Wellness Wednesdays

DO YOU HAVE A COLD?

So, have you ever thought about the last time you got a cold? What were you feeling just before or around the time you started to get that soar throat.

It is a well known fact that a cold is a virus and the only way a virus can be spread. I’m no medical doctor but I do know that when I have pushed myself to the max, or am super stressed or have not been eating well I am more susceptible to a cold. Often I can feel one coming on and really try to think it away, or at least eat lots of vitamin C and drink lots of fluids and sometimes it’s not as bad or lasts for just a day or so.

“More than 200 different viruses are known to cause the symptoms of the common cold. Some, such as the rhinoviruses, seldom produce serious illnesses. Others, such as parainfluenza and respiratory syncytial virus, produce mild infections in adults but can precipitate severe lower respiratory infections in young children. Rhinoviruses (from the Greek rhin, meaning "nose") cause an estimated 30 to 35 percent of all adult colds, and are most active in early fall, spring, and summer.” (see: http://www.everydayhealth.com/publicsite/index.aspx?puid=f5b7bef4-b34c-42d6-9959-fcb796d3c0d0&p=2 )

I’m no medical doctor but I do know that when I have pushed myself to the max, or am super stressed or have not been eating well I am more susceptible to a cold. Often I can feel one coming on and really try to think it away, or at least eat lots of vitamin C and drink lots of fluids and sometimes it’s not as bad or lasts for just a day or so.

Personally, I try to stay away from the drugstore cocktails. Chugging back a cup of “Neo Citran”, when I was in university and needed instant sleep after hours of coffee to keep me awake enough to study, although horrifying in thought and deed, seem appropriate at the time. The thought of filling my body with that stuff, even if it is to get a good nights sleeps, away from coughs and aches only seems to prolong the agony in my mind.

I try hard to act in preventative ways to avoid the cold period as Dr. “Skip” writes about in his article “Colds, How to know… What to do…” (see: http://medicalreporter.health.org/tmr1096/carstensen.html)

These other sites give you similar ways to avoid picking up the virus.

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/coldandflu.html http://www.eightprinciples.com/

So tonight as I suffer through a cold I got because I let too much stress get in the way of sleep and good food intake, I am sipping on my lemon tea while eating chicken soup and crunching on a couple of vitamin C, just before I go to bed early!

Take care of yourselves out there, it is well worth it and you are more than worth it!
Peace!