imune system

https://www.nytimes.com/guides/smarterliving/improve-your-immune-system

Both you and your immune system need rest.

One of the world’s least valuable clichés is that you can sleep when you die. Much truer is: If you don’t sleep, you will die — sooner. Studies show that lack of sleep leads to premature death through diseases like cancer and heart disease, and the reasons have everything to do with the immune system, notes the Mayo Clinic.

When you don’t sleep, your adrenal hormones don’t shut off, which leads to some dampening of immunity, much like when you’re in fight-or-flight. And research shows that lack of sleep leads to a decrease in first-line immune-system cells known as Natural Killer Cells. If you don’t sleep, you are more susceptible to bacteria and viruses.

But research also shows a rise in “pro-inflammatory” signaling when you don’t sleep enough. What follows can be depression, more stress and a cascade of clashing signals.

“It’s a badge of honor to see how little sleep you can get by on,” said Dr. Michael Irwin, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at U.C.L.A for my book, "An Elegant Defense." “That crazy logic has led to a sleep-deprived society, and that is having huge health consequences.”

Spend Time With Dirt

Exposure to a great variety of germs can help us stay healthy.

The immune system evolved in a time of great peril. Over epochs, we lived in squalor, with abundant disease and without modern tools to sanitize our food, water and homes.

Today, we have all kinds of tools to clean our environments — antibacterial soaps and disinfectants, and a hypochondriac’s obsession with wiping down every surface. But research shows that when we cleanse our entire world, we deprived our immune system of its natural need to learn and spar. And with all our hygiene, we not only cleanse pathogens but also lots of non-threatening microbes that help train the immune system without any harm to us.

The result? A sharp rise in food and skin allergies in industrialized countries. Allergies are basically the immune system creating inflammation in a body in response to something that doesn’t really cause much of a threat. This happens, the science suggests, because people grow up in such sanitized environments that immune systems don’t calibrate properly to the natural world.

It's okay to eat dirt, said Dr. Meg Lemon, a Denver doctor who treats people with allergies and autoimmune disorders.

She was only half-kidding. A few encounters with viruses and bacteria today might forestall an allergy tomorrow. What won’t kill you — and most of the world won’t kill you — will bring balance to your immune system.