7 Ways Exercise Boosts Your Immune System
Leading a healthy lifestyle has many major health benefits, including the drastic reduction in chronic disease over a lifetime. One of the most underrated benefits is bolstering your immune system against communicable diseases like viruses and bacteria. Exercise:
1. Enhances the body's immune response and improves defense activity.
There are lots of fitness myths, and one of the most prevailing ones is that vigorous exercises depresses your immune system for a time after your workout. After more study, it’s been shown that it’s the exact opposite. Unless you’re an elite athlete grinding out training sessions to prep for a big event, daily exercise is important for our immunity for a few reasons:
It stimulates the exchange of active immune cells between the tissues.
It improves anti-pathogen activity in our cells.
It enhances circulation of antibodies and anti-inflammatory signaling, and mobilizes cells that kill infectious intruders.
It helps our bodies prioritize which cells to mobilize when there is a pathogen in our system.It builds up strong immunity over time.
With regular exercise, these acute changes build on a strong foundation to improve immune defense activity and metabolic health.
2. Relieves stress, which suppresses the immune system.
Of the many cascading benefits of exercise, stress reduction is one of the strongest reasons to workout regularly. Exercise reduces your body’s production of cortisol (a stress hormone) and adrenaline, as well as stimulating production of endorphins (a natural painkiller and mood elevator).
Stress hormones suppress the immune system by altering our body’s response to pathogens, decreasing numbers of natural killer cells and slowing down communication about an intruder. By relieving stress, you improve your immunity naturally, but there are other ancillary benefits, like better sleep.
3. Improves inflammation levels.
Inflammation is a necessary part of our body’s immune response, but too much can lead to chronic diseases like diabetes, arthritis and more. Inflammation can cause excess cellular and tissue damage, which can be tough to reverse, and can have a lasting impact on our immune function. One study suggested that even 20 minutes of moderate exercise could make a huge difference in reducing overall inflammation.
4. Delays immune aging and improves immune regulation.
As we get older, our systems age with us, eventually becoming more susceptible to infections, autoimmune diseases and more. What’s great is that we can shape our immune status later in life with proper exercise and nutrition.
Not only does regular exercise mean better circulation of immune cells, it regularly doses us with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. The combined effect of daily activity over a lifetime is crucial in modulating many disease processes and delaying the onset of age-related issues.
5. Lessens cravings and cuts down on unhealthy eating habits.
Moderate- to high-intensity workouts have been shown to have a positive influence on our appetites. Even though we need more calories when we regularly exercise, it’s been shown that our satiety (feeling full) is enhanced when we’re active.
Anecdotally, we just make better choices overall when we’re fit -- whether it’s because we want to maintain our fitness level or just don’t have the cravings we otherwise would if we weren’t so active. By reducing cravings (which are commonly for sugar and fat), we reduce inflammation and burden on our body’s metabolism, leading to better outcomes for our immunity.
6. Boosts metabolism, which could improve immune cell function.
We know that regular workouts create a higher demand for calories within your body. A new field known as immunometabolism suggests that having a good metabolism could be linked to better immune function. Basically, when your body fights infection, it increases the metabolic demand on your body. When your metabolism is working properly, this is a much more efficient process for your immune cells, reducing the overall burden on your system.
7. Could improve the gut microbiome.
Recent studies have suggested that exercise might have a beneficial role for gut health. Overall reduction of inflammation in the body due to exercise has been linked with greater biodiversity in the gut. Better gut health means a faster and more efficient response time when there’s an intruder.
Sources:
The compelling link between physical activity and the body's defense system, David C.Nieman
How Exercise Might Affect Our Food Choices, and Our Weight, NY Times
Homeostatic and Non-Homeostatic Appetite Control, Kristine Beaulieu
Exercise and Circulating Cortisol Levels, E E Hill
Exercising to relax, Harvard Medical School
Stress-induced immune suppression, Michael Irwin
Suppressive Effects of Stress on Immune Function, Firdaus S Dhabhar
20 minutes of exercise enough to reduce inflammation, Medical News Today
Exercise has the guts, RobertoCodella