Five Steps to Strengthen Your Child’s Immune System

This question is perhaps a permanent resident in every parent’s mind these days. With the current pandemic and increasing global health issues it is natural to worry. Issues like pollution and harmful pesticides in food are increasing per day and we can witness their effects in everyday life. Every sneeze, every cough, could be a harbinger of health issues. Children get exposed to a wide array of germs, infectious agents, and pathogens. Unfortunately, you can not control everything that your child comes into contact with. And as they say, precaution is better than cure, so it is better to improve immune system. Numerous studies have proven that Indian Children often lack several multivitamins in their diet. Even more studies have found correlations between poor nutrition and weak immunity. Despite your best efforts, due to poor quality of food it is almost impossible to provide children a balanced and nutritious diet these days. So how can you improve nutrition and therefore the immunity of your child? 1. Better Sleeping Habits: Sleep plays a more significant role in your health than most people realize. Getting more sleep will not help you prevent sickness but not getting enough sleep certainly impacts your immunity. Sleep is one of the most essential processes in humans and it helps carry out a lot of functions which are essential to maintaining a healthy immune system. Not maintaining sleep hygiene can also cause hormone imbalances and stress induced hair fall. Making sure you stick to a schedule and using natural supplements like Melatonin helps with sleep disorders. 2. Active Lifestyle: Studies suggest that a daily 20-minute workout can help you boost your immune response by 35%. Exercise helps you build up important white blood cells and immune hormones which help fight off pathogens. Cardio workout also trains your body to be prepared for any injury or illness and helps prevent severe symptoms. Sedentary lifestyle has been linked to many illnesses which have correlation to immune system disorders in children and adults. 3. Precaution against germs: Washing your hands at least 3-4 times a day and making sure you do not get into contact with frequently touched surfaces in public can prevent up to 72% of seasonal illnesses. Maintaining hygiene and making sure any sick people wear masks around you can further reduce your chances of infection. Children often ignore health policies and restrictions so it is our duty to inform and educate them in how to be safe and healthy. 4. Avoiding Antibiotics: As per World Health Organizatio Antibiotics resistance is the biggest threatto global health. We live in a society where we are prescribed antibiotics for almost every illness regardless of cause. Antibiotics do not help with common cold, flu, and other viral illnesses. Resistance to these drugs can cause even worse global pandemics. Indian Doctors have been found to prescribe 3 times as much antibiotics per patient as UK. This can cause severe issues with time. 5. Healthy Diet: This one is a no brainer. A healthy diet helps you sustain your body and mind, it also helps you develop stronger immune system. A diverse diet can help you build better gut biome which has been found to be crucial to maintaining your active and passive immunity. Often, we overlook our diet due to lack of time or stress, this can cause a lot of issues with our health. Children are picky eaters and therefore in them this problem can surface even more easily. A healthy diet has to be supplemented with important multivitamins to make sure you are meeting the daily the minimum requirements.