Disease Prevention Starts With You

You’ve woken up with a mild headache, a stuffy nose, watery eyes, coughing fits, and an annoying sneeze. You have a cold. The question that you have to ask now is “How do I prevent the spread of disease to my family and friends?” There are plenty of simple ways to stop diseases in their tracks, including…

Washing Your Hands

Although this rule has been ingrained in peoples’ minds since they were children, it’s amazing how many people still forget to do it. Washing your hands will allow you to prevent any of your own cold germs from getting onto surfaces like door handles, light switches, or countertops. It’s also an effective measure in preventing illness in yourself. By making sure your hands are clean and disinfected you’ll make sure that bag of chips or those apple slices you’re eating aren’t contaminated with germs that you didn’t wash off your hands.

Covering Your Nose and Mouth

Another great habit to get into when you have a cold is to cover your nose and your mouth when you sneeze or cough. Although everyone knows this and it almost seems instinctual to put your hands in front of your face, it’s not that effective in preventing the spread of germs. If you think about it, covering your mouth with your hands really negates the first tip entirely. You might wash your hands, exit the bathroom, and sneeze right into them, covering them with germs once again. Rather than covering a cough with your hands, cover it with the crook of your elbow. You may cover the inside of your elbow with germs but you’re unlikely to use that to shake someone’s hand, open a door, or use a telephone.

Using Cold Remedies

There are tons of cold remedies on the market today: powdered vitamin C concoctions, zinc lozenges, and allicingarlic supplements are just a few. They are all able to boost certain parts of your immune system that help to eliminate bacteria and viruses. They’re even better than cough drops or “cold medicines” as they don’t simply treat symptoms. They strengthen your body to remove the illness entirely.

Exercising

It might be that when your heart pumps faster you can transport white blood cells faster; it might be that exercise allows you to sweat out waste products, or it could be something completely different. Frankly, it’s not entirely certain why exercise helps in relieving the body of illnesses, but it does. That’s not to say that you should wear yourself out and become exhausted. This can be dangerous and actually counterproductive. But listening to your body and doing some light work around the house or a quick walk around the block can really help you fight off some smaller illnesses.

Eating the Right Foods

This goes along with using cold remedies but there is a bit of truth to eating soups and drinking tea while you’re sick. Not only do some warm liquids help to make a sore throat feel better, they are also able to reduce the swelling in the sinuses that cause stuffy noses as well as loosen any mucus buildup in your throat, alleviating coughs. Fruits and vegetables are of the utmost importance as well. But sometimes, when you’re sick, you don’t have an appetite. That’s okay too. As long as you’re getting the nutrition that your body needs in some way, even with odorlessgarlic supplements, you should be on your feet in no time.

Counteracting the spread of colds and other illnesses isn’t just a matter of killing germs that may already be outside of the body by washing hands and wiping down common surfaces (like countertops) it is also through preventing illness and reducing the duration of the illness that we can help to keep our family and friends safe.