The Immune System: Our Protector from Diseases

-By Dr (Hakim) Aslam Javed

For a healthy body, it is extremely vital to have a healthy and strong immune system. A strong immunity checks and terminates invading bacteria and viruses and protects your body from other pathogens that cause diseases and infections. Although, nature takes care of our immune system, we can boost its powers and infection-fighting ability by following a few simple precautions and steps to keep our health at optimum level. Below, there are a few such ways:

1: Healthy and nutritious diet:

To keep our immune system strong, we must take nutritious diet regularly. In fact, the main reason behind infections and diseases is lack nutritious diet. People tend to shift their focus on diet only when they get sick, which is wrong as we can prevent so many diseases by just being proactive and cautious. A healthy and nutritious diet not only keeps our blood circulation in a good condition, but also keeps our vital organs and bones healthy. It also keeps our body active and energetic; we live a full, active and enjoyable life. A healthy diet contains fruit and green vegetables along with sufficient amount of protein and carbohydrate-rich food items.

2: Drinking sufficient water:

Water is vital to keep our immune system healthy. People tend to drink less than required water which is unhealthy. A person should at least drink 8 glasses of water daily. Today, we have developed unhealthy habits such as quenching our thirst with carbonated drinks, coffee and tea and packaged beverages which contain a lot of sugar and fail to quench our thirst. All these drinks keep you away from the healthy habit of drinking water, so we should avoid these drinks and take water. Dehydration is another issue due to lack of water content in the body and it can cause severe conditions as well as death, so we need to drink water more frequently to keep our system well hydrated. Water not only keeps our immune system strong but also helps us to live energetically. Water also keeps our skin healthy and glowing.

3: Role of exercise:

Exercise regularly as it helps our immune system remain strong. Today, man is living a highly mechanized life, full of work and more work. He is always seen running from place to place and ignoring his health. He does not have any free time not only for others but himself as well. It is an irony that hospitals are full and public parks are becoming desolate places. The highly packed and busy schedule ultimately leads a man towards severe physical conditions as well as death. So, it is very necessary that one should devote at least an hour to his health and do some exercise. Exercise has not only numerous advantages but it also protects our heart. It keeps our muscles strong and protects our body from invading bacteria. In simple words, you can save yourself from lots of diseases by just exercising regularly.

4: Regular check-ups:

Get your check-ups done every year to know in advance of any disease in its early stage as treatment during this stage is more effective. We have a tendency to ignore our symptoms and avoid being tested due to fear of knowing a big disease. Finally, these symptoms turn grave, and take us to a hospital. Usually, we go for a test when our symptoms take an ugly shape, then it becomes tough for doctors to treat us fully and more effectively. So, a healthy man should undergo a few necessary tests occasionally to know of any disease in advance and its early stage, so that it can be treated in the budding stage and the immune system can be kept strong.

5: Sleep is a tonic:

A good and worriless sleep is vital to keep your body and mind healthy and active during the day. Nature has made our system in such a way that it works for years and years without the need of any electricity, battery or cell. A good sleep is like a battery that keeps our body recharged to take on a day's work. We should know that our body needs rest to get recharged, and sleep is the only thing that does this specific job; it's a tonic. We should sleep for 8 continuous hours as it keeps us away from stress, headache, body-ache and lack of energy and focus. Lack of good sleep is also one of the reasons that weaken our immune system, as we tend to live with tension and other symptoms that take place due to conditions like insomnia.

6: Avoid mental stress:

If you ask about the most common problem with every human being, you will get only one answer - stress. This is true that mental stress is the mother of several diseases. Due to stress, we get attacked by several physical conditions and it also affects our vital organs, ultimately weakening our immune system. There are many steps that can keep you away from stress. By following the above mentioned ways, one can avoid stress and keep his immune system healthy and boost its powers.

7: Avoid sugary food and drinks:

This is a free advice from doctors that if you want to keep your immune system strong, you should cut down on your daily sugar intake. The different variety of food and drink, as well as sweets, is basically like a poison for us. It eats up our body slowly and its first victim is our immune system. It is akin to a country with a weak military power which falls prey to an invading foreign army. The same way, if your immune system is weak, pathogens will take it as their food and your body will become an abode of diseases.

8: Avoid smoking:

Every cigarette packet contains the words of warning in bold red letters, telling that smoking causes cancer. But still people smoke! If you focus a bit on the dangers of smoking, you would know that each puff creates a mark on your lung and ultimately these marks take ugly shape, leading to lung collapse and various other potentially very harmful health conditions. Spitting blood is one such condition due to lung burn. Smoking eventually takes you towards the valley of death. A strong immune system ensures that invading pathogens cannot harm our body, so avoid smoking as it destroys our immune system.

9: Take vitamin D:

Vitamin D is found in fish, egg yolk as well as in the meat of animals which eat green grass. Consuming vitamin D is vital for everyone as it keeps our immune system strong.

10: Eat fruit and vegetables:

Grapes are full of immune system-enhancing powers and are delicious. Grapes have three such healthy qualities that are not found in any fruit except pomegranate. Grapes are heavy with nutrients and help in digestion as well as purify the blood. Grapes also produce fresh blood in the body. People with deficient blood should consume grapes in sufficient amount regularly.

On this topic, researchers from the University of Louisville have presented their reports which say, "The kind of attitude and thinking a man gives towards any of his problems affects his immune system similarly. A man who thinks positively also helps his immune system from being affected by that particular problem and hence it remains stronger."

According to experts, this psychological research is very good as it helps people to think positively and avoid negative thoughts. A positive thinking helps our body remain healthy and keeps our immune system strong. Contrary to this, those who think negatively about a health problem or an issue ultimately tend to deteriorate their conditions and weaken their immune system and may be attacked by conditions like heart failure and paralysis. So, avoid negative thoughts and depression and fight a problem with hope and dignity.

How you think about a problem affects the middle portion of your frontal head or back of your eyes. A positive thinking keeps this part of the brain healthy and less tense and hence it helps the rest of the body to remain in good condition and finally we are more able to fight a difficulty and defeat it. It also helps you to avoid taking the wrong paths such as smoking, drinking or going into depression which usually happens with those who think negatively and pessimistically. In other words, our senses affect our body heavily, so we need to tame these senses and remain psychologically strong always.

I have already written extensively on this topic in one of my articles telling people how much our thinking style and senses impact on our body. In this article I would like to add a few words in the light of this research. See, this latest research is not new and there had been so many researches on this topic. The fundamental issue is that we are not aware about the directions given by Allah and His prophet Muhammad (pbuh). And even if some people know about it, they know it either less or in a wrong way. The researchers tell the same thing which had been told 14 centuries ago by our prophet. If we surrender our intelligence to the holy book of Allah (The Quran) and the words of Muhammad, we will see that we have been told that we need to remain strong and positive in front of all difficulties as Allah helps the faithful to cross every difficulty with His grace. We do not need to be pessimistic about Allah's mercy and should always follow His words and keep faith in Him. Those who become pessimistic about Allah's mercy do not belong to the faithful.