How to Boost Your Immune System Naturally Before School Starts

How to Boost Your Immune System Naturally Before School Starts – Angie Cruise Blog

How to Boost Your Immune System Naturally Before School Starts

It’s back to school season! If you’re like me, you’re just trying to keep your kids as healthy as possible. Check out these tips on how to naturally boost your immune system to help your family stay healthy this school year.

It’s back-to-school season, and as we all know, that means that if you have school-aged children, your immune systems are going to take a beating.  The first two years that my oldest was in school, the icky germs that circulate between kids completely wreaked havoc on our whole family.

She was absent from school so many times that the office started sending notes home about after-school catch-up sessions.  It was awful.  That’s when I really started researching how to boost your immune system naturally. What I’ve learned has helped keep us out of the doctor’s office so many times.

How to Boost Your Immune System Naturally

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There are so many things you can do naturally to boost your immune system.  I’m amazed that more people aren’t doing so without even realizing it!  Today, I’m just going to talk about our favorite natural immune boosters.  These are the things that we do all the time to help us stay healthy while the rest of our town is filling up the waiting rooms at every local doctor’s office.

The natural immune boosters we rely on most heavily include:

Apple Cider Vinegar

Every one of these will help you boost your immune system, but a good, solid regimen using a combination will really help keep you healthy this school year.

First, a note on the essential oils. For years, my family were loyal Young Living customers, and I even recommended them on this blog. The prices were unreal, though, and when I realized I could get the same quality plus transparent testing results from Plant Therapy, I was sold.

Check them out here

and use the coupon “5OFF” for $5 off your order of $50 or more.

Essential oils have been part of what I like to call our “wellness arsenal” for about 5 years now. We use them to clean the air, add them to our cleaners, and diffuse them when we need a bit of a boost.

of essential oils you can use to boost your immune system, but I’m going to just focus on a few. Otherwise, I’d need a whole post dedicated to the topic. You can also check out

from Plant Therapy with even more information!

Our Favorite Immune Boosting Essential Oils:

: Germ Destroyer is designed to help boost your immune system and help you get over illnesses faster.  I diffuse it regularly, and also have it in a roller bottle. I love that unlike other popular immune boosting blends, this one is actually classified as safe for kids!

:  This blend helps keep you on track with a healthy immune system, and is also safe for kids!

:  Lemon is really high in limonene, which is a great natural immune booster.  Lemon is also known to help regenerate white blood cells, so it’s a must when you’re trying to avoid illness!

: This oil is great for respiratory problems.  The minute I start noticing my daughter sniffling or coughing, I break out this oil and diffuse it in her room.  We can usually end a cold before it fully takes hold by using Eucalyptus at night.

Other oils we use a lot to keep illnesses at bay include lavender, tea tree, peppermint, rosemary, and oregano. Of course, some of these are for

and not for the kids. Oils like peppermint and rosemary aren’t considered safe for kids. If you’re not sure, I highly recommend taking a look at Plant Therapy’s website. They’re so good at clearly marking the KidSafe oils!

I love using essential oils to keep my family healthy.  This is usually our first line of defense against cold germs, but we always use them in combination with other natural immune boosters that I’ll mention below.

Best Supplements to Boost Your Immune System

We all grew up taking vitamins, so it should come as no shock that we need them to stay healthy, right? When you’re trying to keep cold and flu germs at bay, you need a specific vitamins.

Probably one of the absolute

things you can do for your body, especially during cold and flu season, is to make sure that you are getting adequate amounts of

.  Most people are deficient these days, but this vitamin is so crucial to your overall health.  I’m not going to get into too much of the science behind it right here. Just know that taking vitamin D3 has been proven to reduce your risk of viral respiratory infections, among many other illnesses.  You can read more about the importance of vitamin D3

Another vitamin you should be taking for immune support is vitamin C.  This vitamin is more widely known to help fight off colds.  It can also be found in many foods other than oranges, such as broccoli and other greens.  Be sure you’re eating the right foods, and if you think you may need extra vitamin C support, add a supplement daily.

: We found a new family doctor this year who really supports our natural lifestyle, and our

experience with him was when the whole family came down with the flu. Yep. We hadn’t even come in and met him yet. Our new patient packet had just been accepted and

we were all down the same day. We went in and his number one recommendation was to take a

of Vitamin C and up our Vitamin D!

Foods that Boost our Immune Systems

I’m going to be a bummer for a minute. If you want to be healthy, you

need to reevaluate your diet. Things like sugar, wheat, and dairy and wreak havoc on our immune systems and put us in a constant state of inflammation.

Eat lots of leafy greens and focus on

. A good rule of thumb is to shop the perimeter of the grocery store. The aisles mostly have junk that’s not designed to actually nourish your body.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, there are also certain food products that we actually take similarly to supplements. These are especially helpful when we feel sick!

Some of the foods we use to boost our immune system are:

Raw Apple Cider Vinegar: There are so many benefits to drinking raw apple cider vinegar.  Be sure you buy the kind “with the mother,” (it’ll say so on the label).  Apple cider vinegar helps fight flu and stomach bugs, allergies, sinus infections, and even has antibiotic properties.

Check out this post

for more info on apple cider vinegar.

Raw Local Honey: This is different than the honey-like products you can usually find in the grocery store.  Make sure you are buying a raw honey.  The more local to you, the better.  Not only does a spoonful a day help fight off seasonal allergies, but it also has antiseptic and antioxidant properties that can help boost your immune system.  You can read more about using honey for your health

Raw Garlic: When taken raw, there is evidence that garlic can help boost your immune system, and even help prevent viruses from taking hold in your body.  It’s rough, but I tend to chop up a clove of garlic into small pieces and swallow it like a pill.  You can also infuse it into olive oil to help with ear infections.

Why We Use Elderberry Syrup

Are you using Elderberry syrup, yet? I was introduced to it a few years ago, and now we take it regularly. It’s been a game changer here.

If you’ve never heard of elderberry syrup before, or you’re not really sure what the use is,

here is some reading for you

. My family each takes a teaspoon daily, especially when we are at the highest risk of getting sick.

We usually buy ours from a local shop, but in a pinch, we also grab

and really like it.

Learn how to boost your immune system and stay healthy this school year!