Ah-choo!  You probably know that the cold and flu season is now in effect.That is why The Center For Natural and Integrative Medicine thinks it is especially appropriate to present a unique seminar on how to “Boost Your Immune System,”November 13, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.

This Center for Natural and Integrative Medicine program will prepare you to upgrade your immunity against the viruses and infections that plague us every fall and winter. Do you know there are natural ways to improve your immunity? The program will focus on amazing and natural ways to empower your body to combat the flu season.

1. Learn: How To Help Your Immune System With Good Nutrition

2. Discover: How Your Life Style Affects Your Immunity

3. Study: How To Utilize the Restorative Power of Good Sleep Habits

4. Investigate: How Herbs and Natural Supplements Might Help You Empower Your Immune System

F.Y.I.: What Is the Immune System?

In simple terms, the immune system is your personal network of cells and organs, and they cooperate to defend you against disease. According to experts, basically, a strong immune system can “block foreign proteins from getting into your body.” You also have a powerful search and destroy task force, with which “your body deploys a host of additional immune cell forces that are designed to hunt down the unwanted intruders and ultimately work to destroy them.”

Fascinating Facts About Your Immune System

1. Your body makes antibodies that work to destroy abnormal or foreign cells. Antibodies are actually proteins. Think of them as your first line of defense at the sub-molecular level of your blood chemistry. “Not only do these antibodies help fend off common illnesses like the flu or a cold, but they also play a role in protecting you against catastrophic diseases like cancer or heart disease.”

2. Your second line of defense is known as the “cell-mediated immune system.” At this level the immune system activates helper or killer cells that are coded to help our bodies remember past defenses against disease.

“When the body identifies a pathogen (invader) again, it immediately calls upon the memory of the previous infection and sets out to destroy the invader before the disease develops.”

Now you know how vaccines and immunizations work! This “memory” mechanism is “what lies behind vaccines or immunizations for illnesses such as measles,chicken pox, or hepatitis.” It is true that when you get a flu shot, you are being dosed with a harmless but definite amount of the pathogen “so that your immune cells can react, learn, and remember how to produce antibodies to fight the pathogen.”

3. The CDC recommends the flu immunization shot everyone over 6 months old, in order to avoid the flu or at least minimize its attack on the immune system. It is important to note that this shot is no protection against ALL the viruses of cold and flu season.

A Primer of Easy Tips to Help You Avoid Colds and Flu:

A.  Soap Up!
Develop the habit of frequent and proper hand washing.
Scenario:  An infected person sneezes into their hand, then borrows your phone. Did you know the germs can live on that phone for hours? So, wash up! “If you can’t get to a sink, rub an alcohol-based hand sanitizer onto your hands.” You can also wipe down surfaces with

disinfectant as often as possible.

B.  Get A Tissue!
Please Don’t Sneeze into your Hands. Remember germs and viruses are like velcro. “They can “cling to your bare hands, muffling coughs and sneezes with your hands often results in passing along your germs to others.”

C. Watch that “Face-time!”
By this comment, we mean for you to avoid touching your face. Cold and flu viruses use the eyes, nose, or mouth to enter your body.

D.  Breathe and Sweat!
This means for you to embrace aerobic exercise. “Aerobic exercise speeds up the heart to pump larger quantities of blood; makes you breathe faster to help transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood; and makes you sweat once your body heats up.” These activities increase your natural virus-killing cells.

E. Yum!  Good and Good for You:  Eat Those Phytochemicals!

These are the natural chemicals in plants, the super rich vitamins in dark green, red and yellow vegetables and fruits.

Join us for our next blog when we will uncover  more about your amazing immune system, and discover more tips about empowering  it against flu and cold season.