Become Resilient and Immune to Colds, Flu and COVID
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals. -William Osler
Jenny was sick and tired of bringing her 8 year old son Blake to the clinic. He really wasn’t there as often as she felt, just their third visit this winter, but Jenny was frustrated and exclaimed:
“He is always sick! He has no energy. He is grumpy all the time. He eats alright, I mean, not the best, but OK. Is there something we can give him? Is there something wrong with his immune system? He gets headaches, stomachaches, and he often has a sore throat! It takes him forever to get over a cold!”
A thorough history and exam were completed and a few common tests were done. Blake did have decreased immunity and resilience, but was an otherwise healthy kid. His immune function would appear normal on all tests. There was just one simple thing he was lacking that would make all the difference when restored. Sleep!
Immunity and Resilience
Immunity is just part of being resilient. The body also needs to repair itself once injured by infection, stress or any other injury. Both the ability to quickly repair oneself, and immunity, make one resilient to infections.
Sleep, Not Just Rest
Blake was getting about 8 hours of sleep each night, at least 2 hours short of what he needed for his age. Adequate sleep varies with age, most of us are not getting enough. Toddlers and preschools may need to sleep 12-14 hours in a day, including naps. Young school age children need 10-11 hours. Older grade school children 10 hours, and teens should get 9 hours. Some days more sleep may be needed to recover from the physical stress of sports, work or illness.
In our current culture of staying up late, usually on electronic devices/screens, most of us lack sleep. The devices also make us wake up more in the night, and wake up earlier in the morning. Here are steps you can take to get a good nights sleep.
Stay on a routine schedule, same time each night. Kids and adults both thrive with routine. Do the same routine each night as you prepare to sleep. If Blake needs 10 hours of sleep, and needs to wake up at 7 AM, bedtime should be 8 PM. That gives him an hour to prepare for bed; bath, get jammies on, brush teeth, have a story and get in bed 30 minutes before 9 PM. Don’t blow it on the weekends. If your bedtime is 10PM Sunday through Thursday, it shouldn’t be later than 11PM on Friday and Saturday, even though you can sleep in the next day.
NO smart phones or other screens in the bedroom. A child’s room should always be free of digital electronic devices. Same for teens, and probably you too. Use an alarm clock so you don’t have to have your phone by your bed.
No screens when you first wake up. If you or your child is used to watching TV or reading emails first thing in the morning, your brain will trigger an early wake up time. (Remember as a kid waking up at 6 AM to watch Saturday morning cartoons, even though you stayed up late watching a Friday night movie?) Kids should avoid screen time before school.
Stay active and exercise each day to help you sleep better.
Vitamins, do you really need them?
The word “vitamin” is a contraction of “vital amines”. So yes, they are vital and absolutely needed for function and repair of your body, and without them you would die. During the age of ships and sail, half of the sailors on some ships died from scurvy because of lack of vitamin C. In the late 1700’s they began taking lemon juice or other fruit with them which completely prevented the scurvy.
Vitamin C, D, Zinc and other vitamins and minerals are needed to repair the body. In recent years it has been very popular to take large doses of vitamins and minerals to increase immunity. It is not clear that taking supplements beyond what someone gets from a balanced diet is really a boost to immunity.
We love to take pills. It makes us feel like we are taking action, and it is easier than exercise, eating right and going to bed early. But the best source for vitamins and minerals are good foods. They contain healthy substances we may not even know of. So remember to “eat your vitamins”.
I don’t object to taking supplemental vitamins, it isn’t a bad idea in reasonable doses, and I take them at times. But taking them will never compensate for a bad diet or lack of adequate sleep.
Food, Eating Your Vitamins
You get the best vitamins when you eat the best food. We haven’t proven that large supplemental doses of vitamin C, D or zinc prevent colds, but we do get health benefits from eating vegetables (I am partial to tomatoes and greens) and fresh fruit, (especially citrus and berries.) I do like to eat extra veggies and fruit when I am sick, if nothing else I am mentally encouraged by doing so. I just feel better and should do it all the time. I confess to taking some extra Vitamin C when I have a cold, even though I can’t prove it works.
We eat many foods that are bad for us, such as sugar, sweets, fat, smoked food, grilled food and excess food. Poor eating increases our risk of obesity, cancer and heart disease, which decreases our resiliency.
Eating healthy may not directly increase your immunity in the short term, but in the long term changing to a healthy diet will increase your over all health, and will make your body more resilient to infectious diseases. Deciding to eat salad this week instead of burgers probably will not prevent me from getting COVID-19 today, but eating right and controlling weight will help me not get as sick with COVID-19 or other illness in the future.
Stay Physically Active
Stress is bad for your immunity. Exercise relieves stress. Staying active throughout the most of the day, and daily exercise will help you fight infections. It will also help prevent obesity and other health problems that put you at risk for complications of COVID-19. However, high levels of exercise in ultra athletic pursuits may weaken your immunity. So if you are training for a marathon make sure you put your body in the repair shop and get extra sleep!
Stay Away From Sick People
Stay away from strangers who have a cough and fever. When you can, keep your distance from family members who have cough or fever. If your children are sick, don’t let them climb into bed with you. Don’t let a child with a cough or fever play with other children.
Stay Socially Active
We are social creatures, and social connection and human touch help increase feel good chemicals in our brain and body. Depression is not good for our physical resilience, and physical isolation for too long increases our risk for depression. Social distancing may be a necessary evil for now, but it is not a good long term strategy for optimal health.
Exposure in some degree to people and the viruses we live with is needed to maintain optimal immunity, to acquire immunity. We should always avoid prolonged exposure, or large doses of viruses, by avoiding people who are coughing or have a fever. Also, follow current guidelines for social distancing until no longer required. Eventually we will need to start touching again and have meaningful physical and social interactions with others.
Vaccines are Vital
Vaccines that are currently used for routine childhood vaccination are safe and effective. Everyone has to discover on their own whether or not to vaccinate. There is no question that vaccines are the greatest healthcare invention of all time, responsible for saving more lives than all other medications put together, and much more safe than other medications.
Vaccines prevent meningitis, whooping cough, pneumonia, tetanus, measles, and hepatitis to name a few. Polio and small pox have been essentially eliminated because of vaccines.
Yearly flu vaccines help protect against differing strains of influenza, and also help to cross protect against other strains. Each year’s flu vaccine may help boost the vaccines effectiveness from prior years.
If you don’t vaccinate and you feel safe because you and you family are healthy, remember that you are healthy in part because of the efforts of those around you. If there were no vaccines, you would see people close to you die of vaccine preventable disease. If you don’t vaccinate, consider looking into the issue more, and discuss vaccines with your health provider. Simply put, they save lives!
Sleep Works
Jenny was skeptical that sleep would help Blake. It wasn’t the first time we had had that discussion, but she decided to give it a try. I ran into her couple of months later, and she told me that Blake was a new kid. He was happy, not the grumpy, ornery, fatigued child she had known. And best of all, he was no longer sick.
