As soon as symptoms like sneezing and a sore throat decide to Airbnb it for a while in your respiratory tract, you probably think you might as well just write the next week or so off for ‘recovery’ – because you can’t get rid of a cold any quicker than it takes to run its natural course.
Or can you? Fact is there are things you can do to feel better faster, starting with these 9 tips.
1. Sleep it off
Sleep is your BFF right now, which is handy because it’s probably literally the only thing you genuinely feel like doing anyway.
Not only are you four times more likely to catch a cold when you’re tired (mind blown!), if you’ve already caught a cold, sleeping will help your body’s immune cells fight harder to get you better more rapidly.
So sleep. And then sleep some more.
2. Be zen about it
If sleep is your friend, stress is totally, completely not.
Thanks to
the relationship stress has with your immune system, feeling frazzled will only make your symptoms worse. So instead of getting worked up about having to flake on everything for the next few days, just (blocked nose willing) breathe.
3. Get gargling
Early results from a recent Scottish study show that gargling with a simple homemade saltwater solution three times a day might send a cold packing a day or two earlier .
4. And start flushing too
The Scottish scientists also found that nasal flushing or irrigation – which means pumping a saline or saltwater solution into one nostril, so that it flows through your nasal cavity and down the other nostril – is effective for helping cold symptoms clear up earlier, too .