Today I wanted to share with you a quick episode about my top three three tips for helping immunity this winter. If you're like me and you've got kids, or you're just out and about in the world, which is all of us, you are probably picking up some type of cold or virus and it's probably driving you crazy, just like me. So I wanted to share with you some of my top tips. The top three things that I'm finding are really helping with me this winter and I do want to say that they're really easy tips. They're to do with our general lifestyle. Whole food, food tips. These are the things that have worked for me and I of course want to share them with you because I want you to have the most fulfilling and beautiful winter you can without having to feel like you're stuck indoors sick the whole time. Now, before we get into the episode about the immune tips, I am going to share with you the giveaway winner for my May favourites. So if you remember, back at the end of May, I shared my favorites and I let you know that I was going to do a giveaway for anyone who wanted to entertain. They could leave a review on Apple Podcasts with their Instagram handle and I would pick one winner. So I just wanted to say thank you so much. You are just so incredible, beautiful, thoughtful and I value all your feedback so much. I am doing this because I genuinely want to connect with you and reach you and give back to you and I just love it. So that is my why. It is to share with you that you have the potential to live your dreams, dream life. You can just go for it in health, wellness, lifestyle, personal style, self love, everything and anything you dream of, you can do it. So you just sometimes need a bit of motivation. And I just love your feedback because I know that you are all loving these episodes too. The winner of the May giveaway is actually someone who is a longtime follower of mine and she's always so supportive and she left such a beautiful review. The winner is AC Bear. That's her Instagram handle and I wanted to read to you the review because it is so thoughtful and just meant the world to me. So I'm going to read that to you now. She said, absolutely love all things elise, my number one listen to podcast. My go to for all things Munlife, health and wellness and productivity. Inspired to be is an all round podcast for all aspects of life. And I absolutely love Elisa's outlook on her life and vibe. She is so uplifting and beautiful, a one of a kind soul. I'm so glad our paths cross, beautiful lady and keep being the amazing you and impact you're having on women all around the world. How thoughtful and beautiful is that? Like, it just means so much to me that you took the time to put those words together. So thank you so much. You are going to win the May giveaway and keep tuned, keep your ears tuned for the next giveaway. I think this one was more suited to Apple podcasts and I'd like to do one that's also available to spot listeners as well. So I'll hopefully have another one up soon. So with all that being said, let's jump into my top three tips for helping your immunity this winter. So my number one tip, and I'm not sure if you've tried it before, but I hands down think it works for me. Oh, by the way, I wanted to just give a little reminder that I'm obviously not a health professional. This is just personally what has worked for me on my health and wellness journey. Things that I found helpful. I am studying functional nutrition, which I find really interesting, but my intent is not to ever have clients or anything like that. It's just personal interest. And so I guess I'm sharing my journey and what works and you are free to take it or leave it or take it to your health professional and see what their opinion is on it. But this is particularly what has helped me and worked for me. So number one is olive leaf extract. Have you heard of it? I don't know if you have, but it's available so easily. You can get it in your health food shop. I think you can buy it in chemist warehouse and it is really highly filled with antioxidants. Olive leaf extract is actually thought to have antiviral properties, which I think is so cool. And in researching olive leaf extract more, I actually found some studies that have been mainly done at a cellular level. So in science labs, you know, looking in microscopes and things, there haven't really been any comprehensive human trials. But I will say that I'm the type of person who, when I read information and if it's positive and it's an easy thing to do and it's to do with, like, whole foods and natural sources, I think, why the hell not? So this is one of those times I'm like, why the hell would you not do this? If it potentially could impact your health for the better, do it anyway. The research that has been done has been done on, like, really small groups of people. So one that I found out was this group of high school students where I think they did, I can't even remember how many students they did, maybe like 30 students, and they gave half of them a placebo and half of them took olive leaf extract, and they took it consistently for about eight or nine weeks, I think. And basically, when you have olive leaf extract, it's like taking a shot and it's all natural, but it's so strong because I think it's like an extract from something that's super potent that I personally feel like when I take it, it's almost like taking a shot. Like, it burns your throat a little bit. It's obviously not alcoholic, and you can give it to kids from a certain age. So as an adult, you take like, 15 mils in a little cup, shot it every day. But as a kid, I think the. The dosage is smaller and you'll have it like, two times a day. And what I personally have found before I get into the research study is that if I'm feeling like I'm coming down with something, I'm getting a cold, I'm feeling really tired. I just feel like, you know that feeling where you're like, oh, I think, you know, it's touch and go. I think maybe I'm going to come down with