One of the cons of the cold season is the flu. Having an itchy, raspy throat, stuffy nose, and sneezing, on top of a low-green barrel is a whole lot to deal with. However, your body is equipped to fight infection from viruses.
Our parents had very ingenious home remedies to fight against any of them. Do you remember sipping a bottle of ginger ale with the hope of healing completely from the flu? Some of these practices have little or no scientific evidence from well-known researchers even at the best online essay writing service.
Common treatments for such colds include self-care or medication with anti-inflammatories or decongestants. However, most victims recover after a week or two. Over-the-counter products often control the symptoms.
Let's recap some natural home remedies to add to your self-care practice when suffering from the common cold.
What Causes It?
It is a universal illness. Reports reveal that adults contract colds two to three times annually. This case is more severe for children. It’s a viral infection affecting the upper respiratory tract, which is made up of your nose and throat.
Various viruses can potentially lead to such an illness. Arguably, the most notorious viruses are the rhinoviruses. The rhinovirus consists of up to 100 different varieties, thus making it hard to single out one variety for a medical prescription for prevention. Some varieties are rampant in triggering asthma attacks.
The virus easily spreads from one victim to another. A common way of contracting such a virus is by touching your face after contracting the virus from surfaces. These little germs find their way into your nose and start to grow, thus making you sick. It's not always immediate that contracting these viruses means falling sick. Reports reveal that up to 20% of adults get the cold-causing virus without falling ill.
Why Isn't There a Cure Yet?
If the cause of such illness is known in science, why isn't there a common prescription against it? This is a common question most patients pose to medical practitioners. Unfortunately, there isn't a cure for colds. There's only treatment of symptoms that lasts between two days or two weeks.
The rhinovirus mutates rapidly once in contact with its host. Hence, it breeds different varieties of the virus. It becomes hard to administer an all-inclusive vaccine to combat these different virus varieties.
One common misconception is that one can use antibiotics to cure the common cold. This doesn’t hold since based on science, antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses. It, therefore, amounts to the misuse of antibiotics to treat colds.
Continued use of antibiotics subsequently leads to resistance in the future. More so, long-term use of antibiotics might have adverse damage to your health.
According to health organizations, there is a desire to move towards self-care, including Personal Protective Equipment, such as when dealing with a common cold. Various natural approaches include resting, taking hot fluids, gargling warm salt water, or remaining active and playing a significant role in its remedy. All the superfluous approach is applying over-the-counter products such as cough suppressants or decongestants.
The science world has yet to tie down the concept of common colds. There's a need for more research into our bodies' self-defense mechanisms to prevent us from falling sick.
Natural Remedies to Try Out
After discovering that antibiotics don't cure common colds, we recommend some natural remedies to try at home to battle the symptoms for quicker recovery.
Get Vitamin D
There's sufficient evidence supporting the use of vitamin D to reduce the incidence and severity of cold symptoms. Falling ill reduces your body's self-defense mechanism to fight infections. Vitamins help protect our bones and reduce the risk of respiratory infections.
Therefore, take time in your morning routine to bask in the sun. Alternatively, take some vitamin D supplements with a healthy, nutrient-filled diet.
Be Active
It seems ridiculous to exercise with a blocked nose or a scratchy throat. However, for temporary relief of nasal congestion, rad to moderate physical activity is advised.
First of all, reduce the intensity of your daily exercise. For example, instead of running for 10 miles, go for a walk.
Or better yet, just let your body tell you. If you feel you are pushing it too hard, take a step back. A few days of rest from exercising will not impact your progress. Get back to your normal exercising tempo slowly, and continue as usual.
Enough Sleep
Sleeping is essential for your recuperation. Your body benefits from sleeping when battling an infection. Take for instance when you sleep the whole day, which feels very annoying, and sleeper. Your body tries to slow down and rest until your body feels better.
The more you sleep, the faster will your body heal. Various immune mechanisms occur at sleeping when your body is fighting an infection. Better sleep should be made a concern, making sure of that.
Good Hygiene
Hygiene is the first step to controlling the spread of the common cold. Proper hygiene practices reduce the odds of you catching a cold and passing it off to another person. The first hygiene practice is to have regular and simple hand washing.
Hand washing, however, should be proper. Proper hand washing should be done with clean water using soap. In addition, the first step should be to rinse your hands under running water first, apply soap on your hands, and rub, a process that should take less than two minutes. In addition, also ensure that you rub under the nails, the region between finger joints, and the back of your hand.
Besides, alcohol-based hand rubs should be used to clean the hands and cover all the parts of your hands when you are eating, handling food, or greeting somebody. Regular disinfection of surfaces is also advisable in areas where people frequently touch, such as light switches, doorknobs, countertops, and handles. Finally, avoid close contact with individuals displaying symptoms of having a cold.
Salt Water Gargles
One of the simple home remedies that can be used when having a severe cold is gargling salt water to prevent and relieve an infection. The treatment is good in relieving the suffering of cold by reducing the infection and avoiding the occurrence of additional symptoms and severity of the infection.
Salt is known scientifically to draw water out of the oral tissues to a cell-balancing barrier; this locks water and prevents the spread of other pathogens to in the oral environment.
Therefore, the salt-water combination is important in blocking viruses and bacteria in the mouth and throat. Additionally, in certain instances, it relieves inflammation of sore throat, allergies, sinuses, and canker sores.
Key Takeaway
Before seeking antibiotics to heal your common cold, maybe it's time to start taking self-care seriously. Stay healthy, actively engage in physical activities, and stay hydrated throughout the day.
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