But first we need to understand the goal. What do we really mean by resilience when we talk about immunity? It’s such a buzzword that I imagine many of us blow right past it, but resilience is the real key to understanding the foundation for a healthy immune system. Your immune system is one of the primary interfaces you have between the interior world of your body and the exterior world of your society and planet. Immunity translates signals. When it senses danger, it ramps up. It activates. Sometimes it misreads the signals and stays overreactive in a chronic state of alarm that can lead to inflammation and a basket of metabolic diseases we know all too well, like heart disease, diabetes, and a wide range of autoimmune conditions. That chronic inflammation also lives upstream from so many functional detractors from our best lives, like joint pain, aggravating skin conditions, poor sleep, and a lack of energy and vitality. Sometimes your immune system goes dormant. It gets shy and suppresses itself. This is just as big a problem, with immunosuppression preventing us from effectively fighting off infection and clearing our cells of the debris they accumulate as we age. So what we want with immunity is balance. We want quick and appropriate responses to the conditions of our interior and exterior worlds. This is what we mean by resilience. Resilience is the bounce back. It’s the reserve tank your immune system carries to fire up or down, appropriate to the messaging it receives. At the onset of the pandemic, when China was first to quarantine and we saw the pollution clouds over Wuhan dissipate, I saw resilience at work. I saw a planet’s immune system beginning to heal itself. I saw systems of co-immunity between people, plants, and planet expressing the reality of their deep interconnectedness. Let me be clear. We don’t need to quarantine for the planet to survive, but we do need to recognize the signals of a weakened immune system. And we need to recognize that immunity works at a planetary level, as well as the personal. My wish is to educate us all enough so that we’re looking for the right solutions coming out of this particular pandemic, but there are specifics on my radar as well. I hesitate to say it because the answers are often so obvious, but these are still ready solutions for the taking: healthy diet, healthy sleep, exercise, social connection, love, and empathy. If we all commit to these basics, then we can begin to optimize our personal and global immunity. Resilience is your ability to adjust the immune response to the conditions at hand. This is a time of volatility and extremes—from the localized outbreaks of the pandemic popping up across the country, to calls for social justice demanding more love and empathy for all of us. Resilience lets you handle these swings in better stride. Create the conditions in your life to foster resilience, and all of us, including the planet itself, stand to benefit. Jeff’s career in health spans more than 40 years. A nutritional biochemist by training, he began in academia as a university professor, where he was profoundly influenced by a sabbatical spent working with two-time Nobel Laureate, Dr. Linus Pauling. Jeff then spent three decades in the nutritional products industry, where he served as the Chief Science Officer at Metagenics, and worked alongside other pioneers to establish standards for evidence-based formulations, quality ingredient sourcing, and ethical manufacturing practices that stand to this day. A lifelong educator, Jeff has traveled the world many times over in his role as the “father of functional medicine.” In 1991, he and his wife, Susan, founded The Institute for Functional Medicine. This organization has grown to become the global leader in functional medicine education. Hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals have now participated in IFM programs, and this collective knowledge has positively impacted the lives of patients all over the world. In 2012, Jeff founded another educational nonprofit called the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute. This organization has become well-known as the host of Jeff’s signature annual conference, the Thought Leaders Consortium. Jeff is the author of The Disease Delusion: Conquering the Causes of Chronic Illness for a Healthier, Longer, and Happier Life, among countless additional books and research papers.
