Preventing colds?

Question

What's the best way to prevent colds. And the flu also.

Answer 1

These are some practical tips that could help to prevent cold and flu:

#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. 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.

#2 Don't 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.

#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

Researchers aren't 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 didn't. 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.

#6 Get 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.

#7 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.

#8 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.

#9 Eat Yogurt

Some studies have shown that eating a daily cup of low-fat yogurt can reduce your susceptibility to colds by 25 percent. Researchers think the beneficial bacteria in yogurt may stimulate production of immune system substances that fight disease.

#10 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. 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 paralyze cilia for as long as 30 to 40 minutes.

#11 Cut Alcohol Consumption

Heavy alcohol use destroys the liver, the body's primary filtering system, which means that germs of all kinds won't leave your body as fast. The result is, heavier drinkers are more prone to initial infections as well as secondary complications. Alcohol also dehydrates the body -- it actually takes more fluids from your system than it puts in.

#12 Relax

If you can teach yourself to relax, you can activate your immune system on demand. There's evidence that when you put your relaxation skills into action, your interleukins -- leaders in the immune system response against cold and flu viruses -- increase in the bloodstream. 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. People who try to relax, but are in fact bored, show no changes in blood chemicals

For more info check these links:

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=53472
http://coldflu.about.com/od/preventillness/ht/prevention.htm
http://www.dukehealth.org/news/6360/

Answer 2

Do you want to know why there are so many diseases resistant to antibiotics, and why I personally watch people dying on a daily basis due to these "bugs". It's because of the indiscriminant use of antibiotics that makes the bugs stronger. You think "I'll just take some penicillin (or whatever you can get your hands on), that's left over from that strep throat I had. It's in the medicine cabinet, I'll take that and feel better. Antibiotics do not work that way. Different antibiotics kill different bugs. You need to take them to maintain a certain level in your blood system. It's sort of like going to war. If you have an army of 10,000, what good does it do to send in 1000 one day, 300, the next, 800 the following, and so on. You're gonna' get creamed. Anyways, many times you take the abx the wrong way, the bugs get stronger, and develop an "immunity" to the medicine. Don't play around with antibiotics, pretty soon this world will have no medicine left that the bacteria can't beat. By the way, for the cold, just drink plenty of fluids and use it as a good excuse to get some rest. There's no way to prevent a cold, no matter how good your immune system is. We eat, we breathe, we poop, and we catch colds.

Answer 3

We are in the season of colds and virus diseases and to prevent illness, you should follow some simple rules. Here’s what you should eat, drink and how to dress to keep your health!

1. Eat garlic, onions and leeks. These are natural antibiotics that will protect against colds.

2. Eat more vegetables and fruit to feed your body with vitamins and minerals. Vitamins C and A are crucial in the fight against colds.

3. Drink hot tea with lemon and lots of fluids. Teas should not be hot.

4. Attention to clothing! If you are too hot, you sweat and sudden transition from warm to cold will get sick.

5. Wash your hands frequently with soap and water!

6. Protect your neck and ears by wearing head scarf, shawl, hat, headband or earphones.

7. Do not stand with your feet wet or frozen! You should get a pair of socks instead.

8. If the road is short use the public transport. Avoid also going to movie theater and generally watch out for crowded places.

9. Eat yogurt, kefir and other products. Probiotics are an ally against colds.

10. Go to the sauna! Sauna is a closed place, extremely warm, where you sweat a lot. By sweating, the body eliminates toxins and purify.

Answer 4

For the cold, you shouldn't stay out in freezing weather too long and should probably keep a distance from other people outside. Also dress warm.
For the flu, washing your hands thoroughly and frequently would help a lot. Maybe even a flu shot.

Answer 5

Garlic is a well known way of helping prevent colds and flus. Try taking garlic tablets - I hardly every get sick.

Answer 6

eat and drink only foods that are good for you most of the time and only eat and drink junk like soda, candy, and chips once in a while.
Also, too try to drink orange juice everyday. It is wonderful for preventing colds.

Answer 7

Wash your hands with soap and water, and don't touch your face.

Keep a healthy immune system but eating antioxidant rich foods.
Get enough sleep, and exercise..

But once you get a cold... it will last 9 days..
3 days coming, 3 days suffering, 3 days going

Answer 8

taking cod liver oil tablets every day helps to prevent colds. if you're a vegetarian or otherwise, try using elixir of echinacea - 10 drops per hour while you're awake from as soon as you notice signs of a cold surfacing. tastes horrible, but it works!

Answer 9

Go out to wal-mart or a health store and get some vitamin C chewable tablets. Take them daily and keep up on a good diet.

Also, be aware of yourself when your around others who are sick or becoming sick.

Answer 10

Garlic, ginger and black seed. Do a search on the internet to find out all the benefits of these three.