Supporting Winter Immunity

Winter is often colder and harsher but it's also an important time for priming our immune system and mental capacity to strengthen and adapt. In this episode I touch on the need for positive stress, or 'eustress', and its impact on our psycho-neuro immunology.

Transcript

Hello, Welcome to this podcast that was recorded at one of my live events. I hope it's of help to you. I want to talk about particularly immunity in winter. It's a very specific thing coming into this season where it's colder. In many ways it's harsher in terms of the senses and in terms of what is being asked of our body. It's also an incredibly important time for priming the immune system, For giving us what is called eustress, Which is the stuff that essentially makes us stronger. It's not the kind of stress that is distressing, Wears things down, But rather it creates a challenge to the system that it needs to be able to come back and adapt with strength. That is called hormesis within scientific term. Most people know that kind of eustress from things like weight-bearing exercise, Where bone has to have the signal of a little bit of stress to actually get the signals to regrow. That's a constant process. We need intellectual challenge, We need stimulation from others around us. That stuff is really important because what health really is, And our kind of measure of health, If you like, Is the capacity to adapt. We're not built to be healthy within this kind of modern term that everything's just okay, But it is about our capacity to adapt and change and shift. We expect our organism, The system expects to adapt and change and shift. A lot of the problems with modern living is homogenization, Everything just becoming the same. We have the same food all year round, We try to get the temperature the same, Rather than having these periods where it changes, It shifts, And we have to change and shift. That's really important as a context for talking about the immune system, Because our immune system is basically that part of us which is just constantly looking out for our ability to come back essentially to a resting state where we're able to regenerate, Rebuild. Things aren't being worn down or things that are attacking in don't come in and shift our DNA or change our expressions, Our ability to rebuild and to constantly have our system in orchestration. To see the immune system as something other than the rest of the body is only ever folly, Because we are whole, It's not that much of a stretch of the imagination to see that everything is in constant orchestration. The modern branch of science, Which is kind of like mind-body medicine if you like, Is psychoneuroimmunology, Which you could also call psychoneuroendocrinology, But it really says that our psychological landscape, Our nervous system landscape, Our immune landscape, If you add in the endocrine bit at the end, Our hormonal landscape, They are all part and parcel of the same thing. And that is only to name some body systems. It is all absolutely and utterly intertwined, And very much intertwined with our responses to the world around us. So that also comes in, Particularly within modern living, Into the realm of psychosocial stress, Which is the kind of stress that we modern humans tend to be exposed to, That which is of a more psychological, Social nature, And because we have these big front brains, Is emotional. We can have a consciousness of the stuff that's going on. I'm certainly not saying that animals don't have a consciousness at all, But I'm saying that the way we often analyse, Reduce down, Pull out, Look at, See the body in quite reductionist parts, Can mean that the level of trying to work out things, Interpret things, And choose to do things that are solving, Fixing, Is a large part of our modern world, As is decision making. Decision making is an absolute curse in the modern world. And if you're in the wild, Your choice would be, Can I find water or not? Not which of these 57 drinks available to me, Or shall I have? All of which are basically water and sugar in some form. That's pretty much really all they can boil down to. So that's very, You know, This stuff is really, It keeps us in these modes which are pretty reactive. And immunity, Like any part of the body, Has its place when it's reactive and non-reactive. And the words often gets used around the immune system is boosting the immune system, Which is an unbelievably clumsy and not that helpful terminology. So it implies our immune system is just something that is kind of lazy, Doesn't have much energy, And we need to get it going. And what we're looking for within immune responses is appropriate immune response. Like really we do anything, You know, Appropriate response to anything on any level. But appropriate helps us to have what is often termed immune modulation. So that is for immunity to be working in ways that are appropriate for where, You know, What's coming in, Where it finds itself. So that is not too little, Not too much. So we see in the modern world, And particularly within the realm of psychosocial stress, That a lot of people are going into what we would call sympathetic dominance, Which is where the fight or flight tone of the nervous system, The reactive, So that's the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, We tend to get stuck in it. And that's the place we can tend to have racing mind, Worry, Rumination, Feel we want