September is one of the best times of the year to start thinking about your immune system. This is the time to assess your body's condition before it faces the added stress of fighting an infection.
Once the kids are back in school, schedules get busy, temperatures drop, daylight gets shorter, and we spend more time indoors. Exposure to seasonal illness inevitably increases. No matter how hard we try, we cannot control every virus we encounter, but we can do quite a bit to influence how prepared our bodies are when that exposure happens!
Every fall, I see people suddenly become interested in their immune health when somebody around them gets sick, or they wake up with a scratchy throat. They start looking for vitamin C, zinc, herbs, supplements, or anything else that might help. Targeted nutritional and supplemental support can certainly have a place, but your immune health is shaped by what has been happening in your body in the weeks and months before that moment. It is never too early to start preparing for cold and flu season!
The truth is, your sleep matters. Your nutritional status matters. Your gut matters. Your stress level, blood sugar, hydration, activity, and ability to recover all contribute to the environment your immune system has to function in. September gives us an opportunity to start working on those areas while we are still feeling good.
Start With Sleep and Recovery
One of the first things I look at when a patient tells me they are getting sick repeatedly is sleep. An enormous amount of restorative and regulatory work happens while we sleep. When someone consistently sleeps five or six hours a night, wakes up exhausted, relies on caffeine to get through the day, and repeats the process day after day, their body is asked to keep performing without adequate time to recover. It won’t be long before problems arise.
September is a good opportunity to rebuild some consistency before fall gets even busier. A few places I would start are:
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Go to bed and wake up around the same time each day.
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Get outside in the morning and spend some time in natural light.
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Reduce screens and stimulation as bedtime approaches.
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Make your bedroom as dark, quiet, and comfortable as possible.
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Give yourself enough time in bed to get the sleep your body needs.
I am a big believer in consistency. Your body responds to rhythms, and giving it predictable periods of activity and recovery can make a tremendous difference over time.
Recovery matters during the day, too. We have normalized living in a nearly constant state of stimulation. Another email, notification, deadline, appointment, headline, or problem is always demanding our attention. Stress affects sleep, digestion, appetite, blood sugar, hormones, and the nervous system. Over time, chronic stress becomes part of the burden the body must manage.
Most of us cannot eliminate the stressors in our lives, so we have to create opportunities to recover from them. Take a walk outside. Pray. Exercise. Spend time with people you love. Put the phone down. Sit somewhere quiet for a few minutes. Give your body periods throughout the day to settle down and recover.
Give Your Body the Right Raw Materials
Nutrition is another area where I see huge disconnects in my patients. We live in a country with an abundance of calories, yet many people are nutritionally depleted. You can eat plenty of food while giving your body very little of what it actually needs.
Your immune system depends on amino acids, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, phytonutrients, and many other compounds your body obtains from food. These nutrients build tissue, produce enzymes, support cellular communication, regulate inflammatory processes, and carry out thousands of other functions every day.
I am a big believer in getting people back to real food. Take a look at what is consistently going onto your plate:
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Eat enough quality protein (0.5g per pound of body weight daily)
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Eat vegetables and fruits, including a variety of colors.
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Include healthy sources of fat.
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Get fiber from whole foods you tolerate well.
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Wash fresh produce thoroughly. Please, please, please!
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Choose foods that are as close to their natural state as possible.
These are basic habits, but they provide the raw materials your body needs every day. When the immune system is called into action, those needs do not suddenly appear. Your body has been relying on those nutrients all along.
Blood sugar belongs in this conversation, too. When someone skips breakfast, drinks several cups of coffee, grabs something sugary when their energy crashes, misses lunch, and then eats a large meal late in the day, their body spends a lot of time compensating for those swings.
More balanced meals built around protein, fiber, healthy fats, and whole-food sources of carbohydrates can create a steadier environment. Your immune system is connected to the rest of your physiology, and blood sugar regulation is another part of creating stability in the body.
