8 tips how not to get sick

Autumn is here. It's cold, wet, and windy outside. Every other person has a cold or the flu, and the risk of catching something is pretty high. But just because many of your acquaintances are sick, it doesn't mean that you have to get sick too.

You can strengthen your immune system and thus reduce the chances of getting sick considerably. After all, who wants to get sick? Then you can't do sports (let alone build muscles), you feel bad, and you can't work effectively. Nobody wants that. Therefore, in this article you will learn 8 tips for how not to get sick.

Reduce stress

Maybe you know the following situation: You have a super stressful work week and are just looking forward to the next vacation. It comes right after this stressful week. Then you can really relax and enjoy yourself.

At least that's what you think. Then, when the time really comes and you're on vacation, bam, you get sick. Great start to the vacation, isn't it? You've been looking forward to the time off for so long and now you can't even enjoy it.

Now, of course, you could claim that the stress was good for you and the time off was not good for you. You didn't get sick during the stressful phase, but you did get sick during the stress-free phase. The claim may seem somewhat plausible at first glance, but it is not really tenable.

This is the so-called "Let-Down Effect." When you are stressed, your body releases more stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. This makes you awake and alert at work. These hormones also protect you from getting sick - but only in the short term - during your stressful work phase.

Your body thinks that you are being exposed to a life-threatening danger. It does not know that your work is only (for example) about finishing a report on time.

Rather, it thinks you are just being chased by a dengerous animal and must either run away or fight. Losing this fight would be death, not just the boss grumbling.

However, your body naturally wants to protect you from death and does not let you get sick during this life-threatening phase. At some point, however, it has used up so many resources for the fight and put so much strain on the immune system that everything collapses.

This can happen DURING the stressful phase, when that phase is just super long or intense (at some point your body just can't take it anymore) or it can happen AFTER the stressful phase when you are finally able to de-stress on vacation.

The latter is the Let-Down Effect. As soon as your body realizes that the fight is over and that you hopefully won, it wants to regenerate and shuts down many systems including the immune system. This often leads to you getting sick as soon as the stressful phase is over.

Stressful phases therefore have a negative effect on your immune system in the long term - especially if these phases are very intense and long.

So don't be surprised if you get sick after a stressful period. This is a completely normal reaction of your body.

Nevertheless, you don't want to get sick, of course! In theory, it is quite easy to prevent the Let-Down Effect. In practice, however, most people find it very difficult.

It is important not to let your stressful periods become too stressful, at least to the best of your ability. This way, your body can always take a deep breath during these stressful phases and regenerate a little, so that there is no total breakdown during the subsequent vacation.

How YOU can best relax depends on YOUR preferences.

Maybe you can relax well if you meditate every day with a meditation app, for example, or you can spend time with your friends, play computer/mobile/board games, or take a nap or whatever... anything you can do on a daily basis if possible that makes you super relaxed.

Of course, this has to become a habit. That's not easy at the beginning. You will probably have to push yourself. For example, set an alarm for 3:00 p.m. (every afternoon) with the message "Go out for a 10 minute walk, exclamation point!" or whatever you plan to do to relieve stress.

Sleep often and sleep well

Sleep is important, because during sleep your body regenerates from the activities of the day. Of course, your immune system also regenerates. If you sleep too little and/or too poorly, then it cannot regenerate completely.

This makes you much more susceptible to getting sick. You've probably noticed that you tend to get a cold more often when you've slept only 4 or 5 hours a night for a few days in a row.

To reduce your chances of getting sick, make sure you get plenty of high quality sleep. Aim for at least 8 hours per night. Of course, there are also people who manage very well with less sleep, but these people are in the minority.

In order for you to not merely lie restlessly in bed for 8 hours, but to actually sleep well, you should also practice good sleep hygiene.

This includes going to bed and getting up at around the same time every day, blocking blue light 1-2 hours before going to bed (e.g. by wearing blue light blocking glasses), and keeping the bedroom well ventilated, among other things, in order to sleep like a baby.

Play sports - but not too much

If you lead an active life and exercise regularly, you will be less susceptible to illnesses. That said, we do not yet know exactly what the mechanism is that strengthens the immune system through regular exercise and especially sports.

However, it is believed that exercise strengthens the cells in the body that kill the harmful bacteria and viruses that make us sick (to put it simply).

But this is only the case if you don't do too much exercise. This is because if you do too much, it has the opposite effect: your body is so busy with repair processes that it has hardly any resources left to keep your immune system running optimally.

You probably already exercise regularly anyway, otherwise you wouldn't be reading our articles. But if that's not the case, then by all means start.

A very general recommendation is to exercise 3 times a week. Whether this is strength training or cardio training does not seem to be so important - at least if you are only concerned with the effect on the immune system.

If you are more advanced, then you can of course exercise more than 3 times a week. Also, be sure to deload regularly (i.e. take breaks from intense training). For example, every 5-8 weeks, do a relaxed training week with fewer sets, reps, and weight so as to relieve the fatigue of the previous weeks.

Wash your hands - but not too often

For example, if you touch the bar in the subway with your hands and then intentionally or unintentionally touch your eyes, nose, or mouth with your hand, the bacteria from the subway bar can enter your body.

A potential countermeasure would be not to grab the bar in the first place (though it can be annoying if you then fall down when the subway brakes because you have nothing to hold on to).

