Immune System Support Part 1: Your Physical Needs

Hello. Welcome to the very first episode of our very first series. My name is Eric Edmeads and I'll be your host. This series is about immune system support and it comes in three parts. Before getting to those parts, I, I want to offer you a silly little metaphor that'll guide the process here. Perhaps you watch Star wars or Star Trek or any sci fi show that had ships and you'll recall that ships often have shields and when it's a time for battle, we want to raise the shields. But there often comes a time in those shows where other systems become more important than the shields, like life support. And so we lower the shields to divert the power to life support. I want to suggest to you that the human body is very much the same way. When you face an immediate danger, your body wants to divert every bit of energy that it can to your fight and flight response to get you out of that situation in that moment. In other words, it lowers the shields when you're under stress. Now that's fine if the stress is incredibly short lived and immediate and not so good when the stress is pervasive and difficult. And so these three episodes are all about how to get your physical, emotional and spiritual needs method to keep your shields raised at a time when I think you really want them raised. So in this series, part one, we'll deal with your physical needs, part two, your emotional needs, part three, your spiritual needs. So let's jump right into the physical needs. The physical needs are needs of your body. Needs that when met, allow your body to operate at the best version of itself and needs that when not met, leave a deficiency and make it difficult for your body to perform its basic functions, including your immune system response. So I'm going to offer you first all of the physical needs in order of urgency and then we're going to go through and discuss each one. The physical needs in order of urgency are air, water, sleep, energy, movement, sunlight and non energy nutrients. All right, let's go through them one at a time. The reason that I say that they're listed in order of urgency, it's because, for example, you can live without food for quite a long time. You can live without air for only minutes. And so air is number one. But it's not simply air. You might be thinking, I don't need to be told to breathe, I'm breathing all the time. It's not simply about whether or not you're breathing. It's a matter of what you're breathing and how you're breathing it. So let's first of all, talk about what you're breathing. If you are in lockdown mode or in quarantine, then it may be that you are sitting inside re breathing air. And that's fine. Of course there's oxygen in it. I want to suggest to you that wherever possible that you allow yourself some time every day to get some fresh air, either by going outside, if it's safe for you to do so, or by opening up the windows and doors and allowing air to circulate in your home. Get fresh air. Now, the next thing is how you breathe. This is incredibly important because in as much as the way you feel affects the way you breathe, the way you breathe also affects the way you feel. So imagine for a moment that you and I are out for a walk. We're in the wilderness in Africa. We walk around a corner and there's a pride of lions sitting there. Do you think we would both do this? No, I don't think so. I think we would take a sharp inward breath and then we'd breathe really shallow, if at all. And we would do that because breathing is noisy, and so we would want to be quiet to keep us safe because there's danger. Now, the trouble is, is that when we start getting under stress, we do tend to make our breathing more shallow. The more shallow you make your breathing, the more your body believes you to be in danger, and so the easier it is for you to produce cortisol and adrenaline. What I'm suggesting is that you breathe consciously at least several times a day. What do I mean by consciously? That you push yourself to breathe more deeply either because you've gone for a really nice brisk walk outdoors or you've done some exercise or because you decide to meditate, do breathing exercises, or just simply do breath exercises while you're watching a movie. So there are plenty of breathing exercises out there. You can find lots of them on YouTube. I'm a big fan of Wim Hof, for example, and their breathing techniques. So I'm going to give you one of my favorite breathing techniques that you can do right here, right now. And yes, I want you, if you really want to get something out of this series, when I give you an exercise to do, jump right in and do it with me. And so one of my favorite breathing exercises is the 55 breathing method. What does it mean? It means breathing in for a count of five, holding for a count of five, breathing out for a count of five, holding again for a count of five, and then repeating that five times. Now I'm Going to do it with you, but I won't be able to speak and count at the same time. So I'm going to demonstrate it once and then I'm going to count my way through it with you. Are you ready? Here we go. Breathing in first. And then breathing in again. It's that simple. And I'll tell you something, I feel so much better already. And I already felt pretty good. So I want you to do that with me. Now. Are you ready? We're going to do it together. I'm going to do the exact same thing. I'm going to count it on my fingers and you're going to breathe in. And here we go. Ready, set. Breathe out. And then you would breathe in again and you would do that four more times. But let me ask you something. Do you feel any better? It's really fascinating to me that a couple of deep breaths can completely change the way I feel. Now, that may seem a little trivial, but I want to suggest it's not just about how you feel. It's about how you think. It's about the way you're thinking. When you have cortisol in your system, apparently your IQ is slashed in half. Imagine that when you have stress chemicals in your body, your intelligence goes down as does your capacity for managing your state of mind. That's when short temperedness and moodiness kicks in and generally the entire world starts to look darker and more pessimistic. So taking time maybe three, four, five times a day and really getting into the habit of