Most of us want to be healthy and happy people and as a result there are loads of products on the market to help improve our immune systems.  They may well be very good however you don’t strictly have to buy a bottle of pills to build your immune system.  Here are a few unusual yet effective techniques you might want to try out.

1.  Cold Showers
As strange as this might sound, taking a cold shower every day can increase your immune system.  Now this isn’t the ramblings of some health nutcase.  Proper bona fide scientists have done some experiments to prove that cold showers are good for you.

After you have had your morning shower, turn the temperature down to as cold as possible and stay there for a couple of minutes.  For those who have done this, the t-cells in the blood have increased in quantity and activity, therefore increasing the immune system.  

Scientists have also tried it out with mice by exposing them to cold water stress over a period of 8 days and found they survived a lot longer when exposed to the intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii.

A study in Prague also showed that when men took cold baths the levels of monocytes and lymphocytes increased.  When this occurs, you will find that the body is better equipped to fight off viruses, toxins and pathogens.

2.  Skin Brushing
If you always thought that skin brushing was simply a way of getting rid of dry skin you’d be wrong.  There are health benefits that go much more than just skin deep.  If you learn to do skin brushing properly you can actually help cleanse the lymphatic system.

Most people have either never heard of the lymphatic system or aren’t really sure what it is.  Well, basically it’s a fluid that runs around your body and there is even more of it than blood.  Sometimes it can become sluggish and it can end up blocked.  When this happens you will often notice a lump in your underarm or groin.

If you allow your lymphatic system to become blocked you become more susceptible to a variety of ailments such as headaches, fatigue, depression as well as viral infections.

3.  A Dirty House
Do you ever watch the TV show “How Clean Is Your House?”  Kim and Aggie never cease to be amazed and disgusted by the squalid homes that some people live in.  They frequently take samples of the dirt and grime for lab analysis only to discover that there’s a level of bacteria in the home that could kill an elephant.

However, if this is the case, why is it that the occupiers of the house always look perfectly healthy?  Well, it’s because they have built up an immunity to all these germs.  Think about it, did our ancestors know half of what we know about germs today?  Of course not.

Humans have evolved to come into contact with germs and the more exposure to them we get, the more chance our bodies have of developing an immunity to them. 

Every now and then you hear of westerners going to visit people in some remote village in the Amazon.  Unfortunately one of the westerners will have a common cold and pass it on to the local people.  Because the local people have never come into contact with the western germs some of them end up dying.  Yet to us westerners, the common cold is little more than an inconvenience.

This is an extreme example however it goes to show that we need to give our bodies a chance to develop an immunity.  I’m not saying that we should all be living like the people on “How Clean Is Your House?” but do you really need to be so obsessed with cleaning every surface of your home with bleach?

DISCLAIMER:  Please note that I am not a doctor and the above article is simply my opinion.  If you have any health problems you should always take the advice of your doctor and not some person you’ve never met before off the internet.