic, and their use over time can give us toxic overload.

8. Eat A Healthy Diet — full of fresh organic vegetables and fruit, good quality proteins (legumes, beans, sardines, mackerel, eggs), and healthy fats (avocados, nuts, seeds). Eating healthily includes cooking your meal from scratch, and avoiding eating outside on a regular basis.

9. Keep Your Body Hydrated — simply by pure water, herbal teas, and infusion. Hydrating also flushes the body of toxins.

10. Oxygenate the cells — by regularly practising deep breathing exercises. This is a simple exercise of breathing in for about 3.-5 seconds, then breathing out. Do this at least twice a day, and you will keep the cells well-oxygenated.

The Takeaways

• Good hygiene practice remains the best means of avoiding infections.
• ‘There is no pharmaceutical product or other intervention you can undertake that will guarantee an infection-free life’’. Ray Anthony MD
• Eating a variety of foods including fruits and vegetables helps the body to get everything it needs from our diet.