Unfortunately, the cold weather also means cold season. Staying healthy is extremely important, and getting a cold can put a damper on your day-to-day life. Thankfully, there are a few things you can do at home to naturally reduce common cold symptoms and precautions you can take for future cold prevention. Learn more about the common cold and follow these prevention tips and remedies to help make cold season less daunting.

Winter Cold Symptoms & Causes

The common cold is an upper respiratory tract infection that is transmitted through virus-infected airborne droplets or contaminated surfaces. Though the common cold can be caught at any point in the year, winter colds are most prevalent due to drier air conditions, more time indoors closer to people, and cooler temperatures that may allow viruses to replicate faster. If you are feeling under the weather this season, watch for common cold symptoms such as:

Natural Cold Remedies

Use an Infrared Sauna

Far infrared heat has been shown in studies to relieve nasal stuffiness, runny nose, and sneezing. Spending time in an infrared sauna can reduce cold symptoms and can also help detoxify your body to reduce the number of toxins present.

Take Vitamin C

Vitamin C plays an important role in your body and has many health benefits – one of the biggest being an immune system boost. Getting enough vitamin C can relieve illnesses, and can help naturally reduce the length of a cold.

Steam in a Shower

The steam in a hot shower helps moisturize your nasal passages and aid in decongestion, especially when paired with aromatherapy. A warm shower before bed also helps promote better sleep, which helps speed up recovery.

Rub on Menthol

Some mentholated rub under your nose can help open air passages to combat congestion, reduce coughing, and improve sleep. Menthol also has mild numbing ingredients that may help relieve the pain of an irritated nose.

Mix in Honey

Honey has a variety of antibacterial and antimicrobial properties. Drinking honey and lemon in tea can ease sore throats, and honey before bed can help improve sleep. Research suggests that honey is an effective cough suppressant, as well.

Make Chicken Soup

Chicken soup is comforting, but research suggests that chicken soup with vegetables, prepared from scratch or warmed from a can, can enhance the movement of white blood cells in your body that help protect your body from infection.

Gargle Salt Water

Gargling with salt water may help prevent upper respiratory infections. It may also decrease the severity of cold symptoms. For example, it may ease sore throat pain and nasal congestion.

Drink Echinacea

Echinacea’s active ingredients include flavonoids, chemicals that have many therapeutic effects on the body such as boosting your immune system and reducing inflammation. Drinking echinacea tea can help reduce cold symptoms.

Cook with Garlic

Garlic contains the compound allicin, which is believed to have antimicrobial properties that help reduce cold symptoms naturally. If you don’t like the taste of garlic, you can take a garlic supplement to still enjoy all the health benefits.

Boil Some Ginger

The health benefits of ginger root have been touted for centuries, and studies today show that it is indeed antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory. A few slices of raw ginger root in boiling water may help soothe a cough or sore throat.

Cold Prevention Tips

Avoid Crowds

Unfortunately, large crowds allow for more germs to be present and can help them spread more easily. If you are doing anything social, keep the group smaller so you have a better idea of other peoples’ health.

Be Active

Physical activity may help flush bacteria out of the lungs and airways. This may reduce your chance of getting a cold, flu, or other illness. Exercise causes change in antibodies and white blood cells that help the immune system fight disease.

Eat a Healthy Diet

Your meals should have the right balance of nutrients you and your baby needs. This also means choosing healthier drinks like water, having frequent small snacks, and bringing your sugar intake down a notch, to name a few.

Get Adequate Sleep and Rest

Getting plenty of rest, relaxation and sleep (around 8 hours) is critical to your health. Your body is going through a lot, and a tired body means a weakened immune system, leaving you more susceptible to illness.

Reduce Stress

As noted above, a rested body helps your immune system work better. A healthy immune system can help shorten your sick period. Reducing stress will make it easier for your body to function properly and fight illness if need be.

Stay Hydrated

Along with eating well and exercising comes staying hydrated. Fluids are essential to a well-functioning, healthy body because they wash out your system, so drink water as often as possible.

Take Supplements and Vitamins

Vitamins and supplements can be very useful tools in helping your body build a strong immune system to avoid sickness. Think of them as bricks on the wall of defenses your body is building up to fend off the viruses you might encounter daily.

