I haven’t had a cold in 4 years, here are my secrets

"I honestly cant remember the last time I came down with a cold, yet alone flu," says Nick Powell, a peak performance coach who works with high-achieving entrepreneurs and senior leaders.

Nick is the author of Limitless, a book containing twelve strategies to enable you to 'biohack' your way to exceptional performance, just like Bradley Cooper in the hit movie, Limitless. As well as getting to grips with sleep, diet, meditation and exercise, Nick teaches people all about fasting, smart drugs, light therapy, Heart Rate Variability training, toxin exposure, cold therapy, ketogenic diets and time-efficient exercise.

It's this way of life, he says, that has helped him stave off a cold for the past 4 years. "The key to avoiding a cold, is to ensure your immune system is as strong as possible and this is a lot easier than you think," he says. So how can we boost our immune system and beat a cold just like Nick? Here, he shares 4 simple ways to enhance your immunity and avoid ever getting a cold again.

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Avoid overuse of antibiotics

When you take antibiotics, you are basically dropping a nuclear bomb on your gut microbiome and killing off not only the bad but also the good bacteria. This in turn weakens your immune system. Disclaimer alert – antibiotics have their place in medicine and save lives, so Im not advocating never taking them but ask your doctor if there is an alternative.

Its not just medicines where you find antibiotics, a staggering three quarters of the worlds antibiotics are used in animal factory farms and guess what – we end up eating it. Source your meat from a farm that only feeds their animals on grass and is antibiotic-free.

Get dirty

What did we all do before we had hand sanitisers everywhere? We have become obsessed with being super clean but using sanitisers on a consistent basis is killing off the good and bad bacteria. Triclosan is the active component in most sanitisers and has been linked with immune system suppression, altering hormones and helping germs become resistant to antibiotics.

Do you know how healthy your vagina's microbiome is? Because you probably should…

Measure

Every 6 months I have my gut microbiome analysed which tells me how healthy my gut microbiome is and what foods I should be enjoying and avoiding in order to boost my gut heal