Cut the Cold: 5 Cold Killing Tips

Getting sick is the worst, I think we can all agree on that. This past Thanksgiving, the day before Turkey Day, I came down with a cold. It all started with a scratchy throat, then my nose started to run, and (maybe unrelated) a pain in the ball of my right foot. So, I began my regime of anti-cold rituals. These are the five things I do to get my antibodies in fighting shape!

1. SLEEP! – You best believe that my number one defense for any bodily disease is lots, and lots, of sleep. It’s funny that if you sleep 18 hours in a day when you don’t have a cold, that’s just being really depressed. When you have a cold, that just means you really needed the sleep to fight off that cold! Also, being asleep with a cold is better than being awake with one; blowing your nose gets exhausting!
2. GARGLE! – With some kind of antiseptic. This is where normal people will use mouthwash or salt water, but I’ve grown up in a house where we use a mild hydrogen-peroxide solution. Nothing survives hydrogen-peroxide! Just don’t gargle with only hydrogen-peroxide, let me reiterate: MILD HYDROGEN-PEROXIDE SOLUTION. I’d eyeball it around 10:1. But, this only works when you first feel the cold coming on. That first scratchy throat. Kill that scratch with hydrogen-peroxide.
3. VITAMIN C! – This one is pretty well known, but it’s well known for a reason. When is vitamin C not good for you? When I get a cold, my vitamin C intake nearly doubles. For good reason. Plus, do you find vitamin C delicious? I do. I could chomp it down like candy.
4. ECHINACEA! – Again, this is my go-to only when I’m starting to get the cold. I can’t really remember why anymore… Something about boosting the immune system. My mother always made me take some when I got a cold when I was a child. These days I have a bottle of echinacea capsules. When I was young, we had it in a liquid form. We’d put a few drops in a cup of orange juice or tea (or sometimes just straight down the back of the throat), and it would taste bad, but in a ‘this is medicine’ kind of way.
5. HOT STEAM! – Before I had the technology, I’d take a hot bubble bath. Yes, many will say it’s not actually a very good thing to do when you’ve got a cold, but it made me feel really good, and usually helped in falling asleep (see #1). These days, I’ve got a fancy steam shower, and you better believe I’m using it when I’m under the weather. With a hot steam shower, I feel I can get the hot steam right up my nose into those sinuses and really clear out all the mucus. Then, after being cooked with the hot steam, I’m ready for that hot sleep.
   

Those are my first steps whenever I get a cold. What are you first cold steps? Leave them in the comments below and maybe I’ll use them myself to feel better faster! There is always the dilemma of what to do when you’ve got a cold, and one thing is to keep listening to NR92.com! We might just be talking about cold cures on air, so tune in to tune out that cold, eh?

(All Images by Maxwell Read with Google Pixel Studio)

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