1. 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. 2. Don't Cover Your Sneezes and Coughs With Your Hands When you feel a sneeze or cough coming, use a tissue, then throw it away immediately. 3. Don't 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. 4. Drink Plenty of Fluids Water flushes your system, washing out the poisons as it rehydrates you. A typical, healthy adult needs eight 8-ounce glasses of fluids each day. How can you tell if you're getting enough liquid? If the color of your urine runs close to clear, you're getting enough. If it's deep yellow, you need more fluids. 5. Take a Sauna When you take a sauna you inhale air hotter than 80 degrees, a temperature too hot for cold and flu viruses to survive. 6. 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. | ||
7. 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, and yellow vegetables and fruits. 8. Don't 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 paralyzes cilia which sweeps cold and flu viruses out of the nasal passages. Experts contend that one cigarette can paralyze cilia for as long as 30 to 40 minutes. 9. Cut Alcohol Consumption Heavy alcohol use suppresses the immune system in a variety of ways. Alcohol also dehydrates the body -- it actually causes more fluid loss from your system than it puts in. If you can teach yourself to relax, you can activate your immune system on demand. Train yourself to picture an image you find pleasant or calming. Do this 30 minutes a day for several months. Keep in mind, relaxation is a learnable skill, but it is not doing nothing at all. | ||
