This means war… battle cold and flu symptoms this winter with multiple ‘weapons’.
First for me are nutritional supplements, which are like ‘ammunition’ for the immune system. It’s important to understand that every human body has an amazing system that in constantly fights many outside pathogens. Those battles are greatly aided by the right nutrients. Vitamin D is at the top of that list these days. Flu season starts as the days grow shorter, that’s a fact. Does that possibly lead to less sun exposure so that your body has less access to making its own vitamin D? A gentleman named Jeff T. Bowles wrote an entire book, The Miraculous Results of Extremely High Doses of the Sunshine Hormone Vitamin D3, discussing that very possibility. It is a fast read; I highly recommend it. He has done tremendous research and summarizes well in his book.
The next most important vitamins to be deployed are: Vitamin C, zinc, quercetin, and a multivitamin to address other needs. Healthy eating means vegetables galore, some healthy meat, a couple servings of fruit each day and the avoidance of any refined or additional sugar. Sugar is like a torpedo to the immune system. The less sugar consumed, the healthier you are, period. People tell me they eat healthy so they don’t need supplements. I ask, “Are you always eating perfectly? “Do you ever eat processed foods?“ Very few can say yes to that. This damage can be repaired to some extent with the help of supplements that provide the extra nutrients that simply can’t be adequately consumed. This is especially important during the winter months, when we are most vulnerable to succumbing to germs and viruses.
Second in the battle is to stay warm - especially protect the head and neck. The head allows the body to lose heat very quickly. The neck has many lymph nodes which are much better able to sort out pathogens from the blood if they are kept warm. The torso also has the capacity to cause chills if not protected. Most people will grab a coat to go outside. but forget a hat and scarf, which is why I mention this advice.
On the same topic of body heat, an often-overlooked way to give the immune system a boost is to “sweat it out”. Get your body very warm to the point of perspiring and then take a nice, warm shower. Saunas are commonly used in northern countries like Finland. Nowadays, there are infrared saunas that offer a similar immune system boost. I was told that during World War II, at the Russian front between Finland and Russia (which was trying to invade and absorb Finland) the Finnish would set up a sauna tent wherever they were stationed. Once a week, they took turns getting hot enough to sweat, and would then leap into snow to close the pores afterwards. The Russians did not do this, and did not fare as well during those long winter months because of it. A hot tub provides a similar immune boost.
The third weapon is to practice good hygiene. Washing hands is the most obvious and easiest thing to practice. Good dental hygiene is also very helpful. A practice that is not always included in this advice is nasal rinsing. About once a day, rinse out your nasal passages with salt water. If you sense that you are “fighting off something”, add a drop of tea tree oil, colloidal silver, or goldenrod (unless you’re allergic) to the salt water. Doing this can help prevent pathogens in the nose from incubating and then moving further into the rest of the body. For travel, I take a bottle of oreganol rinse called SinuOrega, or colloidal silver spray that is made for this purpose. I have some here in my clinic for sale, but it is available in Health Food Stores too.
Fourth, is stocking the pantry food that is ‘ammo’. Keep several healthy soup options: chicken, tomato, butternut squash and carrot soup. Canned tomatoes can easily be made into a soup that is packed with nutrients by adding some bouillon. It soothes a raw sore throat and helps the sinus’ drain. Illness rarely hits at a convenient time. Having soup in the pantry to heat up when you feel sick can be so wonderfully comforting.
Fifth, there’s another weapon that is also barely given any public attention - homeopathic formulas that we should all have on hand for “catching a sickness before it catches us”. These tiny little “salt pills” are placed under the tongue to let them do the energy balancing that homeopathic experts have figured out can “nip it in the bud”. Boiron makes a very effective product called Oscillococcinum. This is homeopathic medicine that pushes away symptoms of body aches, headache, fever, chills, and fatigue if you put a little under your tongue every hour or so right away when you think something is ‘coming on’. It’s very effective, especially if you get at it right away. It is still helpful even if you wait and start experiencing more pronounced symptoms. They make another product for sore throats and a couple of other typical winter maladies. You can check it out at www.oscillo.com. A company called Hylands also make homeopathic salts for an amazing array of different ailments. They even have one that “hits all the bases” - #18.
