This article was written with Katja Swift, a clinical herbalist practicing in the Boston area. By teaching people how to eat real food and use plants as medicine, she helps them to reestablish their connections to the earth, to themselves, and to one another. Contact her for more information at www.katjaswift.com.
This winter has been particularly harsh weather-wise, and while the back of the winter may have been broken (or not, time will tell), we are just now hitting what is considered the peak of flu and cold season. The timing of the two are not completely coincidental; although colds and flus are not caused by cold weather, staying inside is. When we stay inside, all snuggly warm, with drafts blocked up, the viruses that cause colds and flus are shared. So, how to make it to Spring (real, no more snow or frozen temperatures Spring) as healthy as possible?
Avoiding the flu and colds
Since no one really wants to experience the discomfort and inconvenience of a cold or flu, it makes the most sense to start with prevention.
To flu shot or to not flu shot?
I’ve previously written about why I don’t recommend flu vaccines – either annual or the H1N1. While many people (and professionals) disagree with me on this subject, at this time of year the choice is more of a fait accompli. If you got it, you got it; if not, it does not make sense to get it now. The viruses that give us colds and the flu are always mutating. The vaccine is based on last year’s strains. At best, if this year’s strains are particularly similar to last year’s the vaccine might have been 70-90% effective. If the vaccine is not as good of a match to this year’s strains, the effectiveness goes down sharply, even to not-at-all. However, as the viruses have been mutating since the vaccine was developed, it is a lot less effective to get the vaccine late in the season. Either way, there is still a lot you can do to decrease your chances of getting a cold or flu.
Mother Nature’s flu prevention: Garlic
The simplest way to boost your body’s resistance is to suck on some garlic! Peel one clove of garlic and suck on it for 15 minutes. Chewing it can be quite intense and some find it too strong for the stomach, but “gnawing” on it a little (pressing gently with your teeth) is the right idea, to gently release the oils. It’s guaranteed to give you dragon breath, but the potent virus-fighting action of garlic will be coating the throat and quickly absorbing into the blood stream. After 15 minutes, or when the “heat” of the garlic becomes uncomfortable, just spit the garlic out. Do this three times a day for best effect, whenever you’re exposed to colds or flu. Preventatively, you could do it every night before bed!
Fresh raw garlic a bit too extreme for you? Here’s a simple recipe for making the potent power of garlic more palatable: peel the skin from each clove of several heads of garlic. Fill a mason jar 2/3 of the way full with the peeled garlic cloves. Then pour apple cider vinegar into the jar until it is halfway full, and honey in until it is the rest of the way full. Put the lid on, and leave the jar on the counter: in a few weeks, the garlic will be pickled, and much more pleasant to eat! They will continue to improve over time. Eat one pickled garlic clove a day, and use the garlicky honey-vinegar in sauces and dressings.
If you love vinegar, here’s another easy recipe. It worked for the Plague, it’ll work for you! The recipe is called “Thieves’ Vinegar,” and there are many variations of the recipe and the legend available online, but here’s my favorite: Add 1/4 cup sage, 1/4 cup rosemary, 1/4 cup thyme, several red chili peppers, and at least 8 cloves of fresh garlic to a quart-sized mason jar. Cover the whole mix with apple cider vinegar, and let sit for 2-4 weeks. Take one shot-glass of the vinegar daily as a strong preventative against colds and flu. If you don’t like the taste of vinegar enough to take it daily, keep the jar around and use it as medicine the next time you get sick.
Loving that body you’re in
Your immune system, like all of your body’s systems, is really designed to deal with this. So, the best place to start is by supporting your body in its efforts.
- Nutrition: A well-nourished body is better equipped to fight viruses. Sugar, artificial flavors and colors and pesticides all decrease the body’s capacity to fight off infections. So, start with whole foods and include a wide variety of foods, especially plants for lots of nutrients. Avoid pre-processed convenience foods and food-like snacks. While they fill your belly, they leave you weakened and unbalanced nutritionally.
- Rest: Yes, you really need those Zzzs. Researchers have found that, like nutrition, getting enough sleep is directly related to avoiding colds and flus. Personally, I visited with a friend hospitalized with the flu twice this winter already. For a few nights after each visit my body quietly requested more sleep and I followed its advice. No flu here. (This is an anecdote, and not proof at all. The proof is in the research. However, the experience really brought home the lesson for me.) If it seems like you have to sacrifice too much to get that sleep, think about what will happen to your schedule if you get the flu instead.
- Washing those hands of yours: Our hands are in everything, and it is when we carry the viruses on them (from the air or surfaces that we touch) into our eyes, nose or mouth that we give ourselves a cold or flu. Fortunately, simply washing with soap and water (for a good 20 seconds) is enough to kill the majority of viruses available (as well as most bacteria, fungi, and assorted yucky stuff.) Anti-bacteria soaps are unnecessary and cause more problems.
What to do if you get sick anyway
Despite our best efforts, it is always possible (and in the big picture fairly likely) that we will catch something at least once in a while. Here are ways to support your body’s capacity to fight off the virus, which will help you feel better and get back to your normally scheduled life sooner.
