Your lifestyle and immune system can make the difference between staying healthy or getting sick. Here are some tips for staying healthy during cold and flu season:
• Keep your hands clean by washing them often. Touching Infected surfaces is the most common way to pick up a virus, so use soap and water and wash for 20 seconds, minimum.
• Don’t touch your face. Apparently, children touch their faces an average of 16 times an hour!1 Rubbing eyes, scratching your nose, chewing on fingernails all help viruses get into the body.
• Keep surfaces clean in the house. Use disinfecting wipes to help reduce germs.
• Get enough sleep to help keep the immune system healthy and strong. Lack of sleep makes the body more susceptible to germs. Create an environment that helps you sleep “like a baby.”
• Eat nutritious foods to help strengthen the immune system. Boost intake of infection-fighting antioxidants—lots of colorful fruits and vegetables.
• Blanch your veggies. Viruses linger on produce, so boiling them for a couple of minutes kills them.
• Increase omega-3 intake to help spur production of infection-fighting cells. Eat fish. For those who avoid seafood, find vegetarian sources, such as flax seeds, for a daily dose of omegas 3, 6 and 9!
• Drink green tea. A catechin in green tea called EGCG is believed to damage flu virus particles and stop them from entering your system. German scientists believe this catechin may also interfere with pneumonia-causing bacteria.2
• Eat yogurt. A study published in “Clinical Nutrition” showed that people who consumed a strain of specific probiotics daily reduced their risk of catching a cold or flu by 27%.3
• Use ginger. Researchers in Taiwan discovered fresh ginger can inhibit respiratory viruses from attaching to cells and may reduce their ability to replicate.4 Make spicy tea or add ginger to a stir fry.
• Keep your nose warm—the cilia in your nasal and sinus cavities help sweep away pathogens, but move slowly when cold.
• Hum! According to an Indian study, humming can increase antimicrobial nitric oxide in the nose! Take a deep breath, close one nostril and exhale out the other nostril as you hum.5
• Do yoga. Japanese scientists contend that combining relaxation and physical activity triggers an increase in saliva levels of an antimicrobial peptide that breaks down invading microbes. A 90-minute yoga session doubled the peptide called beta-defensin 2.6
• Exercise. Physical activity helps you become less prone to colds and flu, as movement helps stimulate the white blood cells that fight infection.
• Decrease stress. Try targeted massage and acupressure to help roll away tension!
2, 3, 4, 5, 6 https://www.today.com/health/26-ways-avoid-getting-sick-winter-1d80290214
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