Dr. Leonard Calabrese, an immune system expert at the Cleveland Clinic, outlines four key lifestyle habits for a healthy immune system. We present these habits in order of importance, along with simple explanations to help you strengthen your immunity in preparation for 'Disease X.'
Four pillars of immune system health and ‘Disease X’ preparedness
Pillar 1: Diet — Eating unprocessed, whole foods, nutritious carbohydrates, and choosing a Mediterranean-style diet like the Greeks and Italians. Instead of the standard American processed foods with lots of dyes, sugars, seed oils, chemicals, and little nutritional value. You should eat as closely to how your ancestors back on the farm ate. A Mediterranean-style diet — way of eating reduces inflammation in the body. A standard American diet increases inflammation, leading to an unhealthy immune system and disease.
Pillar 2: Physical activity — More doctors and researchers than ever are making the connection between exercising, especially outdoors in sunlight, and good health.
“Evidence suggests that exercise performed in outdoor, natural environments may (offer) additional health benefits, as compared with exercise in indoor environments,” according to a 2023 National Institute of Health (NIH) study.
Today, more people call outdoor exercise “green exercise.” In a future article, we’ll talk more about the health benefits of outdoor exercise, like adventure sports.
Improve your immune system by reducing inflammation
“We’re generating a lot of very useful information and data to show that being sedentary is dangerous to our immune system and that exercising moderate to vigorously can protect us from common respiratory pathogens” (bacteria). And “some very vigorous exercise studies coming out right now suggest that not only might it be good for our immune system, but it might actually help calm inflammation.”
— Dr. Leonard Calabrese, rheumatologist and immune system expert — Cleveland Clinic
In a future article, we’ll show how chronic inflammation leads to many common diseases like obesity, diabetes, and some cancers and what to do about it.
Subscribe to our newsletter to get this important information in your inbox each week.
Pillar 3: Good Sleep — Immunity experts recommend six to eight hours of sleep each night. They also recommend napping throughout the day when you are sick or have a chronic disease. Your body heals while it’s sleeping. But remember, too much rest and not enough exercise is unhealthy. Getting less than six and a half hours of sleep slows down your immune system and increases disease-causing inflammation.
Pillar 4: Psychosocial stress — Social factors and how you think and respond to the stress created by social factors like the economy or having a sick loved one can hurt your immune system.
“We now have molecular evidence that when we are internally happy with our lives this dynamic state of being satisfied, inflammation goes down and immune health goes up. When we’re socially isolated, when we have stresses that may be beyond our control, when we are depressed or anxious, when we don’t handle our stresses the way that we really want to, all of that is immunocompromising.”
— Dr. Leonard Calabrese, rheumatologist and immune system expert
Exercises like yoga, pilates, Tai Chi, and stretching that connect your breath to moving your body and turning off the constant worry in your head, especially when done outdoors, reduce psychosocial stress.
What is an immune system?
“Our immune system are all those defenses that reside within us, that defend us against danger. It’s not just infections because we’re infested with infections and we get along with most of our infectious brethren quite nicely. But from time to time, infections become dangerous.”
“Our immune system also protects us from other sorts of danger, from allergic responses and toxins and harmful effects of our own bodies that has to get rid of all of our dead cells. When our lives are going good, we’re well. It’s not just being free from disease, it’s being robust in mind, body and spirit. When we’re well, our immune system is really humming along and working at a very high rate of efficiency to protect us.”
— Dr. Leonard Calabrese, rheumatologist and immune system expert — Cleveland Clinic
The immune system has two methods of helping us — innate and adaptive.
The Innate and adaptive immune system explained
When you’re out fishing and put a hand down on a rock and get a rusty fish hook stuck in your finger, your immune system sends cells and proteins to fight the bacteria now in your finger. A healthy immune system can crush the bacteria. Or, in a few days, the immune system is overwhelmed, and your finger will become infected with more bacteria than your body can fight. Now, the adaptive immune response kicks in with its heavy-hitting specialized cells called T cells and B cells. Innate and adaptive immunity knows when bacteria are dangerous or not, identifies the danger, and determines the best way for the body to kill off the unhealthy bacteria. And where to find the bacteria in your body. However, your immune system must be healthy and working well to keep you healthy.
Aging, lifestyle choices, and other existing health conditions like diabetes, lupus, heart disease, obesity, fatty liver, kidney disease, other genetic (hereditary) factors, or taking immunosuppressive drugs — steroids like prednisone. This is not a comprehensive list.
Throughout this month, we’ll dive deeper into what you can do to improve on each of the four pillars that build a healthy immune system. And you’ll learn what you can do when your immune system needs an added boost to fight off ‘Disease X.’
As always, we’ll include step-by-step how to get started making the changes you’ve learned and a resource sheet you can print.
Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed on natural health news.
We want to hear from you. Take a three-question survey. Tell us about your biggest health challenge. We'll do the research and publish helpful information about the topics that interest you the most.
Download free resources to help make building natural immunity part of your daily routine.