Natural Steps to Help You Recover from a Cold

Lo and behold, despite all your efforts, stress or lack of sleep has caused you to come down with a bug.  What can you do to help yourself recover from this immune slump? 


This post contains information that will help you to recover from that nasty bug you picked up without an extended loss of time from work or school.  The key is-catch it early before it really gets a foothold.

Zinc

Zinc is a great immune booster and will likely help build your immune system up so that you can recover from that bug.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is helpful in shortening the cold and is a powerful antioxidant that will help boost your immune system so as to recover from an infection.  Try to consume foods that are high in vitamin C.  Also, take supplements, such as Acerola, to get the most power for your immune system.

Probiotics

Probiotics are great in helping to restore the good bacteria in the gut. Many times, due to over consumption of sugar and white flour products, the bacteria balance in the gut can get thrown off. Probiotics will help the good bacteria grow and thrive thereby helping your immune system get a jump start to fight that bug.

Avoid Stress 

Try relaxation techniques such as visualization, prayer, sleep, exercising and taking up a new hobby.  All of these things are great in helping bust out debilitating stress which causes many illnesses.

Mushrooms

Try adding mushrooms to the diet; they have amazing properties that can aid the body in overcoming an infection. Their properties include: detoxification, digestion, and improving the gut flora. One mushroom that is a health powerhouse is shiitake.

Exercise

Exercise helps rid the body of toxins, is good for the heart and mind and helps destroy microorganisms.

These points should help get you off in the right direction by shortening that cold.

Health TIps to Help you fight the Winter time Ilness

Winter arrived last week and so will the cough, colds, sniffles and flu. According to  the article, "Eat This during the Winter to help Radically Reduce Your Risk of Cold and Flu" written by Dr. Mercola,  the average cold lasts 8-9 days with 25% lasting as long as two weeks.  That's a lot of time off from work, or away from school.  What can we do to help strengthen ourselves against the ravages of winter's illnesses?

The following suggestions are all effective ways to cut your risk of getting sick this winter.

How can you prevent getting sick in the winter?

The reason that many people fall sick during the fall and winter is because sun exposure is minimized. Due to the changed angle of the earth with respect to the sun, we don't get as much direct sunlight as during the spring and summer.  This means lower vitamin D levels. Scientists have now found that vitamin D has an important effect on our body's immune system in fighting off infection. 

So, to compensate, it might be a good idea to take vitamin D supplements.  Be selective though in what form you take it though.  (Check out information on effective forms of vitamin D at Dr. Mercola's website - www.mercola.com )

Another suggestion would be to try safe tanning to help up vitamin D levels.  This should however be a safe tanning bed without a magnetic ballast.

Sugar, not so sweet


Limit sugar, as this wreaks havoc with the body's immunity.  100 years ago, people consumed no more than 15 grams of sugar a day.  Today, people consume at least 75 grams per day! This is more than three times as much. And, we are paying for it in obesity as well.

Sugar further damages our body's ability to fight off infections because digestion is impaired; considering the fact that 80% of immune response originates in the gut, this is important.  Sugar serves as a fertilizer for yeast, fungi and viruses which sets the body up for assault by these pathogenic organisms. A remedy is to take prebiotics which helps to balance the intestinal flora of good bacteria in the gut. That means eating plenty of locally grown fruits and vegetables.  The fiber in them also helps to lay down a good foundation for probiotics, which helps balance the good bacteria in the gut..



One suggestion as to limiting sugar damage is to keep the amount of sugar consumed at no more than 15 grams per day.  The best form to get natural sugars is in fruits and vegetables, and not from the nutritionally void white sugar products. (We are paying the price with compromised immune system, obesity and frequent colds and infections).

Sleep

Make sure that you get at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Less sleep than this means an impaired immune response.

What to do when you get sick? Take a look at the next post.


Source:
 
 "Eat This during the Winter to help Radically Reduce Your Risk of Cold and Flu" Dr. Mercola, www.mercola.com