Pay Attention to Your Gut
I almost always want to know what is happening in someone's digestive system, especially when they tell me they are constantly getting sick. Someone may worry about catching a respiratory virus and wonder why I ask whether they are bloated, constipated, having diarrhea, dealing with reflux, or reacting to certain foods. I ask because the gastrointestinal tract has an incredibly important relationship with immune function.
Every day you bring food, microorganisms, environmental compounds, and countless other substances through the digestive tract. Your body must determine what it can absorb and use, what needs an immune response, and what eventually needs to be eliminated. The intestinal environment and the microorganisms living there play a role in that process.
Digestion also affects nutrition. You can eat a nutrient-dense diet, but your body still has to break that food down and absorb the nutrients it needs.
September is a good time to pay attention to digestive symptoms you may have been ignoring. That includes:
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Frequent bloating
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Constipation or diarrhea
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Regular reflux
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Increasing food reactions
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Significant changes in bowel habits
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Consistently feeling uncomfortable after eating
If those things happen regularly, I want to understand what is going on.
You can also support digestion through some very basic habits. Eat whole foods and adequate fiber from foods you tolerate well. Drink enough water. Slow down when you eat and chew your food. Wash your produce well. Pay attention to how different foods make you feel. Your digestive health affects the whole body, including the immune system.
Stay Hydrated
Hydration is another foundational piece of immune health. Water is involved in virtually every system in the body. It supports circulation, digestion, elimination, temperature regulation, cellular communication, and the transport of nutrients and waste products. When someone is chronically underhydrated, the body must continually compensate. This takes a toll.
Hydration needs vary based on body size, diet, activity, temperature, medications, health conditions, and how much someone sweats. A good rule of thumb to start with is half your weight in ounces per day (i.e 150 pounds = 75 ounces water). Pay attention to how consistently you are drinking throughout the day. Start drinking water earlier instead of realizing at dinner that you have barely had any. Keep water available. If you are exercising, working outside, sweating heavily, or losing significant fluids, you may also need to pay attention to minerals and electrolytes.
These small habits become part of the environment you create inside your body every day.
Build Your Reserve
One concept I talk about often is the body's ability to adapt. The human body is remarkably resilient. You can sleep poorly for a few nights and keep functioning. You can eat poorly, go through an extremely stressful week, travel, miss workouts, become dehydrated, or deal with environmental exposures, and your body will continue working to maintain balance.
That ability to compensate is incredible, but it requires resources. If you keep asking your body to adapt without giving it opportunities to replenish those resources, your reserve can gradually become depleted. Then another challenge comes along, and your body has to find the resources to deal with that too.
September gives you time to start replenishing some of that reserve. Get your sleep back on track. Eat enough protein and nutrient-dense food. Drink water. Get outside every day. Move your body regularly. Address digestive problems you have been ignoring. Find places in your schedule where you can actually recover.
I also encourage people to be thoughtful about recovery after illness. One of the patterns I see over and over is that people start feeling 60 or 70 percent better and immediately go back to living at 100 percent. The fever is gone, so they return to the gym, stay up late, catch up on everything they missed, and pack the schedule again.
Meanwhile, the body may still be replenishing nutrients, repairing tissue, regulating inflammation, and restoring normal function. If you do get sick this fall, give yourself enough time to recover. That recovery period helps rebuild the reserve your body will draw from the next time it faces a challenge.
Supplements I Use to Improve Immune Support
Supplements can be extremely helpful when we use them to give the body nutrients and compounds it needs to function well. This is something I have done with patients for decades, and there are several things I tend to think about as we head into cold and flu season. I still want someone eating well, sleeping, staying hydrated, taking care of their gut, and giving their body time to recover. Then we can look at where nutritional support may help strengthen that foundation.
I usually start with nutritional sufficiency. Zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D, magnesium, and many other vitamins and minerals support normal immune function. I pay particular attention to vitamin D as we head into fall and winter, especially as our time outside and exposure to sunlight begin to decrease. If you don't know your vitamin D status, this is a good time to have it checked and work with your practitioner to determine whether supplementation makes sense for you.