to keep doing things, We don't want, You know, Coming down, Resting feels like it might be a bit of a precarious place, Particularly if we have chronic stress or trauma in the mix. And we get very used to the sense that normal is just keeping going, Doing more stuff, Having high expectations of ourselves or from others. So this is what psychosocial stress stuff. And where that tends to come in in the nervous system, Immune system, Is that when we're on that survival mode, That looking out for ourselves, That's not just in terms of the nervous system, But it's the immune system looking out for us as well. That was really doing that biochemical level. And the part of the immune system, I will come back to define parts of the immune system in a minute. Part of the immune system that just gets going immediately in a sense of an immediate protection in survival response is inflammation. So if you were running away from something or standing your ground to fight, So that's fight or flight, Then in the wild, You would expect that you might get wounded. Now, In the wild, Dying from bleeding to death or having an infection, Things that you would like to avoid. So inflammation is there as part of the stress response to bring both an expanding of the tissues and a bringing blood flow there to both seal the wound and to bring immune components to it, To stop bacteria coming straight into the bloodstream. So what we often have within people who have a lot of stress or are in that sympathetic dominance is what's often called low grade inflammation, LGI. Very, Very common as part of the picture behind what get deemed diseases of Western civilization. So those tend to be things that are inflammatory in nature and then are chronic degenerative in nature, Which should generally have inflammation behind them because it's in breaking down rather than building up mode. So things like heart disease, Diabetes, Arthritis. We also have the atopic inflammatory stuff like asthma, Hay fever, Eczema, Dermatitis, All of those things that are in that kind of inflammatory tone are incredibly common. And we tend to have quite a high prevalence of chronic degenerative disease in older age now. So those are part and they're well known. This is not, You know, Esoteric stuff. Huge swathes of research around inflammation and chronic degenerative disease around stress. So cortisol and inflammatory markers always go together in research studies around stress responses and in yoga and meditation studies as well. Those very, Very cogently bring those down. And it's that that tends to be where focus around modulating the immune system comes in as a route in. And being in low grade inflammation is exhausting. It's a tiring thing. It's keeping you going on alert. And what you get from that is cytokines, Inflammatory cytokines setting off the inflammatory response. So you can also have what's often referred to as cytokine sickness, Which is where you feel a bit fluey, A bit rubbish, Demotivated, Even depressed. Because cytokines cross the blood brain barrier to say, Don't be motivated. You need to spare the energy and go down into recovery states. So they are depressive in nature. They do suppress dopamine levels, Which is one of our mood and motivation neurotransmitters, Brain chemicals. So there's a very specific response to those. Now, People hadn't heard of cytokines generally, But cytokine storms are the thing that people with COVID has seen as most severe or even a mortality from COVID. It is that inflammation that people cannot resolve that is part of that pattern of that disease state. So it is also bound up in trauma stuff, Stress stuff, And often nutritional stuff that also tends to lead into inflammatory states as well. So that will be in terms of nutrition, That's lack of antioxidants in the diet. It's sugar in the diet. It's not enough healthy fats, Which coming into winter are really, Really key. So I'll come back to that, Because particularly if someone is vegetarian or vegan, They need to be very, Very mindful of getting enough healthy fats in the colder months when our body is expecting to get them more. And we need them for thermogenesis, For heat creation. So that leads into explaining a little bit about the immune system. And we have two branches. They interact. Some cells overlap within the immune system. But we have our innate immunity and our acquired immunity. Now, Most press, Most talk around immunity tends to go on the acquired stuff. Do we have antibodies for a particular pathogen coming in? That's where acquiring immunity against something coming in, Something that would be deemed harmful or a vaccine would be developed against it. And that is the acquired immune system, Which takes about six to eight weeks to function. So you have something coming into the system. There's a recognition of that. And then we create antibodies. It's a slow response. What happens once you have antibodies to something is there is a remembrance of it. The next time that comes in, The response is less severe because there's a quicker response mounted. Now, The innate immunity is the one that is quicker response. It's immediate and it's always immediate. It's always tracking. It's like the kind of vigilance that we have in our nervous system. We're always just checking if we're safe or not. You know, It's healthy, Very healthy to just be always knowing where the exits are to have a sense of the ground, Etc. And the