Page 65 - Tropic Magazine Issue 27

TROPIC • HEALTH

Improving your

immunity 2. Don’t smoke

If you currently smoke, quit. If you used
ADVICE to smoke, don’t start again. If you’ve never
Tropic columnist Dr Alex smoked, don’t start. Contact Quitline
for help to quit smoking, or discuss an
Bernhardi has some useful individualised approach with your GP.
points on boosting your 6. Manage your stress
immunity and embracing the 3. Optimize Type 2 diabetes Stress, especially chronic stress, has a
Poorly controlled blood sugar levels make
new year. you susceptible for contracting infectious direct negative impact on your immune
system. Unfortunately, stress factors
diseases in general and more likely to tend to go up rather than down during
While it would have been nice to leave suffer serious complications. Therefore, challenging times, but we can learn how
COVID-19 in the old year, the reality is it it’s not only important to keep in close to deal with stress in a more mindful way.
will continue to claim space in our lives. contact with your GP to monitor and Breathing exercises, yoga, meditation,
Daily updates on case numbers, border adjust your treatment, but you could playing an instrument, singing (even if it
restrictions and vaccines still dominate use this opportunity to start working on sounds off tune), knitting or painting –
the media. This can make us feel like the underlying factors leading to your the list is endless and will be different for
we’re sitting in the backseat, waiting diabetes. Your diet is one of the most everybody.
for scientists to engineer solutions and important factors here and you can
politicians to organise logistics. achieve huge improvements by adjusting 7. Eat healthy
This leaves many with uneasy feelings of your diet. Eat a healthy diet centred around
helplessness, but this doesn’t need to be unprocessed and mainly plant-based
the case. Let’s take a look at the things 4. Sleep well foods. Plant food not only provides
everybody can do to improve their own Pay attention to 7-8 hours of good quality your gut with enough fibre to keep the
immunity – apart from obeying our sleep. Restful sleep is one of the most good bacteria happy and healthy, plants
effective public health measures. The underestimated tools in the body’s also deliver you with an abundance of
following points are prompts you might toolbox and is important to reset not only antioxidants and vitamins that your
like to raise with your GP or seek further your immunity, but also your metabolic immune system needs to work properly.
medical advice on. and cardiovascular system. You might want to check with your GP if
your levels of Vit B12 and Vit D are up to
1. Aim for a healthy body weight 5. Keep on moving scratch, and if not, how to balance
People who are obese or severely obese It doesn’t matter what sport you do, as them out.
(anybody with a BMI >30) are at higher long as you do something. A variety of
risk of severe illness of COVID-19. different activities is always good as long One factor you won’t be able to change is
Obviously, if you carry a lot of extra as they’re fun and affordable. Little things your age. Regardless how hard you try,
kilos, achieving a normal body weight go a long way here – keep it moderate but an advanced age is clearly a risk factor for
will take some time, but now might just aim for regularity. COVID-19. Maybe we can see COVID-19
be the perfect time to get started on it. Many studies are pointing out the as a huge wake-up call to change our
Optimising body weight will include beneficial effects of exercise on your direction towards a healthier future?
altering your general eating pattern, immune system (amongst other health
which needs to be sustainable and healthy benefits) in particular during times of Warm regards,
in the short and long term. lock down. Dr Alex

65 • tropicnow.com.au