by Ann Zimmerman, L.Ac.

A healthy immune system protects you against seasonal cold’s, flus, and the wear of day to day stress. The witer seasons puts added pressure on your immune system with it’s cold damp weather, limited sunlight and increased time spent inside. It is during winter that we often notice the limitations of our immune system and look toward that will protect us from illness.

At Middleway, we believe that acute illness patterns are treated differently, depending on the presenting symptoms. However, when we are not acutely ill, there are some general recommendations and products that seem to be universal in their ability to strengthen the body and lessen the effects of stress.

Our top 10 list of ways to protect your immune system:

1. Get adequate rest/downtime
2. Eat healthy food: Limit sugar and fried foods
3. Drink plenty of water, stay hydrated
4. Do some kind of movement/exercise everyday
5. Drink green tea
6. Take a daily high quality vitamin (especially if you know your diet is lacking veggies, fruits and whole grains)
7. Medicinal Mushrooms
8. Additional Vitamin C and D
9. Take Probiotics, such as acidophilus
10. Immune enhancing/protecting herbs

Our clinic offers several different Chinese herbal pills and tinctures to protect and strengthen the immune system. This includes a full herbal apothecary of individual Chinese herbs, that are individually formulated for optimal effect.We also carry an assortment of other supplements. We have done a lot of research to find out what companies have the highest quality products that are the easiest for the body to absorb and operate an environmentally sustainable business. We are very impressed by the company “New Chapter.” Their product line of vitamins, minerals, herbs, probiotics, ect, are made up of bioavailable organic foods.

This is very unusual in the supplement world. Most vitamins are chemically based simulations of naturally occuring substances. Although the synthetic vitamins/minerals may be cheaper to buy, in most cases they are not fully absorbed by the body. The body does not read the substances as food and simply eliminates them via your urine, so the money saved is actually wasted. In our clinic we carry “New Chapter” because we have seen patients who take high quality products heal faster and stay healtheir. We current carry women’s and men’s vitamins, probiotics, medicinal mushrooms, immunity take care lozenges, vitamin C, zyflammend, and calcium/magnesium.

To learn more about “New Chapter” follow this link:
www.newchapter.com