conscious deep breathing can absolutely change your entire view of the world. And I don't think there's been a time when that's more important. The next need in order of urgency is water. No, not soft drinks, not concentrated juices. No, just water. Water. Your body is largely made up of water. Your blood is largely made up of water. Your brain is largely made up of water. And it needs water. Your immune system needs water. For you to healthy, please make sure that you're drinking. And again, it's a matter of what and how. What are you drinking? Well, what I'm suggesting to you here is water. These days it might not be that you have a whole lot of choice. I prefer proper mineral water, but at this point I'm pretty much happy with water as long as it's wet, not full of any garbage, like sugar, for example. So make sure that you are drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated. Also remember, once dehydrated, it's almost too late. You don't drink today to Stop being dehydrated today. You drink today to not get dehydrated in a few days. So drinking is something you really need to do proactively. Now, let's talk a little bit about how I'm of the belief, as much as I like a tall glass of water every now and again that's cold, I really believe that drinking a nice glass of warm or room temperature water is the best thing to be doing right now. And what I suggest to you is that sipping at it over time is a whole lot better than just slamming your system with it. Don't turn water into this big homework thing where you've got to drink it all down in a moment. What I would suggest is have a water bottle with you and notice how quickly you're having to refill it, but be sipping it water on a fairly regular basis. Staying hydrated is absolutely key to staying healthy and keeping your immune system operating optimally. Now, you might be tempted to think that the third need is food, but still no. Food can wait. The next really important need is sleep. Your body does very important work when you're sleeping. And I know that some of you might be struggling a little bit with sleep right now. So I want to talk about some strategies for how to sleep better. But before we do that, let's talk about why. When you sleep deeply, your mind processes things. Your mind is assimilating the events and the memories and the lessons of the day, and it needs that downtime to do that. When you drop into even deeper sleep, your body moves into repair mode. That's where any damage done in the day so far gets repaired. When you're in that very deep sleep, your body barely even moves. Think about it. It makes sense. If you're going to be repairing things at a cellular level, you don't really want to be moving around a lot. Right? And so when your body goes into very deep, deep sleep, you're in repair mode. Well, I think this is a good time to be running regular repair mode to keep yourself really functional and healthy. Now, let's talk about how to do it. Well, in order to understand how to do it, I think we got to start with how not to do it. Okay, like, here's one clue. Turn off the screens two hours before you plan to go to bed. Don't watch movies to make yourself sleepy and go to bed. That is a disturbing way to sleep. So turn off the screens, turn off the lights, and sleep in the dark. But turn off the screens about two hours before you go to bed. Those Screens, they interfere with your melatonin production. And melatonin is the hormone that helps you to sleep. So turn the screens off. What's going on right now, I know, is a lot of people are just addicted to social media and addicted to their phones. And, hey, they can be helpful if you're using them the right way. If you're using them for information, positive information, if you're using them for inspiration, then they can be helpful, but not for the two hours before you go to bed. So please turn the screens off. Also, what I want to suggest you is a nice cold shower or a cold bath counterintuitively, can help you to have a really nice sleep. Yes, it might seem like a warm bath would help you fall asleep more easily, but the fact is, is that when you cool your body temperature down, it actually helps you to sleep more deeply. And again, on with the dark. I am a big fan of sleeping in the dark. I make sure that all of the windows are blacked out as best they can. And if I'm stuck in a room where there is light, I wear an eye mask. It helps me to sleep so much better. Sleep. Very, very important that you're getting some. And by the way, if you're called to take a nap in the middle of the day, take a nap. You know, what a lot of us have right now is abundance of flexibility with time. And so if you're called to take a nap in the day, take a nap. You want your shield strong. Sleep is a big part of that. Okay, the fourth need. We can finally talk about food. We're talking now about energy. The food comes in basically two categories. It comes in the form of energy and non energy nutrients. Non energy nutrients are things that we pile up for weeks and weeks and weeks, and we stockpile them so they're not urgent as far as a need goes. But energy in the form of calories has a relative level of urgency. The reason it's so far down the list is that your body stores energy. Right now, your body probably has over 200,000 calories of energy. It's just waiting for you to burn it. So you don't need food for your energy today. And what you really don't want is bad quality energy. This is not the time for cheap garbage energy like refined sugar and corn syrup. This is not the time for that. It would be very tempting. Of course, things are tough right now. We deserve it. No, this is the time to keep the shields high. And so you want to make sure that the energy that you're putting in is the very best quality energy. So what are we talking about? Well, if you're in a place where you have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, there's good energy in that. If you're in a place that has good quality fats, high quality meat, that sort of stuff. Nuts. There's great energy in that. Avocados, there's great energy in that. So what I'm suggesting to you right now is that yes, energy is important. Not as urgent as the things we've discussed so far, but important. And so you want to eat the best quality energy you can. And by the way, one more thing. Most of