Preventing infection and problems from swine flu depends two things. You should try to both reduce exposure to the virus, and boost your immunity so that there is less chance of infection if you are exposed to the virus. Boosting your immunity means stopping the things that impair immune function, and doing the things that enhance immune function. Here, we highlight how to enhance your immunity and natural resistance to flu viruses.

We are not going to try to sell you herbal remedies or supplements that haven’t been proven to work. There are a lot of websites out there trying to do that.

What we will do is help you understand and respond to two of the factors that have been proven to impair immunity and make a person more susceptible to flu-related illness - smoking and chronic stress. We hope to soon add some advice on general ways to help your overall health and resistance to disease.

Click the links below to learn more about smoking and chronic stress, and what you can do to address them. We’re going to give you some background information, and concrete steps to make you more resistant to the flu if you get exposed to it. And in the process, it will improve your overall health dramatically. If both smoking and chronic stress are issues for you (and they are for many people), I suggest you start with the article on the mind-body connection, and then the article on chronic stress.