something. I'll take it for, like, three or four consecutive days. And I feel like it helps my body fight whatever is going on. So you can actually take it all the time. And it has other helpful properties as well. It's meant to help with heart health. Obviously, it's great to have all these antioxidants to help fight free radicals, just from daily life ins and outs. But I personally only take it when I feel like I need a bit of a boost because I don't find it that enjoyable. I recently bought the one that's, like, got a peppermint flavor as well. And I personally don't love the peppermint one. I feel like I may as well just shot the original one. Simon, my husband, he likes the peppermint one. He doesn't mind shooting it. He doesn't find anything wrong with it. So it's such a personal preference. But hands down, I think it really helps my body to fight off anything that is kind of coming. Zara, my eleven year old, she also agrees. She hates shotting it, but to the point where she also thinks that if she has it for a few days, if she's feeling coming down with something, that it helps. So I personally think that it helps. Anyway, in this study, these people took olive leaf extract consistently for, I think, nine weeks. And basically at the end of the nine weeks, they were obviously following them through the nine weeks. And what they found was that the people that took the olive leaf extract, whenever they picked up a virus or something, they fought it off quicker. So anyone that picked up any like, upper respiratory virus, they tend to recover more quickly than the people who took the placebo. It lasted with them longer and they didn't recover as fast, which I think is really cool. So it's not saying that it's going to prevent you from picking up anything, but it definitely helps in you fighting it off. More recently because of this, they started looking into olive leaf extract and Covid because of the pandemic and seeing if olive leaf extract is helping fight the virus. And a mini review found that actually the antioxidants in it had antiviral activities against the SARS COVID virus, but that was, again, at a cellular level, so they haven't done human studies on it. And obviously when it's human bodies, it can be different. But I just still find it really interesting and it kind of, to me, it makes sense if it's something that's happening at a cellular level on a microscope, like surely it's having an effect in a our body as well. So I found that really interesting. I don't know if you guys find that interesting, but I reckon go and get yourself some olive leaf extract because why the hell not? My second tip, and I've spoken about this before, is probiotics for gut health. I'm such a strong believer that our health really does start in our gut and the research around this is becoming so strong and I just think you can't ignore it. I have recently done an episode on Leaky Gut, so if you're interested to know more about the gut specifically and leaky gut, which will show signs that your gut is not super healthy. How many times can I possibly say gut? Then go and listen to that episode, because it's more in depth and it'll help you if you're a little bit confused about what I'm talking about when I say gut health, so that one's really helpful. But basically everything we're learning is happening in your gut. So if you're healthy, if your digestive system is healthy, your body is able to fight things better, your body is able to absorb nutrients better, and it is just an all round, hugely beneficial thing. So personally, I have been taking a probiotic every single day because I feel like I just want to give myself a boost in winter. So you don't need to take probiotics consistently forever, but if you do feel like you need a boost, if maybe you've been on a round of antibiotics, or if you feel like you're coming down with something or you're just always sick, I would suggest going and taking a round of probiotics. I'm going to take them for the whole of winter just because I feel like I want to give myself a really good boost, especially because I have an autoimmune disease. I'm always out for looking out for things that can boost my health, to support any germs or viruses that are coming my way. One thing that happened recently that was really interesting was that Zara, my eleven year old, was taking antibiotics for something that she had, and the chemist said for her to get a probiotic and take that alongside the antibiotic and then continue to take it for a while after she'd finished the antibiotic, so that it helped restore her gut health, so she could fight off more things in winter. So I definitely think it's becoming a more widely known practice that if our gut health is compromised, we're going to pick up more things and we're not going to be able to get well as fast. So I found that really interesting and I really think if you want to give your self a boost or even your kids a boost, there's some great probiotics out there for kids. They generally come in a powder form because it's a lower dosage of the bacterial strain, so it's gentler on their tummies. You can put it in their smoothie, you can literally add it to, like, their milk and mix it in. I'll add it to like, Adriene has wheat beaks with milk and I'll just put a scoop of it in his. I think it can be really helpful in winter to help with their health and our health. So that was my number two is take a good probiotic for your gut health. The number three tip that I have to boost your immunity this winter is vitamin C. So vitamin C is so underrated. It is such a great immunity booster. And I would just say get on your vitamin C, guys, so you can support your immune system in a lot of different ways. Bye. Taking vitamin C, first of all, it has really high antioxidant properties, so it protects your cells from damage of free radicals, which really can weaken your immune system. And free radicals are like everywhere. It's pollution, it's damage from chemicals, from sugar, from, I