innate immune system is always tracking that around. So it has what's called a nonspecific response. Now, Because that response is nonspecific, Often historically, It's been kind of painted as less sophisticated. Like it's a bit of a one size fits all. And it's the acquired immune system that's doing something more tailored and subtle, If you like. But we know a huge amount more about the innate immunity now. And also that good acquired immune response and action and utilization very much relies on the quality of your innate immunity. And it's our innate immunity that we can really interface with in terms of our own health and our own adaptation and our own resources, Because it's natural to get ill from things. You know, The idea that we eradicate illness, We sanitize our way out of being exposed to anything is not helpful for the immune system. It doesn't allow those adaptations, These shifts, These changes. And actually, A lot of the material that's coming in from the outside, We need to take into our DNA to understand what is happening in the world around us. That's a really important part of what's called the virome. So the body of viruses that we're always taking in, Millions when we breathe in every time, Every single time. So those are really key for us to have an interface with the outside world. It's when things get too much or our innate immunity doesn't handle them that things become kind of overwhelmed, If you like. So our innate immunity has several parts to it. Some of it is cellular. So it is more chemical. And some of it is more structural. So it will be boundaries like skin and like the surface lining of the guts, The lungs, The nose, Vagina, The anus and all of the organs and every kind of lining, Blood vessels. All of that really important barriers to check what's moving through the body because fluids are moving through absolutely and utterly continually. So the health and the replenishment of our boundaries is really, Really key. And particularly, You know, Our skin in terms of that psychoneuro immunological outlook, Our skin is the interface with nature around us. So when we go out and we get cold, We have connection with the elements. We get little bites, Little scratches. That's all extremely healthy for our immune system. We need that. When we don't get it, The immune system doesn't really know where the periphery is. And we can we can get a lot of our circulation, Particularly our lymphatic circulation, Our heart pumps blood out to the all of the periphery of the body from to the extremities. But our lymphatic system relies on us moving to move things out to the edges when we don't have good lymphatic flow. And that's a key part of our immune system because it's traveling those those immune cells to the body to all parts that need protection. You can see it in the skin. You get a lack of luster, Glow. And that's really a lack of kind of lymphatic flow up to the surface. One of these reasons like tapping, Rubbing, Rolling, Dry brushing, Really, Really useful because in many ways they emulate nature. And when we have clothes on all the time and we're not just getting out there in the elements, Then we're not necessarily getting that. That's here are my edges, Boundaries. That's also bound up in our emotional world. And here's where the immune system needs to be taken. So, For instance, People you can get a quite severe sepsis from tiny little cut on the little tip of your finger because often that doesn't get seen. It's really not unusual for people to get quite profound infections from things right out the periphery that just don't get often get seen by the immune system. So a large part, Another part of that structural part of the innate immunity is our microbiome, Which is on these boundary parts of us. So all through our gut, Our lungs, Microbiome, And they're all talking to each other. Any of our surfaces and anywhere that we invaginate, Which means something going in. And so that's around any of our genitalia, Around our mouth, Our nose, Our throat. We need really, You know, That's a huge part in many ways of outsourcing our immune system. So we evolved with this, That we evolved to have that as an interface with the world outside the microbiome everywhere. And for that to talk back in to our nervous system. So that's particularly from, You know, Any of these axes from the microbiome gut brain axis, The microbiome lung brain axis. It's all giving information back about the state of play. And also the skin. Really, Really crucial. Under scansania, The skin microbiome has gone up and up and up and up in recent years. And we have different populations across us. Hands have a very different microbiome population in terms of species, Different species all over us, Different amounts. Our hands are expecting to touch, To relate, To be touching all manner of things. And again, Interfacing with material from the outside world. So that microbiome is there for protection and communication. So when we deplete that microbiome on the skin, It is deleterious to our immune system and our immune modulation. And in many ways, It can kind of, It has the potential to shift us over into more inflammatory tones because we don't have that balance. And one of the things that tends to be quite problematic for modern humans is that we wash too much. We're overly clean and we tend to clean in very hot water. You wouldn't get very, Very hot water in the wild. So it's the