Getting back into your gym routine after a season of illness can be hard. To help you get back to your best self, Mingara One Trainer Abi has shared his top ten tips to help boost your immune system.

1. Mindfulness

When discussing mindfulness, we tend to think about meditation, and although that is a really important part of mindfulness, it’s not just that –  mindfulness could be anything that is centering yourself and keeping yourself very relaxed or in a state of peace. Practicing mindfulness could include meditation, but it could also be attending a Yoga or Pilates class, breath work, or even going for a walk out in the sunshine. Mindfulness is anything that is going to assist with eliminating the stress of life to allow you to center yourself.

2. Movement

You can move your body in many different ways, but all it comes down to doing something that is going to create a small stressor in your body. Remember, without stressor, we don’t get any adaptation so we can’t grow and keep moving forward. Examples of movement include: hiking, swimming, playing a team sport, hanging out with your kids or taking the dog for a walk. It is anything that gets your body moving which results in us feeling healthier and happier.

3. Strength training

Strength training is a very important part of staying healthy, especially as we age. It helps to reduce our risk of osteoporosis or brittle bone disease, and to amplify the amount of muscle tissue that we’re holding – this doesn’t mean we’re going to look like a body builder, but we want sufficient amounts of muscle tissue so that when we’re progressing into our older years we stay strong and stay healthy.

4. Hydration

Our bodies are predominantly made of water. Staying hydrated is an incredibly important part of not only our general health and wellbeing, but also the longevity of our cells. Drink more water than usual on hot days and when you’re exercising, to help supplement the water that you’ve already lost through sweat. Drinking small amounts of water frequently throughout the day is a great way to stay hydrated.

5. Eat your fruits and vegetables

Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables is incredibly important. Individual fruits and vegetables are going to give us different benefits, so it makes sense to have a lot of variety. When you are out grocery shopping, think color and variety when you’re buying your fruits and vegetables.

6. Protein

Protein is incredibly important to our health and wellbeing. It is important to not only get a sufficient amount of protein, but a good variety of protein. Regardless if you’re a vegan, vegetarian or carnivore, it makes sense to be able to have a lot of different strands of protein from a variety of sources e.g. tofu, chicken, red meats, fish. I believe you should be consuming protein every single meal of the day.

7. Stress Management

Stress management is an incredibly important part of not only your psychological state, but your physiological state as well i.e. your mind and your body. Acknowledging when you are in a stressed out state is important so that you can get on top of it quicker. As human beings we’re only designed to handle acute stresses rather than chronic stress. When facing a stressful scenario, remember to just take a second to breathe and allow yourself to calm down before you execute any action on the situation.

8. Gut Health

Most of the neurotransmitters in our brain are created in our gut, which is created from the nutrients that we consume. Make sure that you’ve got a wide variety of good quality, healthy nutrients in your diet to help ensure that you’ve got a healthy gut microbiome (the environment in your gut). Keeping an eye on what you consume is going to ensure that your intestines, stomach and gut lining are healthy. It also means you are going to have really healthy brain.

9. Sunlight

Vitamin D has a positive impact on every single cellular response in our body. Spending time in the sunshine is not only going to keep us healthy in a physiological sense, but it’s also incredibly relaxing. Going for long walks in the sunshine or to the beach has great benefits. Sun shining on your skin is how Vitamin D is absorbed into our body. Remember always be smart when in the sun – Slip, Slop, Slap.

10. Supplementation

Everybody’s needs are going to be very different when it comes to supplementation. The best way of figuring out which supplements you need is to visit your local GP to get some blood work done. You want to ensure that you are in healthy ranges, and supplement the differences of imbalances within your body e.g. taking multivitamins and fish oils, depending on what you need. Supplementation only needs to make up a very small part of your dietary intake to assist, alongside nutrition, training, hydration, sleep, and stress management. Supplementation just gives us that icing on the cake.

I’d love for you to share your favourite ways to get moving with us. Remember to always seek advice from your GP and medical professionals.

Hope to see you in the gym soon!

Abi