How to keep yourself healthy from colds and flu

To drive the cold in the southern hemisphere away!

There are many medicines and other remedies to nurse yourself better from the nastiness of colds and flu. But isn’t prevention better than cure?

Here some inexpensive tips to keep the colds and flu away:

1. Eat healthy and ensure to have breakfast: Breakfast is still the most important meal of the day and a healthy breakfast every day will assist your body to ward off the ugly germs! Make sure it is a high fibre breakfast.

2. Ensure your immune system is healthy: A healthy immune system is important to fight off any infection. Ensure the following is part of your diet: beta-carotene which is found in orange, yellow and green fruit and vegetables; vitamin C which is found in citrus fruit and green leafy vegetables; and vitamin E which is found in nuts, seeds, wholegrain and vegetable oil.

3. Be sanitizing wise: wash your hands after coughing, sneezing, and before and after eating and any time your hands come into contact with typical public surfaces like telephones, door knobs and staircase railings. Colds and flu germs spread by physical contact.

4. Thrive on fresh air: In cold weather heaters and other heat generating equipment can dry out the air and colds and flu germs spread easier in dried-out air. So ensure you thrive on fresh air, rather than allowing germs thriving on dry air.

5. Be active: You must continue exercising throughout the year and the 4 seasons. But, please if a cold or flu have already taken over your body, do not do strenuous exercises. 

6. Dress warmly: Not only your body but also give attention to those parts not usually covered – head, fingers and toes.

7. Indulge yourself in hot foods: Enjoy hot foods like chillies, peppers, onions and garlic as it contain substances called mucolytic than thin the mucus that accumulates in the sinuses and breathing passages. 

And just to put the cherry on top, eat your heart out on chicken soup. Very delicious and healthy!