TIA HERE, hoping to keep you healthy while everyone around you descends into coughs, sneezes, and tears. While you should always remember to get a flu shot, there are also little things you can do to bolster your defense against sickness during the icy winter months. Here are five easy tips (all gleaned from my mom, the ex-nurse) that will hopefully help you strengthen your protection against cold weather illnesses:
1. Stay sweaty. This applies if you’re already sick, or afraid you’re at the start of a cold. Attack the illness early on and sweat out those toxins! By staying warm, you’re keeping your body protected, but by staying sweaty, you’re actively trying to flush out your sickness. This doesn’t mean exercise—you should be in bed—so to get that good sweat, wrap up in blankets, jackets, and onesies. If you’re not too hot, you’re not hot enough. Just don’t forget to stay hydrated.
2. Drink something warm. Ginger tea will help with nausea, but any hot tea, hot water, or hot chocolate will aid you. You should be almost constantly boiling water and making tea, over and over again. Not only does this heat up your body, but you’ll also be flushing out all the bad stuff every time you need to pee. Think of it as refreshing a lagging website while putting on three jackets in the Galapagos—things should start working as if renewed and you're cozy and warm. Pretty much everyone’s ideal situation, right?
3. Take vitamin C. Buy the pills, don’t just eat a thousand oranges! Whenever you think you have the potential for getting sick, take a couple (but no more than 2000 mg a day). Vitamin C, while not a cure, could reduce the number of days you have a cold and help you fight off the sickness in its early stages. Maybe you'll even get an extra healing dose from the placebo effect!
4. Sleep a lot. Resting your body allows it to expend its resources on healing you. So constantly be in bed, sleeping if you can! It'll keep your body warm and the lack of movement will ensure that your body can concentrate 100% on getting you well. Receiving poor rest will put your body at risk for illness, so be sure to sleep those 7.5+ hours you need!
5. Stay away. This may seem obvious to you, but maybe, for some, it isn’t. Don’t share any food or drinks with your friends who may be sick (read: anyone), don’t hug your sickly friends or stand near them or remain within coughing range of them, and definitely don’t lick any doorknobs. Even with every other precaution taken, if you are standing too close to someone who is sick, you are stepping into the danger zone! Don’t feel bad about quarantining your friends—think about how miserable you are every time you get sick, and revel in the fact that you are healthy right now. You should be trying to keep it that way.
While none of these tips are 100% certain scientific shields against sickness, they are the five tricks I’ve always stood by—and I rarely ever get sick, even when those around me are coughing and sneezing all day long. If you’re looking for easy little ways to boost your immune system during these cold months, then I suggest you follow these steps and take any additional safety measures you have heard from elsewhere. Every little thing could count in the war against the sniffles!
Much love,
T.
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