Wash Your Hands

Germs can enter your body to infect you when touched. However, you can avoid germs by adopting consistent hand washing. Wash your hands when out in public, after touching contaminated surfaces, and before touching your face.

Wear a Mask

Wearing a mask can play a big role in keeping you safe from infection and illness, especially in highly-trafficked places such as schools, hospitals, restaurants, shops, and transportation.

Talk with Your Doctor

Above all, always be careful to talk with your doctor before making any major health decisions. If you feel yourself starting to come down with something, check to make sure any remedies you try are safe and healthy for you.

This cold season, try these natural cold remedies and prevention tips to keep your health in top shape. As mentioned above, consult your doctor if you feel your symptoms are concerning or if you believe you may have come down with something more severe. Health is a top priority, and these winter cold tips are great ways to ensure that!

By Dr. James DiNicolantonio www.drjamesdinic.com

Halotherapy is the breathing of salty air. It is an alternative treatment that has been used since medieval times. In Eastern and Central Europe, underground salt caves have long been claimed to provide numerous health benefits.¹ Going into salt caves for therapeutic purposes is known as speleotherapy (speleo being the Greek word for cave). Halotherapy involves inhaling salt microparticles aboveground to mimic the microclimate of salt caves. Even Hippocrates is said to have known about the benefits of salt caves.¹

Halotherapy was first recognized as a treatment in 1843 by Polish physician Dr. Feliks Boczkowski, who noticed that salt mine workers rarely suffered from respiratory issues.² Impressed with the health benefits he personally witnessed in salt mines, Dr. Boczkowski founded the first health resort at the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland. Soon after, all throughout Eastern Europe others began using salt caves as underground health resorts. Realizing that most people didn’t have a means to go into a salt cave, in 1976, Russian doctors and scientists created the first machine to produce salt microcrystals, known as a halogenerator, and halotherapy was born. In the 1980s, halochambers were built lined with rock salt and were eventually certified as medical devices in Russia. Essentially, we have a Polish doctor and the Russians to thank for the birth of halotherapy.^{1, 2}

There are two types of halotherapy, dry and wet methods. The dry method of halotherapy is free of humidity and uses dry salt microcrystals, whereas wet halotherapy uses a mixture of salt and water in the air. A typical salt room delivers 5 mg of dry salt aerosol (with particles ranging from 0.1 to 5 microns) into the air during a 1-hour session.^{1, 2} A usual halotherapy plan entails 14 1-hour sessions over 2 months with a 48-hour break in between sessions, with an initial course of 4 sessions being recommended to check for a beneficial effect.¹ A brief worsening of symptoms may occur prior to improvement, which has been termed “speleo-reaction.” This may be due to the breaking up of mucus and its subsequent draining increasing cough.

So, are there any potential benefits with halotherapy?

One article suggested potential benefits of sitting in salt rooms and inhaling microscopic salt particles in those with asthma, bronchitis, lung disease, respiratory allergies, other respiratory-tract disorders, and chronic ear infections.¹ The article also indicated claims of a success rate of 90% for treating pediatric asthma in salt rooms.¹ Other publications show that halotherapy is associated with relief of cystic fibrosis, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).^{3, 4} The idea is that the inhaled salt helps thin and break up mucus and other airway secretions improving their elimination.

Another review article on halotherapy cited three case-control studies in patients with respiratory diseases, all of which reported improved respiratory function and improvements in several lung functions tests, including forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), oxygen saturation, partial pressure of oxygen in arterial blood, and partial pressure of carbon dioxide in arterial blood.4 Others have found improvements in quality of life in COPD patients with halotherapy finding reductions in exacerbations, hospitalizations, improved physical tolerance and reduced fatigue.⁴ Even positive shifts in immunological status and decreases in medication use, such as inhaled corticosteroids, have been found. A randomized study by Nurov documented increased levels of lymphocytes, immunoglobulins and increased neutrophil phagocytosis activity. In other words, halotherapy increased immune cell numbers and stimulated their activity.⁵  Thus, it’s possible that breathing in salt microcrystals may help to improve lung function, oxygenation, and immune function.