temperatures, It's the amount we do, But it's also the chemicals that we use. The soap is fine. Soap, You know, Kills off viruses because it changes the pH. And so esters are part of the natural world rather than using very harsh things, Which go into the water tables as well and support that stress into the immune system by having all these things in the environment. And so letting ourselves have that relationship with things feeling a bit more alive and lively in relation to the natural world is what really supports us having the potential for immune modulation. So another part of that appropriate response, Particularly in terms of the gut wall, Is one of the largest body of immune material is in the gut. And a lot of that is gut associated lymphoid tissue. A huge amount of lymphatics come into the gut around here, Around the groin and then up into the collarbones and the throat. And we drain the lymphatics down through here. So we need kind of often like spine undulation movements or twists or undulating through the fascia really starts to move things through. And it's also very much a lymphatic pump and it allows us to have that motility through the gut that allows the gut microbiome to replenish. Then within the gut wall and within the microbiome are antibodies called secretory IgA antibodies. And they are one of the antibodies in the body that really works in an anti-inflammatory way. So it is where we have immune signaling that can say our resolve because inflammation, Like anything, Has a cycle. And the complete cycle, Like a stress cycle, Is a come up, A reaction and then a resolution. And we're always looking back to come back to resolution. That is a resting state. It is what's sometimes referred to as homeostasis. But we can also refer to it as allostasis, Which is a recognition that balance is subjective to where we are at any given moment, That it's a shifting thing. We're not just coming to one state, One place and that's balance. It's a mutable thing. And so the more that we can really attend to this gut environment and the gut layer, The more we're really attending to that boundary, That barrier, Which is essentially an extension of the skin or the skin is an extension of the guts, Depending how you look at it. Embryologically, They're very thin. It's like we're one donut shape. And if you imagine something like a sea squirt, Which is really basic, Our most basic shape, Where you've got a tube, Mouth, Anus and the body around it and around the tube, We're basically a very sophisticated version of that. So anything that goes in the mouth and comes out intact, Like a piece of sweet corn intact in the toilet bowl, It technically never entered your body because it never got broken down and went across the barrier of the gut into your bloodstream. So a lot of the barrier stuff, The boundary stuff within the body, Like our emotional boundaries, Are working out what you let in, What you let come close and what you keep away. And so there's that safety and response in terms of the whole of our body. So this is, Again, Bound up in our nervous system. The more that we are mindfully attending to being able to be responsive rather than reactive to things that come in in our world, The more things are able to resolve and settle back down into balance. And then we're not using up swathes of energy in unnecessary or inappropriate response. So within winter, We have another aspect come in, Which is really crucial for immunity throughout the whole year, Which is thermogenesis. So particularly, You know, In climes where it's colder in the winter, We have this point where our physiology is meeting the cold. And we tend now to be pretty cold intolerant or cold, Very sensitive, I. E. , Rather than going, It's cold, Right, Let's meet that. We can be a bit like, Well, Let's make ourselves warmer. So rather than giving ourselves the gift of actually going to our immune system and our nervous system, OK, Here's the challenge bit where we have this potential for hormesis. Remember that adaptation? And our body's expecting that. The seasons have come in. It can tell it's cold. Your body is changing metabolically to expect to create more heat. And this heat creation is thermogenesis as a eustress, A good stress, A healthy challenge. One of the things it does is it shifts us from creating more white fat, That which we lay down as storage, Into brown fat, That which is more metabolically active. So it used to be believed that just babies have brown fat, That the stuff that has more mitochondria basically is brown because it has more of these mitochondria. So those are little organelles, Which are small organs within cells, Little organelles that create our energy currency, Our ATP. And the more a cell is active, The more mitochondria it will produce. And that is seen in flesh as more brown and the same as in fat. And particularly as we now tend, And a lot of this is related to stress hormones and sugar, We tend to lay our fat down around our middle. That's the stuff that can be often white fat storage, White kind of adiposity. And it's shifting that over into brown fat, Kind of waking it up to be more metabolically active, Is a huge shift in our immune modulation as well. So there's plenty of studies been done in terms of things like these eustresses, Like intermittent fasting, Intermittent cold, Intermittent heat. So that would be, You know, Going to a sauna and then jumping into the