Gillian McKeith's Food Bible (354 page)

Other teas to include are nettle, fennel, ginger, rose hip, licorice, and dandelion.

Take the lymphatic herbal extract cleavers.

EXTRA TIPS

Get outside in fresh air and daylight every day. Daylight resets our daily rhythms by its action on the pineal gland. Fresh air is great for increasing oxygen levels to the brain and other organs. Have a brisk walk and swing your arms to get your circulation going. Cycling, jogging, and skating are also great for circulation and improving mood.

Turn down the heating. Central heating creates an environment in which bugs can thrive. Put on a sweater and move around at regular intervals to keep the circulation going.

Go on a winter course of good bacteria. Viruses thrive in yeasty guts, so take care of your internal garden by replenishing it with good bacteria. People tend to get ill more easily when there is an imbalance between good and bad bacterias. Try to get high-potency powdered versions that require refrigeration.

Always have some raw food with every cooked meal, as the food enzymes from raw foods will help to keep you strong. Eating too much cooked food can compromise your immune system, as research has shown that it puts white blood cells on constant alert, which is weakening to immunity.

Get a lymphatic drainage massage to help to move lymph through your lymphatic system, the body’s drainage network.

Dry skin brush daily before taking a shower.

Practice thymus thumping. Make a fist and tap below the neck area 20 times. This will give a bit of a wake-up call to your thymus gland. If the thymus is weak, the body becomes more
susceptible to immune-related problems. By getting the lymph moving through the thymus gland, the lymph fluid will make contact with immune-building white cells, which are there to seek out foreign invaders before it is returned to the blood for circulation. Just give it a helping hand.

Learn stress-relieving techniques. For example, if the thymus is subjected to undue stress, it then becomes more vulnerable to oxidative injury caused by free radicals. In effect, the thymus contracts. This creates a domino effect, whereby the thymus is hampered or unable to properly provide many of the lymphocytes to fight infection in the blood. The person is then a victim of constant problems. This is a critical point, because if we nourish those key immune organs and body parts, we strengthen immune response.

Buy a trampoline and jump up and down daily for 20 minutes to get that lymph moving.

WORMS