Beat the Cold And Flu This Winter

With winter fast approaching it’s nearly the season where the sniffly nose, sore throat and cough start to rear their ugly heads! The common cold is caused by many different types of viruses, but is generally harmless and resolves itself within a few weeks. While there currently isn’t a cure for the cold, what you eat and your lifestyle habits can have a huge effect on the strength of your immune system, which can help prevent you from coming down with a cold. Here’s some tips to make you cold-proof!

Boost Vitamin C

The old wives tale that vitamin C can help get rid of a cold does have some truth to it! Research has shown that vitamin C can help shorten a cold duration by 8% in some people. There certainly isn’t any harm in boosting your intake of vitamin C with yummy fresh fruits such as oranges and mandarins so you may as well give it a shot!

Wash your hands

A lot of us frequently touch our hands and mouth without even realising it and the cold/flu is normally spread by touching contaminated services or by skin-to-skin contact… gross! Washing your hands more frequently can reduce your risk of catching an illness by about 20% as it helps stop the spread of germs.

Load up on Zinc and Vitamin A

Being deficient in Zinc inhibits your immune system so make sure you’re getting enough! Zinc is found in meat, chicken, seafood, milk and nuts. Similarly, vitamin A helps strengthen immunity by strengthening the cell membrane and can be found in eggs, dairy and oily fish. Red coloured vegetables also contain beta-carotene, which your body converts to vitamin A, so they’re helpful too!

And finally… Chill out!!

Long hours and cool temperatures place a lot of stress on your body so make sure your body is getting the rest it needs! You should be aiming for 7-8 hours’ sleep each night. Over-working ourselves can leave us feeling run down and open us up to catching something nasty. So remember to get out of the fast lane every now and then and look after yourself!

We’re all likely to get a cold during this coming winter, but by following these tips hopefully we can all keep the frequency and length of them to a minimum! Good luck!