By: Hettie Basil Lighttower
What will you do to boost your immune system this “flu season”? Are you focused on working with your body’s own ability to heal and handle attacks on it? If so, let’s talk!
There are many ways to naturally and non-chemically boost your immune system. Several plants or weeds in your yard are good for providing necessary trace minerals and vitamins for your immune system to work properly. And I say this assuming you are not living in a big city with skyscrapers and only concrete for your backyard.
Drinking teas are very healthy. The extra fluid helps your kidneys to flush things out efficiently. And most of these outdoor medicinal plants and immune boosting weeds can make a nice tea! You have heard me talk about dandelions and nettles before. Well, those are key to being health-eee! You can actually buy both dandelion and nettle tea in most large health-food section of your favorite grocery store.
Foraging is ideal. Especially in your own yard and if you have not sprayed any herbicides and pesticides in your space. There are other beneficial greens out there hiding that provide great natural immune boosting support. You should familiarize yourself with lambs quarter, nettles, dandelion, chicory, purslane, mullein, burdock, yellow dock, mints, and lemon balm. And trees such as mulberry, butternut and walnut provide beneficial tea when steeping their leaves.
And let’s not forget about good ol’ elderberries! If you live in Florida or other tropical regions you have access to fresh citrus fruit. All of which are extremely supportive for the immune system. Lemons in particular if processed in a blender with a little bit of water is most excellent for detoxing your liver. And believe it or not if you are on top of keeping your liver clean, it will function properly! Imagine that!
The importance of that is that the liver is the filter of our body. If it is not clogged or heavy laden with other problems to deal with, it will actually keep us very healthy and our immune system will be at its peek.
Ways to not bog down your liver are to avoid smoking, avoid drinking, avoid processed foods, drink 20oz or a little more of water per day, drink more water than you do pop/soda/coffee/energy drinks, and of course many of us cannot avoid prescription drugs but if you are in a situation where you have a choice to take less or even eliminate certain pharmaceuticals…. Take the natural choice first and see how that works for you. These are all ways to support your liver.
And you have heard me talk about baking soda and some of its benefits. Here is another example of when baking soda is beneficial to our body. You can take a teaspoonful of it in a glass of water before bed and it will not only help with your alkalinity, but it will also work along side of your lymphatic system to take out heavy metals and toxins while you sleep and while your body is repairing and healing overnight. You may even sleep better.
And by the way, if you are wondering what processed foods are, most likely they are any foods that you have not grown or prepared yourself. If the label has big words on it that you cannot pronounce, then it most definitely is processed food. Yes, even the pepperoni on your pizza is a processed food.
Staying healthy and boosting your immune system is just about a full-time job. That is most likely why we don’t spend very much time doing it. We are more apt to take a quick pill and be on our way. And oh, yeh grab a quick burger and fries so our stomach will quit growling. It’s your life. Treat it the way you want. It will reward you, or it will eventually control you and you won’t have but a few choices left concerning it. Your doctor will make decisions for you. The Physical therapist and Occupational therapist will be the biggest events on your social calendar.
I’m sorry, do I sound grim? I don’t mean to. I have experienced many people young and old alike go down hill fast due to not paying attention to the basic needs of our bodies. Our bodies are made and designed to heal. And they will!!! I have seen that too! We just have to provide the proper tools and assist our liver in what ever way we can. If you liver is clean, your body will be in optimal health.
Send in your notions and comments to [email protected]. I will include them in the next available column as per their arrival relative to the publication deadline of Tuesday by 12 p.m. of the same week. If you wish to be anonymous let me know. Kindness is contagious~*