those garbage, disgusting, immune suppressing types of energy that so many people are addicted to, they are addictive. In other words, you might think to yourself, well, I'm just going to have a treat this one time and guess what craving you're going to have the next day. So please take my word for this. Your focus right now is on getting the healthiest, most functional energy you can. And that's going to be the energy that comes from whole food sources like seasonally available fruits, vegetables, and the highest quality possible meats, fishes and eggs that you can get. Good. Now let's talk about the next need. The fifth physical need is movement. It is really important that you move. It is. Look, I saw this funny thing the other day. It said this, it said like, look, your grandparents were called up to fight in the trenches in World War II, and you're being called up to sit on the couch. I think you can handle it, right? But I got to tell you something. Sitting on the couch is just about as dangerous as fighting in the trenches in World War II. Because if you just sit around, there's a whole lot of problems. Muscular atrophy. You get to a place where your muscles aren't being used and they start to waste away. This is the use it or lose it principle. But even more than that, we're talking about immune function here, right? We're talking about your health. Your lymphatic system moves lymph around your system and keeps your cells clean. It's cleansing your body all the time. But your lymphatic system doesn't have a pump, okay? Your cardiovascular system has pumps. Your blood is pumped around your body by your heart. So there it is. Your heart is pumping it. You can lie down for three days and your blood will continue to pump around because of the heart. You breathe because of the diaphragm. As you breathe in and you breathe out the diaphragm is acting as a pump to make sure that the air is coming in and out. But the lymphatic system doesn't have a pump like that. I think largely because the need for lymphatic flow around your body isn't as urgent as, say, oxygen to the brain. Because the oxygen to the brain is the highest urgency. We have a pump to move it around and we have a diaphragm to bring the oxygen in. Lymph. It's not urgent in this moment, but it's absolutely important on a regular basis. How does it move around? Well, it does have a pump. In fact, it has many, many pumps. Your muscles, what moves lymph around your system is tissue manipulation. When you move around, when your muscles contract and expand, when you are using your muscles, you are pumping lymph around your system. And so movement is incredibly important to your ongoing health and your immune system. Why doesn't it have a pump? Well, here's one big reason. Because our ancestors were forced to move. They were forced to move every day. Just three weeks ago, I was with the Hadza Bushmen in East Africa. I stayed with them for almost two weeks. And during that time we hunted and we gathered. And I'll tell you something, they are moving constantly. Because when you live in nature, you don't have uber eats, you don't have food delivery, you don't even have grocery stores you could walk to. Instead, what you have is Mother Nature providing the various calories and non energy nutrients you need scattered all over the place. So you have to go get them. And as a result of that, you're constantly moving. So just because you can get away without moving right now, doesn't mean you should. Please move. I want to offer you some choices here. I want to offer you some thoughts. If you are on Instagram, I highly recommend following the Betty Rocker and Alison Stoner as two incredible examples of people that will give you great strategies for moving right now at home. The sixth need is for non energy nutrients. And the reason it's so far down the priority list is that you bank nutrients. When you eat something that has vitamin C, your body keeps that vitamin C for a long time. When you eat something that has vitamin B12, your body keeps it for weeks and months. So this is not an urgent need, but it's an incredibly important one and one that you really want to take care of. Let's talk about vitamin C for a minute. If you're not getting sufficient vitamin C, then what would happen? Well, initially you'd get some skin Infections, interruptions, which eventually becomes scurvy. And it can be lethal. Just missing one really important non energy nutrient. So it's important to make sure that you are eating a wide variety as best you can of healthy whole foods. If you're Familiar with my WildFit program, there's some excellent resources there and recipes that we can help you with. I just want to suggest you, right now it is important that you are getting good, healthy whole foods. Do you want to know where to get vitamin C, for example? Well, there's a couple of really good sources other than pills. Sure, if that's what you're down to and you need to take supplements, take them. But you know where else you can get them? Oranges, you can get them from a variety of different fruits. And also you can get it from meat, organ meats have vitamin C readily available for you. And so I want to suggest you that during this time it's really important that you get all your needs met. Here's another example. Most people don't really understand protein very well. They think that protein is simply about muscle and hair and fingernails and that sort of stuff. But that's not really how it works. As I understand it, proteins are complex molecules. And for example, insulin is a protein. So when your body needs to produce insulin, it manufactures it. And the way it manufactures it, it builds it from amino acids. Proteins are built of amino acids. So think of amino acids as little Lego bricks that build this complex molecule that then that then performs a job in your body. Insulin. Your body also makes things called antibodies, you know, when it's trying to fight a disease. Antibodies are also proteins. In other words, in order for your body to perform many of the incredibly urgent functions that it needs to perform, you need to have all of the amino acids. It's not a matter of getting enough protein. It's a matter of getting whole and complete proteins, or the full suite and full array of amino acids so that your body can perform the functions it needs