These Three Habits are Hurting Your Immune System

A healthy immune system is one of the driving forces behind a healthy individual. Your immune system directly relates to how good you feel and if feeling good is what you desire, it is best to make sure your immune system is functioning as best as it can. Unfortunately, some self-destructive habits can negatively impact your immune system, such as these three.

1. Being Constantly Stressed Out

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While many people still think stress is all in the head and doesn’t actually affect our bodies, this is very wrong. A few different studies have shown that stress can have a very negative effect on your immune system. This includes things like: healing wounds slower, increased chance of getting a cold and a weaker fight back against infectious diseases. Cortisol (which is produced by stress) can also hurt the function of infection fighting cells.

2. Smoking

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As if you needed another reason to stop smoking, it is also hurting your immune system in addition to the multitude of other problems it can cause. There are more than 4,000 different chemical compounds in cigarette smoke and those are not good for your body. There is really no reason to be smoking, and your immune system (along with the rest of your body) will thank you. While it may not be easy to quit, it can be done, and you should do all in your power to make it happen.

3. Living a Sedentary Lifestyle

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It is not rare to find someone who does absolutely no exercise at all and that is a scary thought. Not exercising or keeping active is one of the worst things you can do to your body. Tons of different diseases like high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes can be made much better just by exercising a little. All of these can weaken you and make you more susceptible to other illnesses and infections as well. The lesson here is to do all you can to get at least in a little bit of exercise nearly every day.