Alternatively, you could handle the bar with gloves - but then you'll probably get some strange looks (at least during the summer). Therefore, it's best to just use the bar and then wash your hands thoroughly when you get home.

On the one hand, we do actually need to be exposed to a certain amount of bacteria in order to train our immune systems. This gives the immune system an incentive to remain active. On the other hand, of course, we don't want to expose our immune systems to too many bacteria and thus overtax them.

If you wash your hands so often that it dries them out, you're probably washing your hands too often. At least that's what Richard Gallo of the University of California-San Diego Department of Dermatology says.

He justifies this by citing the fact that drying reduces the protective oil layer on the skin and thus damages the skin.

In addition, there are also many good bacteria in the skin, which are important for our immune system and help to fight against the bad bacteria. These can be killed if you wash your hands too often. Therefore, you should not wash too frequently.

So again, a healthy balance is in order. For example, wash your hands every time you use the bathroom and every time you touch many things that many others have touched - for example, when you come home from shopping or from working out at the gym.

Do not eat too few calories

Calories are energy. Your body needs enough energy for your immune system to function well.

If you are on a diet and give your body fewer calories than you consume, then the body will have fewer resources available to keep all metabolic processes and the immune system running optimally. You are therefore more susceptible to infections.

The harder and longer you diet, the less energy you provide your body to keep your immune system functioning.

It may be that you strengthen your immune system in the long term by dieting. If you are currently medically overweight, for example, then it is likely that you will have a stronger immune system after successfully losing weight - simply because of the lower body fat percentage.

But the emphasis there is that you will have a stronger immune system AFTER successful weight loss - that is, after the diet. During the diet you must be aware that your immune system is probably at least somewhat weakened.

So, in order to not open all doors extra wide to the disease, diet with a calorie deficit that is not too high, and also do not diet for too long of a stretch.

It is best to not lose more than 10% of your body weight in one go. Separate out your diet phases with a maintenance phase of at least 4 weeks and take your time with the weight loss. Check out our other blog articles on how to lose weight successfully without putting too much stress on your immune system.

Drink less alcohol

Getting drunk every weekend is not good for your immune system.

Too much alcohol weakens your white blood cells. As such, they can no longer protect you against infections nearly as well.

The question of whether or not a BIT of alcohol now and then is beneficial for the immune system (as some claim) does not yet have a clear answer. But even if small amounts of alcohol are not beneficial, then they will probably not cause serious damage either.

So it's best to drink as little alcohol as possible to stay healthy. Drinking a glass of wine or beer once a week probably won't harm your immune system that much; it's all a question of moderation.

Eat more fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates

The performance of your immune system is very much dependent on the health of your gastrointestinal tract. There are many billions of small bacteria that support your immune system by protecting you from unwelcome invaders. In other words, these bacteria are PART of your immune system.

To keep these good bacteria alive, you need to regularly eat fiber. These beneficial bacteria feed on dietary fiber.

The best way to do this is to eat lots of fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates. Foods with complex carbohydrates include sweet potatoes, whole grains, and brown rice.

If you're not already doing so, get in the habit of eating at least one serving of fruits or vegetables at every meal. For example, eat your lean bran cereal with a banana, your egg sandwich with bell peppers, and your meat and brown rice with broccoli.

Pay attention to micronutrients

To find out whether or not you have a nutritional deficiency, you can have your zinc and vitamin D3 levels in your blood tested at your next blood test in addition to all the standard measurements. But you have to tell your doctor explicitly to do this; otherwise they probably won't test it.

If you do not want to have these values tested, then you can of course only speculate as to whether you have a deficit or not. It may well be, for example, that your zinc intake is too low if you eat red meat less than twice a week. This is because red meat contains a lot of zinc.

If you also very rarely eat wheat germ, oatmeal, or cheese, then it is even more likely that you have a zinc deficit.

In that case, either eat more of these zinc-rich foods or supplement. If you supplement zinc, then take about 15-30mg of zinc per day, depending on your body weight and how often you eat zinc-rich foods.

As for vitamin D3, almost everyone who is not regularly in the sun has a deficit. So this vitamin is critical in the winter, and also in the fall and spring in many countries like Germany.

To give a simple recommendation: Take 2500 - 5000 international units of vitamin D3 per day - depending on your body weight, your skin tone, and how often you are in the sun.

The more you weigh, the darker your skin color, and the less often you are in the sun, the more you should supplement. If you are often in the sun in the summer, you probably do not need to supplement during this time.

By the way, vitamin D3 also improves the transport of calcium from the stomach into the blood. To ensure that calcium can pass well from the blood into the bones, you should also supplement 200µg of vitamin K2 daily - unless you often eat sauerkraut. There is a lot of vitamin K2 in this food, so you probably do not need to supplement it in this case.

Otherwise, vitamin K2 is still present in reasonably adequate amounts in some dairy products, in liver, and in green leafy vegetables.

If you notice that an illness is approaching (e.g. if you feel a scratching in your throat), you can also try using with vitamin C - but in high doses. Take about 10-15g vitamin C per day until the scratchy throat goes away.

Distribute the vitamin C as evenly as possible throughout the day - for example, a 1g tablet every hour. If you get diarrhea during this time, then start taking less.

These were our 8 tips to avoid getting sick.