snow, For instance. That stuff really has a massively, An epigenetic shifts our gene expression. And really it shifts us over from being tending to be more fat storage to more fat burning. We become more metabolically efficient. Now, The other things that do that are proteins and fats within diet. And then we have things like chili, Chocolate, Green tea, Things that caffeine, Things that heating, Ginger family, The mustard family, The wasabi and horseradish family. Those things that are really kind of the wintery stuff that they raise metabolism. Carbohydrates don't do that. What carbohydrates tend to do, And when I say carbohydrates, I mean anything in the plant kingdom. I don't just mean starchy carbohydrates in terms of grains, Pulses and tubers, Roots, Potatoes, But anything. I mean, Plants have fats and proteins in them as well, But they are mainly carbohydrates. So there's a density that we expect in the winter of fats and proteins that create heat. And that's very related to sugar consumption as well. So when we tend to be taking in more carbohydrates, More sugars, We produce more insulin in response. And it's insulin that tends to make us more fat storing than fat burning. And it can seed into the inflammatory response as well. And what can happen if we don't get enough fats and proteins, These really dense calories, These more thermogenic calories in the winter, Is we can start to crave sugar. Because we can turn it into fat. And you see this, And this is particularly, Can be particularly true after a few months of cold. We've not had enough fat in our diets and we can start to crave sugar more. And some of that can be about lack of light. So it can be about lowering serotonin levels. And we need insulin to make the amino acid that creates serotonin to cross the blood brain barrier. So we can crave sugar when serotonin levels are low. So there's a lot in that. But also fats and proteins can help regulate that as well. So part of this being able to meet immunity in the winter, Particularly if you have more of a plant-based diet, Is to really recognize when you need more fats and proteins. And you can see that when sugar craving goes up. But that can also, Might be also related to stress stuff. So we can regulate along the way there. But the more we're able to glean a tolerance in winter, The more we are able to have an ease that we meet this time of year that is a really healthy part of our seasonal movement with ways that create a little resilience, Hardiness. And we're able to move with ease rather than feel we brace ourselves at something that feels more challenging. And we can meet that with mindful holding of sensation as we would with any other sensation. Just one of the reasons that a physical practice within something like a yoga practice or other mindful practices is that is the opportunity to be with physical sensation and meditation to be with emotional, Emotionally generated sensation, If you like, So that we can have a relationship with them. We don't need to deem them good or bad. Just like when cold comes in on our skin, We can go, That's a sensation. How is that? Is it sharp? Is it prickly? Whatever it is, So that we don't have to have that really dangerous reaction and a bracing, A restricting of tissues around it. But rather, We can start to learn how to relax into it. And then we can feel our tolerance build. And that's one of the most helpful things. And the other helpful thing is really making sure we do get enough sunlight and therefore enough sleep in the winter months. So when we're not getting enough sunlight, We might not be ultimately producing enough melatonin, Which allows us to have really healthy sleep, Sleep quality, Not just quantity. Where we feel refreshed in the morning, Where we don't necessarily need huge swathes of it, But that we have periods of time where we can stay asleep for something like five hours at least for a night. So that allows us to regenerate. Everything is regenerating within sleep. It's a very parasympathetic action. It's that last phase of each sleep cycle where we go into the really deep brainwaves and we fully restore. But also that presence of melatonin itself is a really, Really important part of our immune system. Melatonin is a very important body-wide antioxidant. So it's one of the reasons that it ties into sleep and replenishment and something we might need to attend to. So if we're feeling that sleep is compromised in winter, Then it might be used as something like a light box. It might be really helpful. Okay. So that's a bit of an overview. And to recap in terms of immunity coming into winter, We can support our innate immunity. Our innate immunity is that which is nonspecific and generalized and always looking out for us. And we have these responses that are healthy. Inflammation is healthy. Fever is also healthy. We can tend to see them as bad because, Well, Fever we tend to have a bit of a dubious relationship with. It's a very healthy immune response. We need to let it happen and do its stuff. Inflammation tends to get held up, Particularly if we have stress in the mix. And we can have a healthy relationship with and really a sense of agency with relationship with our own immunity as well. In that we can look after ourselves in terms of our nutrition, In terms of bringing our stress levels down, Moving, Getting used to the cold and getting enough sunlight and even a light box. That's what we need.