Note to myself: Into deep thinking and reading lately on Pareto Efficiency and staying offline to stay focused. But this is my very first blog written in R Markdown, and oh man, what a revolutionary way of writing for any contents and any occasions! You can write texts, math formulae, software outputs, pictures and graphics all on the same platform with the same software! It can save the doments in PDF, Word or HTML. I will never go back to Latex (R Markdown has a TinyTex package, which is actually better, easier and user-friendlier than Latex) or Word. R Markdown is so powerful yet so easy to learn and to use! Best of all, it is absolutely free because R Markdown is just a part of R, which itself is free!

Your immune system is your best friend, especially during the pandemic. I have said this earlier but it is one of those things that are worthy of repeating. This website https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-to-boost-immune-health lists nine ways to boost your immune system. I would share my own tips here.

Sleeping Well During the Right Hours

The aforementioned website is right on how important a good sleep is for maintaining and repairing your immune system. What I want to add here is that sleeping is not just about number of hours but good hours. What matters most to the quality of sleeping is when you go to bed. We all have the experience that if you stayed too late at night and did not hit the bed until 2AM, you will feel lousy no matter how late you get up the next day. In other words, you will never fully compensate the deprived hours from last night. You really need to fall into sleep no later than 11PM every night, and that is not subject to negotiation! Remember, when it comes to sleeping, do not treat all the hours as equal.

Taking Sunbath

We all take a shower daily or weekly, depending on weathers. But showers are not nearly as good as sunbath for your immune system. You should take the sunbath everyday if possible, or everyday when the sun comes out! Do not take the “stay-at-home” order literally by never leaving your rooms, and do not turn yourself into a couch potato and watch Netflex 24 hours a day! Get out and lay down on a piece of grass or anywhere and however you feel comfortable, preferably with your back facing the sun for at least half a hour each day. If more time is available or you feel like it, at least one hour each day!

Fasting Once in A While

To be honest I have not done it frequently but only once in my life. However I really felt good last time I did it. Your body gets a “tune up” through fasting and again it is free just like sleeping and sunbath are. I will start my second fasting soon and would try fasting at least once every two months. The best frequency depends on how you feel after fasting and I doubt there is one frequency for us all! Listen to your own body and do it accordingly.

Finger Pressing the “Body Shallows”

This one I am most qualified to say because I have been practicing it for more than a decade by now! Body shallows are any places on the surface of your body that sort of like sinking down a bit, like the middle of your palm is shallower than its surrounding area and is enough to hold a small amount of water in it. Another body shallow example is the middle of the “trench” right below your nose and above your mouth. The key is to use your fingers to search and feel them, and you will find numerous shallows and those are the places for the “chee” (or “Qi” in Chinese) to hide. Stimulate those spots everyday, and do that regularly in the bed, while you walk or sit, and you will feel some differences.

Drinking Water

A fancy way to put it is to stay hydrated by drinking water. Drinking soda or anything other than pure water does not count. It has to be natural water. The best type is nature endowed like the Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water that claims to be bottled at the source, which should be better than filtered or purified tap water. You can spend $4.99 to get 40 bottles of 500 ML each at Costco. Drink it before you feel thirsty, because by then your body is somewhat dehydrated already.

Drinking water and eating fruits do not substitute each other, so it is best to do both.

Expanding & Alterating Your Diet

Do not listen to the advice that you should keep a regular diet and stick to it for your entire life. Human bodies are programmed to eat different things so you should “surprise” your own body once in a while by changing a small portion of your diet and try something different, especially those you have never tried before!

Diversity pays! Just to give a few examples: I have always kept at least two tubes of different toothpaste and use one today and maybe another for tomorrow (or one in the morning and another in the evening). I have also kept both soap and liquid body washes for shower and facial cleansing just so the bacteria would not establish resistance to either one.

Having you ever felt the way I did? When I changed my diet like eating one week of beef followed by fish fillets, my body feels differently and appreciate each of them better than no change at all. I call it “diminishing nutritional returns” just like economists would do. After you repeatedly take in the same foods, your body gets less returns from those foods as it is deprived of other nutricients. This will not be very obivious but you will feel it when you actively and preemptively change the diet after a while.