In this episode 43 protocols
▶ 16:19 Stay Home When Symptomatic Behaviors “Please, if you are sneezing, if you are coughing, if you are still experiencing the symptoms of a cold, stay home, stay away from other people as much as possible.” ▷ 24:07 Track Sleep, Exercise, and Life Events to Review Pre-Illness Patterns Behaviors “What I have done and I continue to do is, because I pay pretty close attention to how well I'm sleeping, or different life events, my different workouts, et cetera, and I put those into my calendar... it's something that I actually recommend people do.” ▷ 42:36 Avoid Touching Eyes, Nose, or Mouth With Unclean Hands Behaviors “If you are mindful of it, you can actually avoid bringing colds or flus to your face... the primary actions by which we bring colds and flu viruses to our eyes, nose, mouth are by touching other people or by touching other surfaces that have cold or flu.” ▷ 44:07 Avoid Hugging or Kissing During High-Risk Periods Behaviors “Perhaps might think twice before, you know, hugging someone, kissing them on the cheek during a time in which you're trying to actively avoid getting the cold or flu.” ▷ 45:00 Use Hand Sanitizer After Handshakes Behaviors “Maybe you end up being that person who puts some hand sanitizer on your hands... guess what? You don't want them to infect you.” ▷ 1:01:16 Get Enough Quality Sleep Behaviors “Things like getting enough quality sleep each night. We know, for instance, that if you're sleep-deprived, so especially if you stay up all night, but certainly even if you only get 50% or 75% of your sleep requirement, that your innate immune system is going to suffer.” ▷ 1:01:54 Avoid Chronic Caloric Deficit Diet “If we are in a caloric deficit, for instance, if we're trying to diet, we're going to need adequate nutrition. Through the winter months, which many people try to do, that can place our innate immune system in a bit of a compromised state.” ▷ 1:02:05 Fasting Behaviors “Things like intermittent fasting or even longer duration fasts have been implicated... in brief improvements in the function of the innate immune system. However, extended fasts or not eating enough calories to maintain body weight for many, many days in a row can actually compromise the function of the innate immune system.” ▷ 1:02:43 Avoid Chronic Stress Behaviors “Chronic stress, meaning stress that continues day after day after day, or even short periods of stress that impede our ability to sleep at night, can indeed reduce the functioning of our innate immune system.” ▷ 1:02:57 Allow Short Bouts of Early-Day Stress Behaviors “However, it's also clear that short bouts of stress, provided that they don't impede our ability to sleep at night, can indeed reduce the functioning of our innate immune system. So the fact that we can inhibit our ability to sleep at night can actually enhance the function of the immune system.” ▷ 1:05:23 Take a Short Nap Behaviors “How much is enough? However much you need in order to not feel sleepy during the day, except maybe the requirement for a short nap of anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes.” ▷ 1:05:34 NSDR Behaviors “That's perfectly normal to have an afternoon dip in energy that can be restored with a short nap or non-sleep deep rest.” ▷ 1:06:26 Maintain a Healthy Gut Microbiome Behaviors “You want to keep the gut microbiome healthy. So you'll notice that we include some tools related to the gut microbiome here in a moment.” ▷ 1:07:24 Nasal Breathing Behaviors “This is where I get to make a strong push for being a nasal breather. Certainly in sleep, you want to make sure that you're not breathing. You want to make sure that you're not breathing. You want to be a nasal breather.” ▷ 1:11:39 Low-Sugar Fermented Foods Diet “That is to consume anywhere from two to four servings of low sugar fermented foods per day.” ▷ 1:13:12 Prebiotic or Probiotic Capsule Supplements “You can also consume a prebiotic or probiotic in the form of capsule form.” ▷ 1:14:37 Morning Oral Microbiome Water Swish Behaviors “You take a sip of that water when you wake up in the morning and you swish it around in your mouth and then you swallow it... The protocol is very simple at zero cost. You take a swig of water, swish around and swallow it.” ▷ 1:18:06 Rest Early at First Signs of Whole-Body Malaise Behaviors “What we know is that if you're feeling that general malaise across your whole body, it is fairly likely that you're coming down with something and that your best response to that would be to go home, take a hot shower or bath.” ▷ 1:18:14 Take a Hot Shower or Bath When Feeling Run Down Behaviors “Your best response to that would be to go home, take a hot shower or bath... and then get into bed early.” ▷ 1:22:01 Regular Moderate-to-High Intensity Exercise Behaviors “We know that exercise that's of 60 minutes in duration or less, and that is intense, but not all out effort... increase the circulation of those cells and chemicals within the innate immune system such that... your innate immune system level of baseline activity is ramped up.” ▷ 1:25:12 Avoid Marathon Training if Goal Is Cold/Flu Prevention Behaviors “People who just ran a marathon and people who have been training for a marathon... are severely immune compromised... certainly running marathons is not