Don’t you hate waking up with a cold? Somehow your nose is both stuffed and runny, your coughs become sneezes and your sneezes become coughs, and that general feeling of discomfort is enough to spur a Netflix marathon in bed. Sure, extra rest will assist your body in its natural fight against the virus, but oftentimes rest is not enough. There are natural remedies that can help speed up the recovery process and get you back to your normal, healthy self.
Cold Symptoms
The common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract (nose, mouth, and throat). Depending on where the infection is located, you may be experiencing an array of symptoms, such as:
- Runny or stuffy nose
- Slight fever
- Cough
- Sore throat
- Body aches
- Headache
- Congestion
- Sneezes
Because a cold can spawn from over 200 different viruses, creating an antiviral medication is out of the question. Plus, cold symptoms only last anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks—which doesn’t exactly put it high on the priority list.
The best option available is to have natural remedies for cold symptoms at the ready. That way, the sick days will go by painlessly.
#1 Honey and Tea
Honeycomb and tea is the perfect concoction to ease a sore throat, reduce the inflammation from coughing, and will put something warm and gentle into your body. The tea will help keep you hydrated—which is one of the best things you can do for your body when you’re sick. Plus, the honeycomb has natural antiviral properties, and it coats the throat to help mitigate the coughing.
Choosing the Right Tea
When choosing which tea to use, try to avoid natural diuretics which push the water out of your body. Those teas include:
- Dandelion extract or “lion’s tooth”
- Horsetail
- Hibiscus
- Green
- Black
Instead, look for herbal teas that are gentle on the body, and help to hydrate you:
- Chamomile
- Peppermint
- Sage
- Rosehip
- Passionflower
- Lemon
After choosing the right tea, you now need to pair it with the right honey.
Choosing the Right Honey
It’s also important to ensure that you’re using raw honey for colds. Pasteurization involves a process of heating the honey and filtering out other natural particles. This eliminates a lot of the helpful enzymes and nutritious vitamins and minerals that are in honey. In terms of healthfulness, raw honey beats pasteurized honey, and honeycomb beats raw honey.
Honeycomb provides the honey straight from the source. If you’re wondering what kind of honey for cough and cold symptoms is best, you should always try to find the rawest form. That means finding those golden, gooey hexagons.
#2 Naps
Yup, that’s right. If you want to take care of your body, you need to give it an extra dose of rest. Your body is continuously doing a hundred different tasks at a given time. When you’re sick, suddenly your immune system is on high alert, and your body needs all of its resources to fight the infection. Resting gives your body time to allocate the needed energy to its immune system.
So, do yourself a favor and take a nap. You and your body will thank you.
#3 Steamy Shower
A steamy shower can help you breathe normally again. The warm steam is great for opening stuffed up nasal passageways which, after a day of not being able to breathe out your nose, is like taking a breath for the very first time.
Plus, the warm and clean feeling you get after a hot shower can give your mood a boost which has a direct link to enhancing the immune system.
#4 Eat Foods That Fight Infection
So far, we’ve talked about the benefits of eating honeycomb, but there are plenty of other foods that can help fight infection. Try eating plenty of these healthy fruits and vegetables while you’re sick:
- Blueberries
- Broccoli
- Oranges
- Leafy greens
- Kiwi
- Mango
- Pineapple
- Green and red bell peppers
Though honeycomb is always our top pick, these other options will help fight your cold as well.
Natural Remedies vs Over the Counter Medicine
Most people prefer natural remedies to over the counter medicine because colds cannot be cured. Over the counter medicine comes with the allure that it will help fight against the virus, but that’s not true. It does exactly what natural remedies do—which is to mitigate the symptoms.
Most of the common OTC medicines also come with negative side effects, including:
- Drowsiness
- Insomnia
- Headache
- Loss of appetite
- Spike in blood pressures
- Liver and kidney problems
- Ulcers
Common Remedies for the Common Cold
Everybody experiences the common cold at some point. It’s practically unavoidable. A cold can be spread through airborne droplets, skin-to-skin contact, sharing drinks (saliva), or even by touching the same object as someone with a cold. It’s why when one kid has a cold, suddenly the whole school has it.
To be best prepared, we suggest that you have your natural remedies for cold-related symptoms handy. That means having your honeycomb, your tea, and of course, your laptop to watch shows in bed all day. Because hey, it’s what the doctor ordered, right?
Sources:
Mayo Clinic. Home Remedies: Cold remedies that work. https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/home-remedies-cold-remedies-that-work/
Psych Central. How Does Mood Affect Immunity? https://psychcentral.com/lib/how-does-mood-affect-immunity/
WebMD. 12 Natural Treatment Tips for Colds and Flu. https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/12-tips-prevent-colds-flu-1#2