don't know, alcohol, just everything and anything. So you really want to work on your antioxidant intake to fight off that free radical damage. Vitamin C also helps with collagen production. And collagen is such a buzz word at the moment, I feel like, so why not get on the train of boosting your collagen production? And what collagen actually does is helps maintain the integrity of your skin health and acts as a barrier to pathogens alongside all the other beautiful benefits of collagen. But in this instance, we're just talking about health and immunity, so that's where that comes in. And then the biggest one I think that vitamin C helps with is white blood cell function. So white blood cells being your immune system, your immune cells that help fight off any viruses or any bad things that are coming into your system. Vitamin C actually enhances the function of your white blood cells. So that's really crucial because basically you want to remember that everything that's happening is happening at a cellular level. So whatever you can do to help strengthen those cells within your body so that they can fight and be strong and help you fight off anything that's coming in is going to be beneficial. So that is a really big one for me. I feel like vitamin C is super helpful there. So I'm all for getting in as much vitamin C as I can. I also wanted to mention that taking olive leaf extract, taking vitamin C and taking probiotics are obviously all things that are going to boost your overall health and wellness. They're not going to completely prevent you from picking up any illnesses, but they will help you fight them off quicker and hopefully just strengthen your overall immunity so that you don't feel as horrible when you get sick. Unfortunately, we're all going to get sick, which is such a bummer. But I guess if you can strengthen yourself to recover quickly, then that's the best you can ask for. So, vitamin C, I wanted to share with you my favorite ways of getting vitamin C in. And this excites me because I feel like it's such an easy thing, right? The number one thing that we are onto in my family is gold kiwifruit. Did you know that one gold kiwi actually has two times the amount of vitamin C in it than a green kiwi? So get on those gold kiwis. They're actually also really sweet. So they're heaps sweeter than what a, you know, a green kiwis like a little bit sour. Everybody loves a gold kiwi in my family. We love gold kiwis. So anyway, having one gold kiwi a day actually gives you a your daily required value of vitamin C that's recommended by the FDA. So get on that gold kiwi. Even if you have one gold kiwi as like a morning tea or afternoon snack with some greek yogurt or, I don't know, some nuts and seeds, something like that. It's like a winner. So get on that kiwi. The next way that I am loving vitamin C at the moment is by taking symbiotica's liposomal vitamin C. So it's actually like a little pouch and you suck out like kind of this. It's almost like, I don't know how to describe it. It's like a gel. It almost looks like one of those little sachets that people doing marathons and things take and they suck it halfway through to give them a boost of energy. Well, this is vitamin C and liposomal is basically where the nutrient is encapsulated in like a fat. Like a healthy fat, a healthy lipid, right. And when you take it, it has to get all the way to your gut before it starts being digested, which basically means it's going to be delivered to all the parts of your body more quickly and it's going to absorb better because it's in your gut. Whereas if you were to take, there's like such an abundance of vitamin C supplements out there, if you were to take one of those like chewy tablets or, I don't know, one of those other supplements, it's going to already be all digested before it hits your gut. So it's not going to be absorbed as well, if that makes sense. So basically, this liposomal vitamin C goes directly to your gut and then it's broken down in your gut. They are quite expensive. So it's up to you if maybe if you just need a boost. Like, I tend to take it just as a bit of a boost if I'm feeling a bit yucky, but it is a little bit expensive, so it's up to you. I wouldn't say that you overly need it. If you're getting vitamin C through your food and other sources, I don't think you really need it. It might just be if you feel like you really, again, want another boost. And the last way that I personally love getting vitamin C this winter is by making juices. I have a cold pressed juicer at home, but even if you just have a normal juicer, we've been buying heaps of oranges, lemons, carrots, and we make our juices. So the kids have been loving just orange juice, plain orange juice. And I've been making myself a little bit of an elixir with like orange, lemon, ginger and turmeric. And I'll just make a bottle up and I'll have a little bit each day. So that's been really awesome. And I think that's. You could even put some kiwis in there, guys. Like, imagine if you did orange, carrot, lemon kiwi yum or something. I'm loving for winter as well is like hot water with the juice of a whole lemon in it and then some organic honey and then I just sip on that. Oh, that is just the best. Especially at night when I'm sitting down on the lounge doing whatever. That is just my fave. So those are my three tips to help you boost your immunity and help you recover from any viruses that you pick up or if you feel like you're coming down with something, I hope that they help you. I'd love to know any tips or hacks that you have to help you and your family get through these horrible few months because it's like relentless, especially if you have little kids. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope that it reaches you. Send it to your friends or family, anyone who you think needs to hear it. And of course, leave a review, please, because it just helps me reach other women's ears and it helps us all thrive to be the best version of ourselves.