Apocalypse is a word that is usually related to death or destruction.
And in current times, there is no shortage of religious fanatics who claim that the end of the world has already begun.
Apocalypse in Greek means “revelation,” which has a gentler tone. And it can be related to the awakening of millions of people who are finally understanding that having healthy habits can save their lives.
Here I am going to introduce you to the 4 horsemen of the immunological apocalypse. They are responsible for deactivating your defense system and leaving you without weapons to fight viruses, bacteria and germs.
Additionally, I will teach you what actions to take to confront any external aggressor who wants to violate your protective shield.
The world changed. Before and after this pandemic. As I always say, everything bad that happens to us has a positive side.
I imagine it is due to the physical principle of action and reaction or the balance of energies of the universe that we know as Ying and Yang. But it is necessary that we learn from the bad to take advantage of it and obtain the maximum benefit.
Thanks to the appearance of the Internet, it has become easier for us to have immediate access to tons of data. And if we add social networks to that, the information sources (which do not guarantee their veracity) and numbers of supposed experts who master countless topics increase exponentially.
Without knowing it, we began to suffer from a new phenomenon called INFOXICATION, which refers to the excess of information on a specific topic, which makes it difficult for us to analyze and compress it due to excess data.
We invest valuable time reading or listening to different opinions that generally contradict each other on the same topic. In the end, we don't know where to start, what to do and we end up in a state of paralysis.
What I don't understand is why most human beings procrastinate and need a great stimulus, such as a good scare, to start acting. We procrastinate, imagining that our problems will be solved by magic.
In this case I am referring to our health. All the implications of leading an unhealthy lifestyle are already widely known and, in any case, many do not decide to take control, knowing that sooner or later death will come knocking on their door.
Faced with an unprecedented threat, we are all scared, hopeless, and we want to find automatic solutions that boost our immune system to reduce the effects of the virus if we contract it and even prevent it from being lethal.
But since the cure is unlikely to fall from the sky, you must prepare to protect yourself from any current threats and those that may come later.
The best way to prepare for war is by knowing the worst enemies of your health, whom we decided to call the 4 horsemen of the immune apocalypse.
In the modern era, technology has made many daily tasks easier, but it also keeps us exposed for longer periods to our cell phones, computers, and televisions.
The high exposure to blue light produced by these devices alters the production of melatonin, which causes us to go to sleep late at night and not be able to get the recommended 7 or 8 hours.
Sleep is essential for health and survival. Even if you don't eat very well, you could live around 75 years. But if you don't sleep, your body is likely to collapse and you will die within weeks.
When it comes to your health, sleep plays a vital role. While getting more sleep doesn't necessarily prevent you from getting sick, not doing so could negatively affect your immune system, leaving you susceptible to a bad cold or case of the flu.
If you don't get enough sleep, the body produces less cytosines, a type of protein that attacks infections and inflammation, affecting the immune response.
Chronic sleep loss even makes the flu vaccine less effective by reducing your body's ability to respond.
If you want to know how to have a restful, quality sleep, I invite you to read the Simplified Guide to Sleep Like a Baby and Lose Fat While You Dream.
While stress alone cannot cause you to catch a cold or flu virus, it does weaken your ability to respond to invaders, leaving you more vulnerable to infection.
Your recovery is also likely to be slower, as the immune system is suppressed in favor of stress.
The body's response to stress must be self-limiting. Once the perceived threat has passed, adrenaline and cortisol levels decrease, heart rate and blood pressure return to baseline levels, and other systems resume their regular activities.
However, when stressors and "feeling under attack" remain constant, the fight or flight reaction remains active, overexposing the body to cortisol and other stress hormones.
Cells of the immune system (and other body systems) cannot respond normally and levels of inflammation occur that increase the risk of additional health problems.
Stress can also have an indirect effect on your immune system if you resort to unhealthy coping strategies, such as smoking or drinking too much caffeine and alcohol, eating too much sugar and processed foods, not sleeping well, and not exercising.
Mood and attitude have a tremendous impact on the immune system. When we are happy and optimistic, it works well. But when we are stressed, negative and in a low mood, our immunity also tends to be low.
Beyond immediate satisfaction, the positive effects of sugar on health are very few.
Eating too much sugar can affect the brain and body, including an increased risk of cavities, weight gain, cognitive decline, and contracting diseases.
Its negative impact is a complex interaction of hormonal, metabolic and immunological processes that can seriously threaten human health.
And its harmful effects can be immediate:
In fact, obese people have fewer white blood cells with a reduced ability to fight infections. That impact can be cumulative and far-reaching.
Sugary processed foods can also deplete the nutrients of other foods and, for this reason, the body needs to deplete its reserves of vitamins and minerals essential for the functioning of the immune system.
What you eat can determine whether you get sick or not.
We all have trillions of tiny bacterial cells living in our intestines, which help break down food, absorb nutrients, and keep out toxins.
