Beyond avoiding excessive negative behavior, there are positive ways to mitigate the aging process and manage your immune system: getting adequate sleep, maintaining a healthy biome, exercising, and sustaining sexual health if just from a nice hug every day, or even from a pet.

Exercise is of particular importance as we age. Remember: It does not mean running marathons or Spartan races. It needs to be a daily effort to work the body in favor of the biological soul — to let go, relax the brain, stress the body in a good way, and luxuriate in the flow of hormones, endorphins, and cytokines.

Of equal importance are the mind-body connections to enhance immune function and immunity strength as we age, which bear repeating and cannot be understated, starting with relationships.

The American philosopher Henry David Thoreau famously moved to Walden Pond to live alone, meditate, and record natural observations he edited into his landmark 1854 book Walden.

But he didn’t pick the pond because he wanted to live as a hermit. Other people lived near the pond, Concord was less than a couple of miles away, and Boston less than 20. Even choosing to live alone, Thoreau knew the value of relationships if just to borrow an axe.

We all had that need reaffirmed in the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Zoom only does so much.