Dr. Oz talked about how sleep, exercise, supplements and a healthy diet can help boost your immune system as cases of corona-virus rise.
As cases of covid-virus continue to grow across the country, Dr. Mehmet Oz offered some simple tips on 24Infochannel about how you can strengthen your immune system.
Oz kicked things off by demonstrating with Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb how a simple change in greeting friends and family can help lessen the spread of bacteria, offering them a fist bump instead of a handshake or hug.
“Handshake passes the most bacteria,” he said. “(A) high-five is only half the bacteria of a handshake, but a fist bump is only one-tenth.”
Oz also highlighted important areas of focus when it comes to keeping your immune system strong: sleep, exercise, supplements and a healthy diet. Here are a few specific things you can do to stay healthy.
1. Take care of yourself.
Practice good sleep hygiene, exercise and try to mediate. Meditation can help to reduce stress on your immune system.
“Something as simple as a five-minute yoga tactic,” he said. “Go sit on the toilet seat, put it down — you’re not going to the bathroom — sit there, quiet yourself and just realize that it’s OK. No one will bother you there.”
2. Consider taking a vitamin D supplement.
Oz suggested adding a few supplements to boost your defenses against illness.
“Supplements have never been shown to beat coronavirus, however there are some tactics that will slow down the progression of viruses in general,” he said. “So ideas that work well generally are vitamin D, which you get from the sun, but this time of year you’ve got to take it as a supplement.”
He also recommended vitamin C, zinc and elderberry supplements, as well as getting vitamin C from healthy sources like leafy greens, salmon and berries.
3. Load up on healthy fruits and vegetables.
“Fruits and vegetables make a huge difference, they enhance your immune response,” he noted. Oz shared some recipes for delicious and healthy smoothies that also pack in plenty of antioxidants for immune system health.
His “green energy machine” smoothie includes spinach, matcha powder and almond milk, while his “ginger hydrator” drink features oranges, bananas and pineapple.
“The nice thing about this baby is that it’s got all the antioxidants you’d ever want to have, and I think you’ll like the taste,” he said about the ginger hydrator.
