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Immunity
Here for every immune system
Immunity
Here for every immune system
Feel better inside and out
Here for every immune system with 3 for 2 across a range of immunity products
Supporting your immunity
Not sure how to manage your hay fever symptoms? Thankfully there are a few different techniques and products you can try. The NHS recommends the following:[1]
- Putting Vaseline around your nostrils to help trap pollen or use a barrier balm
- Wearing wraparound sunglasses to stop pollen getting into your eyes
- Showering and changing your clothes after you have been outside to wash pollen off
- Staying indoors whenever possible
- Keeping windows and doors shut as much as possible
- Vacuuming regularly and dusting with a damp cloth
- Buying a pollen filter for the air vents in your car and a vacuum cleaner with a hepa filter
- Trying to stay at home and avoiding contact with other people if you have a high temperature or you do not feel well enough to do your normal activities
Looking to understand what could be triggering your hay fever symptoms? Read here.
Want to try and avoid catching a cold? Some of the best things you can do include:[2]
- Regularly washing your hands with warm water and soap
- Avoid sharing household items like towels or cutlery with someone who has a cold
- Not touching your eyes, nose and mouth where possible
- Staying fit and healthy
Read our top tips on how you could support your immune system here.
It's really important to break that chain of transmission [if someone brings an illness into the house] so making sure you're disposing of tissues properly and coughing into the tissue.
And then making sure you're taking care of yourself as a caregiver because if you're poorly, you won't be able to take care of other people.
So, providing really nourishing food, making sure that everyone stays hydrated, and warming drinks like lemon, ginger, and honey that can be really soothing and can also help ease up that congestion.
Whether you're getting ahead of the back-to-school bugs, or you'd just like to know more about how your body fights disease, we have answered your most Googled questions on immunity here.
We know how hard it is to stop, it can sometimes feel like we have obligations at work or at home, but it's really important to rest because you're really tired and that's a sign that your body is using more energy to fight the infection - so if you're still rushing around you're directing your energy to other ways and you could be iller for longer.
Then you need to give your immune system time to get up and running to start fighting the infection.
In addition, you can do those little things that you know will make you feel better! Like making a nourishing and warming meal.
Discover how you can stay healthy as we unpack our top tips here.
Dr Jenna Macchiochi
Immunologist
Our expert answers
Discover Dr Jenna Macciochi's top tips for supporting your immunity
"The gut-immune axis is a way of discussing how the gut and the immune system interact. It might seem strange that your immune system is affected by your gut, but what happens in the gut doesn't just stay in the gut.
A lot of our immune cells are located in the gut, they're trained and educated by what's going on in our gut and then that has effects on other areas of our body. For example, our lungs and how well we deal with respiratory tract infections for example.
Right from kids up to your grandparents, we should all be trying to include a diversity of plants within our diet. That can be nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, or even adding more beans to meals - these are really important. We do have evidence now that this isn't just feeding and fertilizing the gut microbes but it's having a positive effect on our immune system and that's helping to keep us well."
To learn more about how you can diversify the amount of plants in your diet, explore here.
"It’s really fundamental and it's something we kind of overlook when it comes to our immune system. The science tells us that if you're habitually sleeping say less than 7 hours a night, it can increase your risk of catching a cold or flu or a viral infection by up to 30%, and if you're sleeping less than 5 hours a night, then you've got a 50% higher chance of getting sick if you encounter a virus.
Sleep helps our immune system with something called ‘immune memory’, so that's the ability of your immune system to remember infections you've seen before and respond to them faster."
Struggling to sleep? We've answered your most Googled sleep questions here.
Increased levels of stress hormones like cortisol can disrupt the balance of immune-regulating molecules, leading to inflammation.1 We know that stress-induced behaviors (like poor sleep and unhealthy diet) also affect our immunity!
Dr Jenna Maccicochi outlines her top stress-relieving tips below:
"I like to divide it up into the stress-resilient practices, so that's things like meditation where you need to be doing it regularly for it to build up that resilience to stress.
Then you have the more in-the-moment things that you can do, so if you are finding yourself in a stressful situation, actually just going for a walk, and instead of focussing on a screen like we so often do, going outside and looking at the horizon can help signal to your brain that you are calm.
And then the other in-the-moment tool that I really like is using your breath. We can take conscious control over our breath. If we extend the exhale that again sends signals to the brain that we are safe and we are calm."
Learn more about the impacts of stress here.
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