This is one reason I formulated Daily Multi, and why a good multivitamin can be a valuable daily foundation. Our nutritional needs do not suddenly begin when we are exposed to a virus. I want the body supplied with what it needs every day, especially when someone's diet, stress level, digestion, or lifestyle may leave nutritional gaps.
Bromelain is another supplement I use quite a bit. Bromelain is a proteolytic enzyme derived from pineapple, and I have used it for years because it has applications well beyond helping digest protein. It can support a healthy inflammatory response, digestion, sinus health, recovery, and immune regulation. I also like the way bromelain can complement other nutritional and herbal therapies by helping with absorption and bioavailability. It is one of those tools I have found useful in many different situations because inflammation, digestion, congestion, and immune function are often connected.
I also use fulvic acid extensively in my practice. Anyone who has followed my work for a long time knows how important fulvic acid is to my approach. One of the things that makes it so interesting is its ability to interact with minerals and other nutrients and help transport them where the body can use them. Heading into a season when I am trying to make sure someone is nutritionally fortified, that becomes very useful.
Fulvic Silver is another formula I keep in my toolbox for immune support. It combines fulvic acid with colloidal silver and a blend of botanical oils and esters. I use it as part of a broader strategy to support the body's natural defenses and maintain a healthy internal environment, particularly when the immune system is under greater demand.
Gut support may also be appropriate depending on the person. Products such as Ful-Biotic or digestive enzyme support can be useful when digestion and the microbiome need attention. I keep coming back to the gut because you cannot separate nutrition from digestion. You can take all kinds of wonderful vitamins, minerals, herbs, and supplements, but your body still has to digest, absorb, transport, and utilize what you are giving it.
This does not mean everybody needs to go out in September and buy ten different supplements. Look at your foundation first. If you are eating well and still have nutritional gaps, fill them. If your vitamin D or zinc status is low, address it appropriately. If your digestion is struggling, work on the gut. If inflammation has been high, look at what is driving it and support the body's normal inflammatory processes. Supplements give us additional tools to work with, and I want to use the right tools for the person in front of me.
I also want to be careful with the phrase "boost your immune system." The immune system needs to recognize a threat, mount an appropriate response, regulate that response, and return toward balance when the job is finished. I want to support that entire process. That means giving the body adequate nutrients, supporting the gut, regulating inflammation, getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, and using targeted nutritional support where it makes sense.
That is how I approach supplementation heading into cold and flu season. Start building the foundation now, while you feel good, and give your body the resources it needs before the seasonal challenges arrive.
What to Do Now to Get Your Immune System Ready
You do not need to completely overhaul your life before October 1st. Look for the areas where you can make an impact and start there.
This week, take an honest look at these areas:
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Sleep - Am I getting enough, and is my schedule reasonably consistent?
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Nutrition - Am I eating enough protein and nutrient-dense whole foods?
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Blood sugar - Am I eating balanced meals throughout the day?
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Gut health - Is my digestion functioning normally, or have I been ignoring symptoms?
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Hydration - Am I drinking consistently throughout the day?
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Movement - Am I moving my body regularly and giving it time to recover?
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Time outside - Am I getting natural light, fresh air, and time away from screens?
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Stress - Does my nervous system get opportunities to settle down?
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Recovery - Am I allowing myself to recover from hard workouts, stressful periods, travel, and illness?
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Supplement support - Am I using supplements thoughtfully based on what my body needs?
You do not have to fix every one of those things this week. It could be that you already know your sleep has been terrible. Or, maybe your digestion has been off for months. Maybe you have been living on convenience food because summer was busy. Perhaps stress has been unusually high, and you have stopped exercising or spending time outside. Start with the area that needs the most attention and build from there.
Cold and flu season will come whether we are prepared for it or not. Viruses will circulate, kids will bring things home from school, schedules will get disrupted, and we'll face exposures we cannot control. Getting sick occasionally is part of living in a world filled with microorganisms. Our immune systems were designed to meet those challenges, respond, recover, and keep doing their job.
Your body's condition today helps determine how prepared it will be for tomorrow's challenges. We can do a lot right now to give it the resources it needs!
