Cold & Flu Season - Fight Back!

Cold and flu season is fast approaching, so it is important to keep these tricks in mind for a healthy and sneeze-free autumn/winter:

1. Repel colds, flus and maybe even vampires with garlic. Diced, minced, chopped, you name it - adding fresh garlic to soups and stews this winter can help boost your immune system, making you more resistant to the common cold. Furthermore, garlic's chemical compound known as allicin has antiviral properties that can help you ward off the influenza virus.

2.  Wash your hands often. Our hands carry bacterial and viral pathogens that can manifest as illness if our immune system is not equipped to fight them off. Regular use of soap and water, as well as alcohol-based hand sanitizer, can help kill these germs before they harm you and others.

3. Keep your hands away from your mouth. Biting our nails or cuticles is a common habit, so much so that we often don't even realize we are doing it. Maybe bored at your desk, or watching TV - whatever the triggering activity, try your best to avoid this behaviour. As we know from #2, our hands are a reservoir of germs. Viruses also enter our bodies through our eyes and nose, so safe practice is not only to avoid putting your hands in your mouth but also touching your face in general.

4. Eat plenty of colourful fruit and veggies. Richly-coloured fruits and vegetables have high amounts of antioxidants, whose main role is to clean up and prevent further damage done by free radicals (essentially, disease-causing cells). Three very powerful antioxidants are Vitamin C (found in citrus fruits, bell peppers, strawberries, and kiwi), Beta-carotene (found in carrots, yams, tomatoes, and squash), and Vitamin E (found in cooked spinach, avocado, and apricots).

5. Engage in activities that increase your heart rate often. When we exercise, blood pumps through the heart at a faster rate which means it also picks up more oxygen and dumps more waste products to be exhaled out of the lungs. The more oxygen our cells have, the better equipped they are to effectively kill off threatening viruses. It is also ok to exercise when you are already sick, and it may even shorten the duration of your illness.

6. Think before you choose antibiotics. Most common colds and influenzas are viruses, therefore taking antibiotics will not improve the course of illness. Antibiotics also have many unwanted side effects such as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, disruption of the gut's normal bacterial flora (wiping out our beneficial bacteria and potentially causing the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria), and yeast infections.

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