Anyone who’s survived a UK winter will tell you that February can feel particularly bleak. The short days and long nights start to take their toll on your psyche, as do the spells of freezing rain. You’re also far away enough from the festive season that work stress has firmly kicked back in. Summer and its promise of a long, sunny holiday, meanwhile, feel like they’ll never arrive. 

All of those factors, and others, can contribute to a weakened immune system in winter. Couple that with the fact that you’re also likely spending a lot more time with people in closed-off rooms and your chances of getting sick escalate significantly. 

While there’s not much you can do when it comes to avoiding closed rooms, especially if you’re required to go into a physical workplace or if you want to have anything like a normal social life, you can give your immune system the best chance at protecting you, through winter and beyond. 

A good place to start is by ensuring that you’re eating the right foods and taking the right natural supplements. But knowing what those foods and supplements are two different things. With that in mind, here are five easy ways you can naturally boost your immune system.   

Understanding the magic of mushrooms 

If you’ve kept a keen eye on the wellness space over the past few years, you can’t help but notice the rising prominence of mushrooms and other fungi. There’s a good reason for that too. Far from being an essential ingredient in a Full English breakfast on one extreme and a source of psychedelic visions on the other, many species of mushrooms have significant health benefits. 

As Sonny Drinkwater, WellEasy Co-founder points out, those health benefits include immune-boosting abilities in some species. 

“Take Reishi for example,” Sonny says. “ Also known as the “mushroom of immortality”, it has been used in Eastern medicine for over 2,000 years to boost the immune system, reduce stress, improve sleep, and lessen fatigue. Other species of mushrooms that have been shown to have immune-boosting effects include Shitake, Turkey Tail, Oyster, and Almond. 

A ‘berry’ good immune booster

The product of a shrub that grows in many places around the world, elderberries have a long history of use in British folk medicine. Typically, it’s used to treat ailments such as colds, flu, and respiratory infections. As it turns out, there was something to that folk wisdom, with studies showing that it can reduce the severity and duration of colds and flu. 

While the berry was traditionally tuned into a syrup for treating colds and flu, today elderberry extract is also incorporated into gummies, tinctures, and pills. 

Sweet like honey

When you’ve been deep in the trenches of a cold or bout of flu, there’s a good chance you’ve been told to add honey to your tea, particularly if things have spread from your sinuses and into your throat. But honey is so much more than just a salve for a sore throat. 

This miracle substance also contains propolis, a natural antibiotic with immune-boosting properties. If you want to achieve optimal benefits, your best bet is to buy it in its raw form. And if you can get some that’s locally produced, so much the better. 

Get your gut in good shape 

No, we’re not talking about summer bodies being built in winter (although exercise can help boost your immune system too). Instead, we’re talking about your internal gut. More specifically, we’re talking about the gut microbiome. 

Broadly speaking, the term gut microbiome refers to the microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses that live in your digestive tract. While those things might sound nasty, having a thriving gut microbiome is crucial to your overall health. Among the crucial roles it plays is protecting against pathogens and regulating your immune system.   

When it comes to building up your gut microbiome, probiotics can be incredibly helpful, particularly if you’ve recently taken a course of antibiotics. 

Get your vitamins and minerals where you can 

In an ideal world, you’d get all the vitamins and minerals you need from a healthy, balanced diet rich in whole foods. But even if you eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, you may not be getting all the nutrients you need. Research has shown, for example, that fresh produce can leech nutrients in cold storage.  

As such, you could do much worse than take a supplement, especially in the immune system-sapping winter months. Vitamin C and Zinc are particularly important in this regard. The former supports white blood cell function and overall immune response while the latter is crucial for cell growth and division, zinc also plays a role in immune function.

Enhanced immunity can be convenient 

While it may seem like using all of the above methods could be complicated, it doesn’t have to be. By buying the above products from a retailer that understands the importance of combining health with convenience, you can incorporate all of these immune-boosting ingredients into your lifestyle with just a few clicks of your mouse or taps of your smartphone.

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Sonny Drinkwater is the co-founder of WellEasy, an e-commerce membership platform offering healthy groceries and products with a focus on affordability and accessibility. He is passionate about making healthy living accessible to everyone and believes the current food system is "broken".