Another thought regarding boosting your immune system is avoiding dairy. Before you throw this one out let me tell you I grew up in Minnesota and spent my summers on my Uncle Chester and Aunt Bessie’s dairy farm. Dairy was considered a ‘holy’ food and not ever to be questioned. Most adults stop drinking milk in their twenties, except on cereal. Most do eat cheese in sandwiches, pizza, and ice cream or yogurt at least weekly, if not more. Dairy is marketed as the best source of calcium for your bones, when in fact, it is not as helpful to your bones as marketing would try to convince you. Dairy can cause a slight inflammatory reaction in the process of digesting it. It seems to increase mucus production in many people. It might be the lactose (milk sugar) but it also might be the proteins like caseins. Dairy that has enzymes in it like cheeses and yogurt are more digestible but still might cause that inflammatory reaction. If you are trying to defeat a virus, try avoiding dairy. I avoid dairy as a lifestyle and it’s not too hard for me to do. I would think it would be especially easy if you are only going to do it for a couple of weeks.
One more thought about ‘soups. There are those that support and really promote a raw food diet. Well, soups are the opposite of that. There was a man named, Moses Maimonides (1135-1204 AD), a Jewish philosopher and physician who wrote about the benefits of chicken soup nearly eight hundred years ago. His book was, On the Causes of Symptoms. Chinese medicine promotes cooked food over raw. Vegetables especially, chopped up and cooked in a good broth (which breaks the cell walls) release their nutrition into the soup. Soup is a very healthy way to eat your vegetables, as the nutrients are very absorbable. When a person doesn’t feel well, cooking is not typically a high priority, but opening a can of soup and then adding some frozen vegetables to make it even better is quick and simple. Vegetables that really pack a nutritious punch are – spinach, broccoli, carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin, winter and summer squash, kale, parsnips, onions, garlic, snow peas, tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, beets, and peas.
First for me are nutritional supplements, which are like ‘ammunition’ for the immune system. It’s important to understand that every human body has an amazing system that in constantly fights many outside pathogens. Those battles are greatly aided by the right nutrients. Vitamin D is at the top of that list these days. Flu season starts as the days grow shorter, that’s a fact. Does that possibly lead to less sun exposure so that your body has less access to making its own vitamin D? A gentleman named Jeff T. Bowles wrote an entire book, The Miraculous Results of Extremely High Doses of the Sunshine Hormone Vitamin D3, discussing that very possibility. It is a fast read; I highly recommend it. He has done tremendous research and summarizes well in his book.
The next most important vitamins to be deployed are: Vitamin C, zinc, quercetin, and a multivitamin to address other needs. Healthy eating means vegetables galore, some healthy meat, a couple servings of fruit each day and the avoidance of any refined or additional sugar. Sugar is like a torpedo to the immune system. The less sugar consumed, the healthier you are, period. People tell me they eat healthy so they don’t need supplements. I ask, “Are you always eating perfectly? “Do you ever eat processed foods?“ Very few can say yes to that. This damage can be repaired to some extent with the help of supplements that provide the extra nutrients that simply can’t be adequately consumed. This is especially important during the winter months, when we are most vulnerable to succumbing to germs and viruses.
Second in the battle is to stay warm - especially protect the head and neck. The head allows the body to lose heat very quickly. The neck has many lymph nodes which are much better able to sort out pathogens from the blood if they are kept warm. The torso also has the capacity to cause chills if not protected. Most people will grab a coat to go outside. but forget a hat and scarf, which is why I mention this advice.
On the same topic of body heat, an often-overlooked way to give the immune system a boost is to “sweat it out”. Get your body very warm to the point of perspiring and then take a nice, warm shower. Saunas are commonly used in northern countries like Finland. Nowadays, there are infrared saunas that offer a similar immune system boost. I was told that during World War II, at the Russian front between Finland and Russia (which was trying to invade and absorb Finland) the Finnish would set up a sauna tent wherever they were stationed. Once a week, they took turns getting hot enough to sweat, and would then leap into snow to close the pores afterwards. The Russians did not do this, and did not fare as well during those long winter months because of it. A hot tub provides a similar immune boost.
