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With cold and flu season quickly approaching, it is important to be reminded of simple tips that are well known but oftentimes overlooked. There are no known cures for colds and flu, so cold and flu prevention should be your goal. A proactive approach to warding off colds and flu is apt to make your whole life healthier.
Antibiotics act only on bacteria, and flu is caused by a virus. So antibiotics do not work on a virus. Research has proven that the most effective way for preventing the flu is to get the flu shot. Even though it is highly recommended some people still choose not to get a flu shot. The following tips will help prevent you from getting the dreaded flu. Everyone should apply these strategies on a daily basis, especially if you chose not to receive a flu shot.
Here are 6 steps you can take at home to help prevent the flu:
1. Wash Your Hands. Most cold and flu viruses are spread by direct contact. Someone who has the flu sneezes onto their hand, and then touches the telephone, the keyboard, a kitchen glass. The germs can live for hours -- in some cases weeks -- only to be picked up by the next person who touches the same object. So wash your hands often.
2. Don't Cover Your Sneezes and Coughs With Your Hands. Because germs and viruses cling to your bare hands, muffling coughs and sneezes with your hands results in passing along your germs to others. When you feel a sneeze or cough coming, use a tissue, then throw it away immediately. If you don't have a tissue, turn your head away from people near you and cough into the air.
3. Don't Touch Your Face. Cold and flu viruses enter your body through the eyes, nose, or mouth. Touching their faces is the major way children catch colds, and a key way they pass colds on to their parents.
4. Drink Plenty of Fluids. Water flushes your system, washing out the poisons as it rehydrates you. A typical, healthy adult needs 1.5 litres of fluids each day. How can you tell if you're getting enough liquid? If the color of your urine runs close to clear, you're getting enough. If it's deep yellow, you need more fluids.
5. Do Aerobic Exercise Regularly. Aerobic exercise speeds up the heart to pump larger quantities of blood; makes you breathe faster to help transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood; and makes you sweat once your body heats up. These exercises help increase the body's natural virus-killing cells.
6. Oxidative stress - Don't Smoke. Statistics show that heavy smokers get more severe colds and more frequent ones.
For any questions, contact Kathleen Cucci at 941-907-2800.
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