It's finally here, the season you've been dreading: Cold and Flu Season! According to WebMD, approximately 1 BILLION people contract the common cold in the span of 1 year in the US, with children contracting colds between 6-12 times a year. Before you start spraying down your house with Lysol, however, let's talk about the Common Cold, Flu and ways to prevent both...naturally!There are over 200 strains of viruses that cause the Common Cold, according to Wikipedia, and while there's two more common types of the Flu, Influenza A and B, each one has subtypes that can vary (read more about it here). This all sounds incredibly scary, but luckily there's a lot of ways to help prevent and even help treat Cold and Flu naturally, including a change in habits, diet and exercise.
Let's talk about a change in habits first:
One of the easiest ways to prevent the spread of Cold and Flu viruses is by covering your mouth when you cough and sneeze since the virus can travel through the air and infect others. Don't use your hands though! Always use the inside of your elbow so you don't accidentally spread the virus like if you were to use your hands. Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently using antibacterial soap. The ingredients in this type of soap will "kill" the viruses and help prevent infection in others. By thoroughly we mean using warm water, for at least 20 seconds, and get up past your wrists. Teach your kids to do the same by having them sing the "ABCs" or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." If you can't get to a sink, use hand sanitizer until you can wash your hands.
Get enough sleep! We cannot stress this enough. When you get sick, your body needs time to rest and recover in order to fight off any infection. Not allowing yourself a good night's rest suppresses your immune system since sleep is your body's way of recovering and keeps everything in working order. By consistently getting enough sleep, you keep your immune system in top shape which allows you to stave off infections more effectively.
Eating garlic and ginger have also been proven to help reduce symptoms of the cold and flu. One of my favorite ways to ingest this growing up was when we made a soup using bone broth, fresh ginger, fresh garlic, a pinch of cayenne and fresh lime juice. It sounds gross but it helped ease my symptoms and sped up recovery time.
If you're doing all of the above and still get sick, another good way to prevent cold and flu is to reduce stress in your life. Some do that by exercising (which is another great way in itself for preventing infection!) or by other means. One of our favorite ways is through massage. Across many previous blog posts, we talk about how massage can help reduce stress, improve sleep, and relax the recipient. Reducing stress allows for better sleep and is a great way for keeping your body's immune system running smoothly.
Think of it this way: say you're on a treadmill and the speed just keeps increasing, you're unable to slow it down or hop off so you just have to keep running, running, running. As you're accelerating it gets harder to keep up, so you start losing your balance and eventually fall off the treadmill and crash. The treadmill accelerating is your stress level, your body represents your immune system; as stress levels increase, your immune system has to fight harder to keep up until eventually it crashes.
Since it's so important to try to de-stress in order to have a well-functioning immune system, we at Massage La Mesa combined massage and immune boosting to give you the upper hand when it comes to preventing cold and flu symptoms. Available until November 2nd, we created the Immune Booster Session, designed to invigorate the lymphatic system, boost circulation and give you an extra hand in staving off the cold and flu. We use our own blend of essential oils that are proven to work as anti-inflammatories and reduce the risk of infection, allowing you to rest easy knowing you gave your body the kindness it deserves!
If you would like to learn more about the Immune Booster Session or other ways to prevent cold and flu, contact us at (619) 917-4675 or massagelamesa@gmail.com.
Book your Immune Booster session today! Click here!
Book your Immune Booster session today! Click here!
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Do you have something you'd like us to discuss in an upcoming blog post? Comment below or email us at: massagelamesa@gmail.com!
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