Other studies have found improvements in chronic bronchitis and bronchiectasis (destruction and widening of the larger airways) and common colds during the cold season being cut in half.¹ A 2006 Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found three randomized clinical trials of salt room therapy, two of which reported that this therapy had beneficial effects on lung function.¹ In COPD patients, nebulized saline has shown improvements in breathlessness scores and mucous expectoration.⁶ In a long-term, double-blind, parallel-group trial of 164 patents with stable cystic fibrosis with mild to moderate lung disease, inhaled hypertonic saline improved lung function as measured by forced vital capacity and FEV1 and fewer pulmonary exacerbations and antibiotic use. The researchers concluded, “Hypertonic saline preceded by a bronchodilator is an inexpensive, safe, and effective additional therapy for patients with cystic fibrosis.^{1, 7} Other potential benefits may include improvements in skin conditions such as psoriasis and dermatitis although more research is needed.^{1, 8}

Two randomized trials showed that a salt chamber reduces bronchial hyper-responsiveness in asthmatics.^{9, 10} Other publications note that halotherapy improves occupational chronic obstructive lung diseases.¹¹ Halotherapy can even improve enlarged adenoids and tonsils, which is the main contributor of sleep apnea in pre-pubertal children.¹² And halotherapy has even been suggested as a first line treatment for bacterial vaginosis.¹³ 

Salt caves have been used for thousands of years. Halotherapy, which mimics the microenvironment in these salt caves, is now a potential strategy to provide therapeutic benefits. In Canada, Romania, and Israel, certain specialized nebulizers that release finely pulverized dry salt aerosol particles are approved as medical devices. Breathing in salt is something that we experience whenever we enter a salt cave or are near the ocean. Inhaling salt microcrystals using modern-day salt rooms or devices may be another strategy that mother nature has given us to improve our health.

References 

1      Horowitz S. Salt Cave Therapy: Rediscovering the Benefits of an Old Preservative. Alternative and Complementary Therapies. 2010;16:158–162.

2      https://www.salttherapyassociation.org/images/STA-Reference-and-Resources-Guide-022719—Small.pdf.

3      Rashleigh R, Smith S, Roberts N. A review of halotherapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Int J Chron Obstruct Pulmon Dis. 2014;9(1):239-246

https://doi.org/10.2147/COPD.S57511.

4      Chervinskaya AV, Zilber NA. Halotherapy for treatment of respiratory diseases. J Aerosol Med 1995;8:221-32.

5      Nurov I. Immunologic features of speleotherapy in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Medical and Health Science Journal. 2010;2:44–47.

6      Khan SY, O’Driscoll BR. Is nebulized saline a placebo in COPD? BMC Pulm Med 2004;4:9.

7      Elkins MR, Robinson M, Rose BR, et al. A controlled trial of long-term inhaled hypertonic saline in patients with cystic fibrosis. N Engl J Med 2006;354:229-40.

8      Endre L. [Theoretical basis and clinical benefits of dry salt inhalation therapy]. Orv Hetil 2015;156:1643-52.

9      Bar-Yoseph R, Kugelman N, Livnat G, et al. Halotherapy as asthma treatment in children: A randomized, controlled, prospective pilot study. Pediatr Pulmonol 2017;52:580-7.

10    Hedman J, Hugg T, Sandell J, et al. The effect of salt chamber treatment on bronchial hyperresponsiveness in asthmatics. Allergy 2006;61:605-10.

11    Chervinskaya AV, Kotenko KV. Efficiency of controlled halotherapy in rehabilitation of patients with occupational lung diseases. Med Tr Prom Ekol 2016:38-40.

12    Gelardi M, Iannuzzi L, Greco Miani A, et al. Double-blind placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial on the efficacy of Aerosal in the treatment of sub-obstructive adenotonsillar hypertrophy and related diseases. Int J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol 2013;77:1818-24.

13    Maliavin AG, Filiaeva Iu A, Umakhanova MM, et al. [Halotherapy–a new treatment of bacterial vaginosis]. Vopr Kurortol Fizioter Lech Fiz Kult 2004:35-7.