Immune enhancement and anti-aging plan

The immunity-boosting and anti-aging program that can truly be effective is never the cookie-cutter "eat vitamin C and walk 10,000 steps a day" on the Internet, but a non-homogeneous intervention customized based on one's own inflammation level and metabolic state. As long as you look for the right direction, you will see the three most intuitive changes in three months: a decrease in the frequency of colds, an increase in energy, and a slowdown in the speed of skin aging. Long-term persistence can lower your biological age by 5-8 years compared to your actual age.

In the past three years, I have provided one-on-one health intervention for 27 high-pressure people in the Internet and financial industries. I have seen too many people follow Internet celebrity strategies, spend a lot of money, and actually destroy their health. The one who impressed me most was a product manager who was born in 1992. When she came to see me, she had at least 8 colds a year, allergies when the seasons changed, dry lines at the corners of her eyes, and slumped apple muscles. She looked older than her sister who was 5 years older than her. She has bought nearly RMB 20,000 worth of anti-aging health care products, including grape seeds, resveratrol, and NMN, and drinking three cups of effervescent water every day. The results showed that her high-sensitivity C-reactive protein was three times the normal range, which is a typical chronic low-grade inflammation. Those supplements that add a lot of sugar substitutes and syrups are equivalent to adding another KPI to the already spinning immune system, which will cause it to collapse.

Now regarding the intervention of immunity and anti-aging, the mainstream is actually divided into two groups. No one is right or wrong, but the people who are suitable for it are different. One group is a supporter of evidence-based medicine. They use hard indicators in everything. They will recommend that you first do three basic tests: high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (to check for chronic low-grade inflammation), serum vitamin D level, and NK cell activity. If you are deficient, make up for it. For example, if vitamin D is less than 30ng/ml, just supplement 1000-2000IU a day. If high-sensitivity C-reactive protein exceeds the standard, you should first eliminate foods such as milk tea, processed meat, and trans-fat cakes from the diet. The effectiveness of this direction is supported by data. A 2023 Lancet study shows that the immune response efficiency of people with sufficient vitamin D is 37% higher than those with insufficient vitamin D, and the rate of telomere loss is 20% slower. The correlation between telomeres and aging, I don’t need to say more, everyone knows it.

The other group is the supporters of natural therapy. They don’t like to go to the hospital for testing, and they believe more in the signals given by the body: for example, do you always feel tired when you wake up in the morning? Will your gums bleed frequently when brushing your teeth? Will it take three or four days for mosquito bites to disappear? Their intervention methods are more casual. I know a naturopathic teacher who has insisted on using cold water on his shoulders, neck and back for the last 30 seconds of every bath for 10 years. He also spends one afternoon a week sitting in the woods in a city park for two hours, which is what they call "forest bathing." She is 47 years old and looks like 35 years old. The last time she tested her NK cell activity was higher than that of many 20-year-old girls. The University of Tokyo in Japan has also done relevant research before. One-hour forest bathing twice a week can increase NK cell activity by 23%, and the effect can last for more than a week.

Oh, by the way, fasting to fight aging has been very controversial recently, and there are completely opposite cases around me. A fitness instructor fasted for 16 hours once a week for a year, and kept her body fat rate at 15%. She didn't catch a cold last year, and her telomere length during the physical examination was 6 years younger than her actual age. But another little girl who works as a copywriter, who weighs only 82 pounds, followed the fasting course and fainted twice after a month of fasting. Her aunt postponed it for 20 days to check her cortisol, which exceeded the standard, and her immunity collapsed. So there really is no one-size-fits-all method. Someone else’s honey may be your arsenic. There is no need to force yourself to adapt to other people’s plans.

After so many years of trying it myself, I have found a few simple methods that don’t cost any money and that ordinary people can stick to. One is not to sit for too long. Every hour you sit, get up and shake for two minutes, drink water or stretch. Don’t underestimate these two minutes, which can increase blood circulation and prevent metabolic waste from being piled up in the body. I used to sit for three hours straight to catch up on projects, and I couldn’t straighten my waist when I got up. Now I set an alarm to remind me every hour. I haven’t had any pain in my waist in the past six months, and I feel much better. Also, don’t worry blindly. In the past, whenever I saw a new anti-aging method on the Internet, I would try it quickly, but instead I felt very tense. Last year, I started to learn to let myself go. I just lay down if I didn’t want to exercise, and eat hot pot when I wanted. As long as I didn’t do it every day, there would be no problem at all. Emotions have a much greater impact on immunity than you think. A previous Stanford study said that people with long-term anxiety have 2 times higher inflammation levels than people with a calm mind, and age 30% faster. This is really not scary to you.

In fact, in the final analysis, there are no KPIs that must be followed in this plan. You don’t have to force yourself to eat 12 kinds of vegetables every day, and you don’t have to force yourself to run 5 kilometers. The core is to find a way that you are comfortable with and can stick to for a long time. After all, immunity improvement and anti-aging are not things that can be done once and for all in a few months. Taking your time will be faster. Oh, by the way, if you don’t know what is suitable for you, first go for the three basic tests I mentioned before. It only costs a few hundred yuan and is much more useful than buying health care products worth tens of thousands of yuan, right?