The third weapon is to practice good hygiene. Washing hands is the most obvious and easiest thing to practice. Good dental hygiene is also very helpful. A practice that is not always included in this advice is nasal rinsing. About once a day, rinse out your nasal passages with salt water. If you sense that you are “fighting off something”, add a drop of tea tree oil, colloidal silver, or goldenrod (unless you’re allergic) to the salt water. Doing this can help prevent pathogens in the nose from incubating and then moving further into the rest of the body. For travel, I take a bottle of oreganol rinse called SinuOrega, or colloidal silver spray that is made for this purpose. I have some here in my clinic for sale, but it is available in Health Food Stores too.
Fourth, is stocking the pantry food that is ‘ammo’. Keep several healthy soup options: chicken, tomato, butternut squash and carrot soup. Canned tomatoes can easily be made into a soup that is packed with nutrients by adding some bouillon. It soothes a raw sore throat and helps the sinus’ drain. Illness rarely hits at a convenient time. Having soup in the pantry to heat up when you feel sick can be so wonderfully comforting.
Fifth, there’s another weapon that is also barely given any public attention - homeopathic formulas that we should all have on hand for “catching a sickness before it catches us”. These tiny little “salt pills” are placed under the tongue to let them do the energy balancing that homeopathic experts have figured out can “nip it in the bud”. Boiron makes a very effective product called Oscillococcinum. This is homeopathic medicine that pushes away symptoms of body aches, headache, fever, chills, and fatigue if you put a little under your tongue every hour or so right away when you think something is ‘coming on’. It’s very effective, especially if you get at it right away. It is still helpful even if you wait and start experiencing more pronounced symptoms. They make another product for sore throats and a couple of other typical winter maladies. You can check it out at www.oscillo.com. A company called Hylands also make homeopathic salts for an amazing array of different ailments. They even have one that “hits all the bases” - #18.
Another thought regarding boosting your immune system is avoiding dairy. Before you throw this one out let me tell you I grew up in Minnesota and spent my summers on my Uncle Chester and Aunt Bessie’s dairy farm. Dairy was considered a ‘holy’ food and not ever to be questioned. Most adults stop drinking milk in their twenties, except on cereal. Most do eat cheese in sandwiches, pizza, and ice cream or yogurt at least weekly, if not more. Dairy is marketed as the best source of calcium for your bones, when in fact, it is not as helpful to your bones as marketing would try to convince you. Dairy can cause a slight inflammatory reaction in the process of digesting it. It seems to increase mucus production in many people. It might be the lactose (milk sugar) but it also might be the proteins like caseins. Dairy that has enzymes in it like cheeses and yogurt are more digestible but still might cause that inflammatory reaction. If you are trying to defeat a virus, try avoiding dairy. I avoid dairy as a lifestyle and it’s not too hard for me to do. I would think it would be especially easy if you are only going to do it for a couple of weeks.
One more thought about ‘soups. There are those that support and really promote a raw food diet. Well, soups are the opposite of that. There was a man named, Moses Maimonides (1135-1204 AD), a Jewish philosopher and physician who wrote about the benefits of chicken soup nearly eight hundred years ago. His book was, On the Causes of Symptoms. Chinese medicine promotes cooked food over raw. Vegetables especially, chopped up and cooked in a good broth (which breaks the cell walls) release their nutrition into the soup. Soup is a very healthy way to eat your vegetables, as the nutrients are very absorbable. When a person doesn’t feel well, cooking is not typically a high priority, but opening a can of soup and then adding some frozen vegetables to make it even better is quick and simple. Vegetables that really pack a nutritious punch are – spinach, broccoli, carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin, winter and summer squash, kale, parsnips, onions, garlic, snow peas, tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, beets, and peas.