It turns out that these cells thrive on what we feed them. So when we give them too many chemical additives and saturated trans fats, we really affect the entire ecosystem.
This is how processed food affects the body:
And as we continue to bombard our bodies with more processed foods, our immune cells overreact and inflammation begins to spread throughout the body.
This chronic inflammation impairs our immune system's ability to respond when we come into contact with the flu and other contagious diseases.
Do you want to delve deeper into this topic? I recommend you read the post Processed foods damage your immune system and intestinal health
When we move, exercise and have a healthy lifestyle, the white blood cells in charge of the body's defenses increase and make us more resistant to attacks by bacterial, viral or fungal pathogens.
The human body was designed to move. For thousands of years, that's what humans did. Much of it was for survival: gathering food, escaping predators, and migrating to more forgiving lands.
Even as humans advanced, our bodies were in motion.
Long days of farm work, commuting to the city for school or searching for supplies, and other factors of daily life meant there was little time for our ancestors to rest on their laurels.
However, in the mid-20th century, technological advances, the increase in automobile use, and the shift from physically demanding jobs to office work began to displace our physical activity.
Today, when we have more options than ever in almost every aspect of life, most choose to be sedentary and stay at home watching the latest Netflix series.
The World Health Organization estimates that lack of physical activity is associated with 3.2 million deaths each year.
A 2017 study of 3,141 adults over the age of 50 concluded that the effects of not moving vary depending on their level of frailty. The researchers found that the highest level of frailty experienced the most severe impact. (1)
Although the dire consequences of a sedentary lifestyle are already known, it doesn't hurt to make comparisons.
A sedentary lifestyle causes the same number of deaths as tobacco, according to a study published in the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet. (2)
The publication says that physical inactivity is causing no less than 5.3 million deaths worldwide, a not inconsiderable figure to think that physical exercise is, without a doubt, the greatest medicine.
These millions are similar to the deaths that occur from smoking.
I don't want to miss a topic that has too much influence on your health and has a lot to do with the 4 horsemen of the immunological apocalypse.
Did you know that for years we have been experiencing another pandemic, apparently silent because it does not scare us, but that each year kills more people than viruses, influenza and the flu combined?
Well, if you didn't know, obesity causes 300 thousand deaths a year. And if you add to that the deaths due to diseases related to overweight and obesity, the alarming number increases to 2.8 million annually.
I want to show you these figures that I obtained from the WHO website: (3)
If we analyze the data, we can realize that this problem is a time bomb and is affecting more and more people. And sadly this pandemic DOES affect children.
There are more and more headlines in the newspapers like these:
I don't know how many more people have to die before we open our eyes and decide to end this problem that concerns us all.
It turns out that they are all interconnected and, if we do not treat them in time, it will be the end of our existence.
According to the CDC website, the group of people most likely to suffer serious illness and even die are: (4)
As I already mentioned, being overweight and obese triggers a host of problems and diseases.
Well, it turns out that the 4 horsemen of the immunological apocalypse, in addition to reducing the defense capacity of our immune system, are also responsible for causing our body to begin to accumulate extra pounds, causing us to become overweight and later qualify as obese. .
I don't want to scare you, but almost all of us are overweight and we don't know it.
Is it hard for you to believe? I invite you to look for a measuring tape and measure your waist so that you can compare the result with the data that I am going to provide you below:
What is your measurement? Are you in a healthy, at-risk, or high-risk range?
Most people fall into the risk range and that means they are overweight.
Now see how each rider can affect your weight:
And you could present hormonal imbalances, a decrease in your metabolic rate and increased anxiety about eating foods high in sugar and fat. One night of poor sleep can cause you to eat 300 to 400 extra calories that day.
Well now you know why you are eating more than necessary and have cravings for junk food all the time.
Statistically, people gain 2 pounds a year even if they maintain good eating habits. If you don't exercise, how much will you weigh in 10 years?
Remember that overweight and obesity cause a state of constant inflammation in your body, which triggers a variety of pathologies, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular problems, high blood pressure, non-alcoholic fatty liver, sleep apnea, cancer, depression, anxiety , among many others.
It is a vicious circle that many cannot seem to escape from.
Maybe the answer seems simple and you may not like it: start moving towards a healthy lifestyle, be patient and make progressive changes to ensure that they are sustainable over time.
To combat lack of sleep:
To reduce stress levels:
If you still can't reduce your stress levels, I recommend purchasing our ebook Stress and the immune system: A complete guide to controlling it that will keep you away from diseases.
To eliminate sugar and processed foods:
To leave aside a sedentary lifestyle:
If you follow these steps, little by little your health will begin to improve and your immune system will be prepared to confront the 4 horsemen of the immune apocalypse.
The best thing is that you will feel full of energy, happy and eager to conquer the world.
Remember that you have the power to change!
