Prevent flu the natural way
Since there are no known cures for colds and flu, make prevention your goal. A proactive approach to warding off colds and flu is apt to make your whole life healthier. Below are suggestions of strategies you can employ without going to a health provider.
Since there are no known cures for colds and flu, make prevention your goal. A proactive approach to warding off colds and flu is apt to make your whole life healthier. Below are suggestions of strategies you can employ without going to a health provider.
-Wash your hands: Most cold and flu viruses are spread by direct contact. Someone who has the flu sneezes onto their hand and then touches the telephone, the keyboard, a kitchen glass. The germs can live for hours - in some cases weeks - only to be picked up by the next person who touches the same object.
So wash your hands often. If no sink is available, rub your hands together very hard for a minute or so. That also helps break up most of the cold germs.
-Do not cover your sneezes and coughs with your hands: Because germs and viruses cling to your bare hands, muffling coughs and sneezes with your hands results in passing along your germs to others.
When you feel a sneeze or cough coming, use a tissue, then throw it away immediately. If you don't have a tissue, turn your head away from people near you and cough into the air.
-Do not touch your face: Cold and flu viruses enter your body through the eyes, nose, or mouth. Touching their faces is the major way children catch colds and a key way they pass colds on to their parents.
-Drink plenty of fluids: Water flushes your system, washing out the poisons as it rehydrates-hydrates you. A typical, healthy adult needs eight glasses of fluids each day. You can tell that you are getting enough liquid when the colour of your urine runs close to clear. If it is deep yellow, you need more fluids.
-Take a sauna: Researchers are not clear about the exact role saunas play in prevention, but one 1989 German study found that people who steamed twice a week got half as many colds as those who did not.
One theory: When you take a sauna you inhale air hotter than 80 degrees, a temperature too hot for cold and flu viruses to survive.
lGet fresh air: A regular dose of fresh air is important, especially in cold weather when central heating dries you out and makes your body more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses.
Also, during cold weather more people stay indoors, which means more germs are circulating in crowded, dry rooms.
-Do aerobic exercise regularly: Aerobic exercise
speeds up the heart to pump larger quantities of blood; makes you breathe faster to help transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood; and makes you sweat once your body heats up. These exercises help increase the body’s natural virus-killing cells.
-Eat foods containing phytochemicals: “Phyto†means plants and the natural chemicals in plants give the vitamins in food a supercharged boost. So put away the vitamin pill and eat dark green, red, yellow vegetables and fruits.
lEat yogurt: Some studies have shown that eating a daily cup of low-fat yogurt can reduce your susceptibility to colds by 25%.
Researchers think the beneficial bacteria in yogurt may stimulate production of immune system substances that fight disease.
lDo not smoke: Statistics show that heavy smokers get more severe colds and more frequent ones. Even being around smoke profoundly zaps the immune system.
Smoke dries out your nasal passages and paralyses cilia. These are the delicate hairs that line the mucous membranes in your nose and lungs and with their wavy movements, sweep cold and flu viruses out of the nasal passages.
Experts contend that one cigarette can paralyse cilia for as long as 30 to 40 minutes.
WebMD Medical Reference
-Wash your hands: Most cold and flu viruses are spread by direct contact. Someone who has the flu sneezes onto their hand and then touches the telephone, the keyboard, a kitchen glass. The germs can live for hours - in some cases weeks - only to be picked up by the next person who touches the same object.
So wash your hands often. If no sink is available, rub your hands together very hard for a minute or so. That also helps break up most of the cold germs.
-Do not cover your sneezes and coughs with your hands: Because germs and viruses cling to your bare hands, muffling coughs and sneezes with your hands results in passing along your germs to others.
When you feel a sneeze or cough coming, use a tissue, then throw it away immediately. If you don't have a tissue, turn your head away from people near you and cough into the air.
-Do not touch your face: Cold and flu viruses enter your body through the eyes, nose, or mouth. Touching their faces is the major way children catch colds and a key way they pass colds on to their parents.
-Drink plenty of fluids: Water flushes your system, washing out the poisons as it rehydrates-hydrates you. A typical, healthy adult needs eight glasses of fluids each day. You can tell that you are getting enough liquid when the colour of your urine runs close to clear. If it is deep yellow, you need more fluids.
-Take a sauna: Researchers are not clear about the exact role saunas play in prevention, but one 1989 German study found that people who steamed twice a week got half as many colds as those who did not.
One theory: When you take a sauna you inhale air hotter than 80 degrees, a temperature too hot for cold and flu viruses to survive.
lGet fresh air: A regular dose of fresh air is important, especially in cold weather when central heating dries you out and makes your body more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses.
Also, during cold weather more people stay indoors, which means more germs are circulating in crowded, dry rooms.
-Do aerobic exercise regularly: Aerobic exercise
speeds up the heart to pump larger quantities of blood; makes you breathe faster to help transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood; and makes you sweat once your body heats up. These exercises help increase the body’s natural virus-killing cells.
-Eat foods containing phytochemicals: “Phyto†means plants and the natural chemicals in plants give the vitamins in food a supercharged boost. So put away the vitamin pill and eat dark green, red, yellow vegetables and fruits.
lEat yogurt: Some studies have shown that eating a daily cup of low-fat yogurt can reduce your susceptibility to colds by 25%.
Researchers think the beneficial bacteria in yogurt may stimulate production of immune system substances that fight disease.
lDo not smoke: Statistics show that heavy smokers get more severe colds and more frequent ones. Even being around smoke profoundly zaps the immune system.
Smoke dries out your nasal passages and paralyses cilia. These are the delicate hairs that line the mucous membranes in your nose and lungs and with their wavy movements, sweep cold and flu viruses out of the nasal passages.
Experts contend that one cigarette can paralyse cilia for as long as 30 to 40 minutes.
WebMD Medical Reference