Ways I Try to Conquer the Common Cold

It's that time of the year again where you read in every magazine and newspaper the benefits of vitamin C or good hygiene or the next big wonder cure. Let's face it. These bugs get around, and I get subjected to the lot of them at work.

Now, {disclaimer} I'm not perfect, last year I got 3 severe colds. This year I didn't want a repeat, and so far I've only had one and it didn't progress very far. So why trust my advice? It's not like I'm someone who never gets sick - but I know what helps me enormously, and I'm not that different from everyone else!

Prevention:

I take around 1000mg of calcium ascorbate (non acidic vitamin C in a powder form) 5 days a week. It would be 7 days but I leave it at work and take it when I get there, it helps me to remember.

I didn't take it last year, and I think it's really helped me this year. Also having a generally healthy diet (lots of fruit and veg, no smoking etc) can help you overcome sickness more easily.

There are lots of 'immune support formulas' out there, usually based on herbs and minerals, which can be really effective (especially if you know you don't have a good diet) but I think if you just put a bit of thought into diet then you don't necessarily need more.

If you get a tickly throat:

As soon as my throat feels different - not even sore, just ticklish or weird - I will do something about it. Last week I was sitting on the couch and thought my throat felt weird so I went to the cupboard and in a cup put the juice of half a lemon and some good quality honey (preferably manuka), mixed it around a bit and ate it all. The next day I woke up fine, but then again I could have been imagining it in the first place. But seriously, that is what I continue to do throughout a cold anyway.

My favourite lozenge is Nutrition Care Zinech Throat Lozenges, I find them really good for my throat and they're also high enough in echinacea to be beneficial to you getting over your cold (not just soothing a sore throat).

These are the things that I do, if it's really bad (only once, for me) I buy Fusion Cold and Flu and take 6 tablets a day until I'm better.

So there you go! Hopefully you won't need my advice because you won't get any colds!

Jacqui

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