going to be the way to do that.” ▷ 1:26:35 12-Minute High-Intensity Cardio Session Behaviors “Data show that you can get this improvement in innate immune response with as little as 20 minutes per day or probably even as little as 12 minutes per day. However... it better be 12 minutes of very high intensity training... I'm sprinting hard for anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute... repeating that for a total of 12 minutes.” ▷ 1:27:50 Warm Up Before Workouts Behaviors “I suggest warming up for about five to 10 minutes.” ▷ 1:27:53 Limit Workout Duration and Frequency to Support Immunity Behaviors “And then limiting your total workout duration to about 50 minutes, maybe 60 minutes, if that's what's required.” ▷ 1:31:08 Adjust Exercise When Sleep-Deprived Behaviors “There are data showing that if you're sleep deprived and you exercise, especially if you exercise early in the day and it doesn't disrupt your sleep schedule... it actually can cause some adjustments... that offset some of the negative effects of sleep deprivation.” ▷ 1:32:54 Eat Carbohydrates After Exercise Diet “It's very clear that ingesting carbohydrates after exercise can help attenuate some of the inflammation that exercise induces... by about 30 to 40 percent when contrasted with water only intake especially if you're training fasted.” ▷ 1:33:59 Eat Post-Exercise Carbs Within 45–60 Minutes Behaviors “You would do well to ingest some complex carbohydrates maybe also some fruit perhaps not immediately after exercise but within the 45 minutes or so or hour or so after exercise.” ▷ 1:39:55 Sauna Tools “Having some regular-ish practice of getting into the sauna for three rounds of 15 minutes, separated by two minute cool off... Or perhaps you do something more akin to what's been shown in other studies... which is to do two rounds of 20 minutes or one round of 30 minutes in the sauna.” ▷ 1:41:01 Sauna for Immune Support Behaviors “Do three rounds of 15 minutes in the sauna. Between 176 degrees, 210 degrees, whatever you can safely tolerate.” ▷ 1:41:12 Cold Plunge Tools “If you're feeling really strong, do a cold plunge for a minute or two minutes in between.” ▷ 1:41:36 Do Not Exercise When Sick Behaviors “If you're already sick and you have the symptoms of a cold or flu, you want to limit the amount of stress to your body... You do not want to exercise. You should not exercise.” ▷ 1:42:43 Garlic Diet “I got thousands upon thousands of answers... things like taking garlic... maybe a little garlic, who knows.” ▷ 1:43:59 Vitamin C Supplements “There is some evidence, and it's not great, frankly, that points to the fact that taking six to eight grams... of vitamin C per day... can perhaps delay the onset of a cold or shorten the duration of a cold... It does not seem that taking high doses of vitamin C... is going to be effective for treating or preventing colds and flus.” ▷ 1:46:49 Get Blood Work Every Six Months Behaviors “Ideally everyone would get their vitamin D levels measured by regular blood tests. I do get my blood work done every six months. I find it to be incredibly informative.” ▷ 1:47:08 Vitamin D Supplements “I think most physicians would agree that supplementing with anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 IU of vitamin D per day is probably safe for most people... some people indeed need 5,000 to 10,000 IU of vitamin D per day, but you don't want to overdose yourself on vitamin D.” ▷ 1:48:49 Morning Sunlight Exposure Behaviors “We know that people, they get regular sunlight exposure. And as everyone knows, I'm a big, big proponent of getting sunlight in your eyes as early as possible in the day after waking up.” ▷ 1:49:02 10,000 Lux Light Tablet Tools “If you can't get access to sunlight for whatever reason to perhaps invest in a 10,000 lux light tablet, you can find these online at reasonable cost, you know, $100 to $200 in some cases.” ▷ 1:51:34 Echinacea Supplements “My suggestion would be, if you absolutely love echinacea for whatever reason... that you reserve to taking it when you're starting to feel a little bit run down or perhaps just in the winter month... but then not taking it continuously throughout the year and certainly not for more than four weeks at a time.” ▷ 1:52:15 Zinc Supplements “It's been shown that if you take less than 75 milligrams of zinc... it's not going to work. You need to take a hundred milligrams or more... don't take zinc on an empty stomach... supplementing with zinc at a level of anywhere from 90 to a hundred milligrams per day, probably no more than 120 per day, seems like a logical way.” ▷ 1:55:24 N-Acetylcysteine Supplements “One compound that I'm guessing most people perhaps have not heard of, but that is very interesting that in fact I've taken before and that I stock in my supplement cabinet in case I feel like I'm coming down with something is N-acetylcysteine or NAC.” ▷ 2:02:47 Chicken Soup Diet “Okay, with some sleep, a hot shower, a good meal, some chicken soup, maybe a little garlic, who knows.” ▷ 2:02:47 Good Meal When Sick Diet “Okay, with some sleep, a hot shower, a good meal, some chicken soup, maybe a little garlic, who knows.” ▷ 2:02:55 Ginger Tea With Lemon Diet “Maybe you have some other tools and techniques that you like, you like that ginger, tea, lemon, et cetera.”