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We don't always take the best care of ourselves – skipping out on sleep, indulging in junk food, letting stress get the better of us.But over time, all of this can weaken our body's immune response as it goes into overdrive to save us from self-inflicted damage.

Healthy living is the best way to enhance your immune system. So if you're aware that your lifestyle could do with some tweaking (and let's face it, that's most of us), that's a good place to start to keep your immune system firing on all cylinders.

Make sure you're getting enough sleep
Getting plenty of quality sleep – that's seven to nine hours every night for most people – is vital as sleep deprivation can impact immunity, with studies showing that a lack of sleep leaves you more vulnerable to viruses and slower to recover when you're fighting off an infection.

Sleep deprivation can also increase your risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.

Quit smoking
Smoking harms pretty much every organ in the body.

Cigarette smoke contains high levels of tar and other chemicals, which make your immune system less effective.

When you smoke, the number of white blood cells (the cells that defend your body from infections) remains elevated.

This is a sign that your body is under stress – constantly fighting against the inflammation and damage caused by tobacco.

The minute you quit smoking, your body starts healing and rebuilding its defences.

Lighting up and puffing away on cigarettes and other tobacco products damages the blood vessels and decreases blood circulation.

Wounds heal more slowly, and smokers tend to get sick more often than those who stay clear of smoke. Smoking also harms some of our body's natural barriers to infection, especially the tissues of the mouth and throat.

Cut back on alcohol consumption
Drink too much alcohol, and your immune system gets drunk right along with the rest of you.

A session of binge drinking slows down special immune cells called cytokines that usually act as messengers to tell the body when to mount a defence against an infection.

Chronic abuse of alcohol wreaks its own havoc on immunity, putting topplay alcoholics at increased risk of some cancers, bacterial infections such as pneumonia and other diseases.

Avoid the temptation of sweet treats
Sweet treats can affect certain immune cells called neutrophils, reducing their ability to protect your immune system. During cold and flu season this may be enough time for you to be infected.

Neutrophils go right to the source of infection to gobble up pathogens but with sugar in your system these immune cells quickly lose their power – and might not get back to work defending your body for another five hours.

Keep this in mind next time you're tempted to indulge – especially during cold and flu season.