to. Now, this is somewhat tricky. In our world today, many people have chosen for a number of different reasons to not eat meat or animal products and have become vegetarians. They need to be even more cautious about this because there's no single plant in the world that offers all of the amino acids. And so they need to make sure they're getting that stuff taken care of. For those of you that do eat meat, for those of you who do eat eggs, for those of you who do eat fish, then as always, we want to make sure that we're getting the most ethically produced produce we can. And, and if you're eating those things on a relatively regular basis, then you are definitely topping up on the proteins you need. During this time, it is really important that you get your non energy nutrients met so that your body can perform all the functions you want it to perform. Sunlight. Now listen, I posted this the other day on Instagram and I had all these people telling me we should just take our vitamin D supplements. The sun is dangerous. No, stupid. Exposure to the sun is dangerous. Going out and oiling yourself up and lying in the sun in equatorial tropical world when you're from Norway is stupid and dangerous. But not getting any sun is equally stupid and dangerous. The sun stimulates your immune system and causes your body to manufacture vitamin D. It is absolutely important that you try to get some sun. Now look, you may be frustrated with me at this point because you live in England or Seattle or Vancouver or any of the other foggy rainy destinations around the world. Here's the good news. The sun does come out from time to time. And at this particular time of year, the sun should be coming out for many of the northern hemisphere even more. And the sun can get through the clouds. So even if you simply go outside on a cloudy day and allow some of that natural light onto your skin, you're doing what you need to do. By the way, if you have light skin like me, that's because you have ancestors that came probably from the northern hemisphere. And so the reason that the skin evolved to get lighter and lighter and lighter like that was to allow more and more sunlight in in a hemisphere that has less and less sunlight. So what I'm saying to you is get some sunlight. I'll give you a silly little anecdote about this, but for many years I lived in England. And you know, England's not famous for its sunlight, I'm sure you've heard. And so I bought a convertible. In fact, I own convertibles for most of the time I lived in England and my friends thought I was crazy. Why would you have a convertible? It's not like we're in California. And my answer was this. If you live in California, you don't need a convertible. A convertible in California is maybe fun, maybe a little ego, but not necessary. If you live in England, if you live in a place like that, then I would say to you, the convertible is almost necessary. Because for me, what it meant was on those rare days where the sun came shining through, boom, that roof was down and I was getting my sunlight. That's how seriously I took it. What I'm suggesting to you now is you don't rush out and buy a convertible, but that you get yourself some sunlight. And so if the sun comes out, go outside and get 10 or 15 minutes. If the sun doesn't come out, then go outside and get some of that natural light in your eyes and on your skin. Anyway, I want to conclude with this. These physical needs are needs of your body. If you take care of these needs, your body will operate optimally. If you do not take care of these needs, you will suffer consequences. This is true whether we're talking about fighting a viral infection or, or recovering from an injury or dealing with any kind of disease at all. If you have an optimal way of getting your needs met, your body will operate the way you want it to. If you don't, then the body won't. Your healing time from anything is faster when all these needs are getting met. I hope that makes sense. So once again I want to remind you that you should put conscious effort and conscious focus into making sure that you're getting air the right kind of and the right way, that you're getting water, that you're staying hydrated, that you are absolutely making sure that you are getting sleep, that you are turning the lights off and allowing your body to get some sleep. I want you to make sure that you are eating enough, that you are getting the right energy, but also that the energy you are taking in is the highest quality energy. Look, right now if you were out there driving your car and you had to put gas in there, you would not want to put garbage, second rate gas in there that might leave you stranded somewhere. You'd want to put the best quality energy in. Well, how about having that same respect for your body? And you're going to move. Movement, absolutely important. You're going to move so that you can maintain muscle density, maybe even build some during this time. No excuse at all. Get out there and work out. And you want to flush your system with lymphatic fluid by moving. You're going to get outside and get yourself some sunlight or natural light whenever you can. You're also going to focus on eating the best quality food that you can to get you the non energy nutrients that you can. Now those are the core needs. And then I want to offer you a little postscript as we're talking about physical needs. And that is that your body has another need in a sense. And the need is to not be traumatized. And what I mean by not being traumatized in this case is not being traumatized by disgusting, dangerous food. Listen, junk food, sugar, all that stuff can be fun. It can. I get it. But this is not the time for that. This is the time for you supporting your body the best way possible. Satisfy the needs we just talked about, and please reduce the stress on your body. Avoid heavy amounts of refined sugar, or even worse, corn syrup and all the disgusting preservatives and sweeteners and chemicals and garbage that they put in our food. Avoid those things, because otherwise, you're giving your body more things to fight. This is the end of episode one. In our next episode, we'll be talking about the emotional needs that you need to satisfy to keep your immune system optimal. Thank you so much. My name is Eric Edmeads. I'll see you in the next episode.