How do you build your immune system? How does your family avoid illness during the holiday season?

I have a view about how my family avoids illness during our ‘back to school’/FALL /Holiday Season. It seems that while every other child is coming down with a variety of illnesses that appear to linger, our home stays rather healthy. We have an 8 year old who has yet to be prescribed antibiotics and has never taken any medication.

Here are a few of the things we do to build her/our immunity:

Eat well.
We consume clean food whenever possible –Organic fruit and veges; Grass-fed/Grass finished beef directly from trusted farms. We avoid corn & soy (due to GMO nature of crop).
Dayanara eats a proper breakfast daily. When I pick her up from school I will offer her hummus, cashew/brazilian/almond nuts, green juice or a banana/almond milk/coconut milk/almond butter smoothie for her snack. “Let your food be your medicine and medicine be your food” is our mantra.

Filter water.
We drink reverse osmosis filtered water; lots of it.

Limit dairy.
We do not consume dairy daily. And, when we do, we source cleaner dairy options. Example: Butter sourced from grass fed cows.

Mind our Sugar!
We limit it greatly. And, when we do indulge we generally source clean ingredients and make our own desserts. Again, our home is relatively light on sugar. Sugar is a BIG immune weakening ingredient. Avoid as much as possible.

Supplement
We take about 1,000mg of D3 daily during the week (during the fall/winter season), Omega-3, Vitamin C
We drink Keifer (probiotic)
We source our calcium from sesame seeds, greens, or fortified almond milk (not dairy)
Sprinkle tumeric on nearly everything!
Eat roasted garlic and olive oil, and LOVE it.

Green Juice
We make and drink our own green juice 3 to 5 times / week. Our ingredients: Kale, Spinach, cucumber, ginger, garlic, and lots of lime. Dayanara, our 8 year old, LOVES this. We started her on this when she was in Kindergarten.

Sleep
I ensure Dayanara is in bed by 7:30pm; so she is sleeping by 8pm every night. She still sleeps 10 to 11 hours/night. Thats a ritual.

Immune building remedies
At the first sniffle or soar throat we:
get our chiropractic adjustment
take elderberry syrup
up our intake of vitamin C
rest (we keep Dayanara home so she RESTS and nips it in the bud quickly)
chicken soup, including vegetables, chicken livers, and avocado (no noodles)

Air filters
We have air filters in every room of our home. I have always smelled the difference in the quality of our NYC air compared to that of Saratoga Springs. I spend my winter holidays and summers in Saratoga Springs and breathing Saratoga’s clean, high quality air index air does wonders to our lung/overall health.

Get Adjusted
We get adjusted as our bodies needs it. We are lucky we live with Dr. Sid, your NYC chiropractor!

By being mindful of our immune system and ‘injecting’ it with health (as oppose to toxins) we support our bodies to fight disease.

How do you build your immune system?