Flu Treatment
Your immune system will do the heavy lifting, the actual fighting off of the virus. You can support your immune system's efforts (resting well, eating well, and washing well), and you can treat the symptoms for a little bit of comfort while you wait:
- Hot water helps with congestion: Hot steamy showers or baths, or a hot cup of tea or soup held up to your nose, can help to steam your sinuses loose a little.
- Kitchen remedies for congestion: horseradish, cayenne or jalapeño, and wasabi. You can choose the one that you like best. In most cases, you don’t even need to eat these things in order to clear your sinuses – simply opening the jar and breathing deeply can be enough to get your faucet running!
- Use gravity: Sleep and rest in a semi-reclined position to let gravity drain your nose enough to let you breath.
- Ginger, clove and cinnamon: For sore throats, a tea made by boiling whole cloves can (temporarily) soothe the discomfort. A tea from boiling whole ginger and cinnamon will support your body’s heating up. If you boil all three together, they also taste really lovely.
- Cooling off a (too high) fever: Remember that normally (almost always) your fever is good for you (see Is it a bug or a feature below). If your fever does get high enough to cause you serious concern, try some peppermint tea to let the heat out (in a cleansing sweat). For a slow cooling, a cool compress to the forehead and wrists.
- Grandma’s Thyme Steam: Take a pot of water at a rolling boil, and set it on a table. Being careful not to burn yourself, make a “tent” over your head with a towel or a blanket, and lean over to inhale the steam. Add two handfuls of good quality dried thyme, and/or sage and oregano. All three of these plants have potent volatile oils that are strongly anti-microbial. When you add them to the pot of boiling water, those volatile oils are released into the steam, and you inhale them right into your respiratory tract, and lungs.
How to slow the spread in your family
Once one person in the family gets sick, it’s just a matter of time before everyone else gets it, right? Well, maybe. If this strain is new to you and your family, and different enough from other colds and flus you have been exposed to, it is pretty likely that it will go from person to person; if it is similar enough to a strain you have been exposed to previously, on the other hand, you may not even notice it passing by. Either way, there is a bit you can do to decrease your chances of others getting it (other than banishing the sickly one to the basement):
- Back to the basics: Make sure that everyone gets as much sleep as their bodies are asking for, eats as healthy as possible, and washes their hands as much as possible.
- Air it out: Open the windows whenever possible to air out the space – even just 5 or 10 minutes can bring in fresh clean air, decreasing the concentration of the cold or flu virus in the air. Less in the air means you are exposed to less.
- Anti-microbial spray: You can also make up a spray bottle of water with 10-20 drops of essential oil of rosemary and 10-20 drops of essential oil of lavender. This combination is anti-microbial, boosts energy and the immune system, and has been found in French state hospital trials to kill germs as well, and for a longer period of time than chemical sterilizing agents. Plus, it smells nice! Spray it frequently around the house, lightly spray the bedding when you’re ready to get up for a little while (leave the blankets open to air out), use it to wipe down counters – you can even use it to moisten a handkerchief before use (damp handkerchiefs feel better on a raw nose)!
Antibiotics and viruses
Antibiotics kill bacteria. Viruses are not bacteria. If you are fighting a viral infection (and colds and flus are viral), antibiotics won’t work. Frequently it seems like they worked because they take a week or two to finish, during which time your body has fought off the virus (and the imbalance to your good bacteria caused by the unnecessary use of antibiotics). Some doctors report being pressured into prescribing antibiotics by patients (or patients’ parents). Others want to give a patient (or patient’s parent) something tangible, and when the cause is a virus, there isn’t much they can really do. Either way, antibiotics can be counter-productive except when a bacterial infection needs to be addressed.
Is it a “bug” or a “feature”?
Interesting tid-bit about cold and flu symptoms: they aren’t actually caused by the virus. The symptoms that we associate with colds and flus (fever, runny nose, coughing, aches and pains, etc.) are actually caused by our own immune system doing its very best to end the viral infection. Fevers, for example, kill off viruses that cannot survive the higher temperatures. Extra mucus (runny and/or stuff nose) is created to protect the body from the invasive virus. Glands swell (for example in your throat) as they fight the virus trapped there (to keep it from getting into the rest of your body.) Sore throats are frequently a side-effect of either the extra mucus or swelling in the area, and aches and pains are frequently a side-effect of the fever. So, as much as no one likes the symptoms, if we are too good at defeating them, our bodies will have a very hard time fighting off the virus – like asking a boxer to go into the ring with his hands tied behind his back. In addition, like any system (think of your muscles), the immune system needs the exercise to be good at its job; each cold or flu helps protect you from nastier stuff down the road.
Realistic expectations
Despite what schools and workplaces expect, a cold is expected to last 1 to 2 weeks – weeks, not days. The flu can really knock you out for several days with a high fever, and you can really feel the flu for 10 days to 2 weeks. This is normal. While there are reasons you would go to the doctor with a flu or cold, it is important to know that it is not realistic to expect even a simple cold to be gone in a day or two. Just settle in with the blankets, the soup, the tea, and let your body rest.
So, eat well, sleep well, and wash well. You will be taking care of yourself for you and those that depend on you, and you will decrease how much your schedule is disrupted by colds and flus. And soon (only a month or two) we will emerge from yet another cold and flu season into the sunshine of Spring and Summer. This too shall pass.
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