In lieu of the regular RICE & MICE content for some of the off-season, I’m going to do a series on health and wellness. I hope you enjoy it and as always, if you have specific questions, please don’t hesitate to leave comments or send me an email.
This is not intended to be medical advice, nor should it take the place of you consulting a medical provider. Please see your doctor, physician assistant or nurse practitioner before starting any diet or weight loss program.
It’s back to school time with cold and flu season right around the corner. Here are some good tips to help prevent colds and flu.
1. Wash your hands thoroughly and often. You’ll want to wash them for at least 20 seconds with soap and water! If soap and water are unavailable, hand sanitizer is the next best thing.
2. Don’t touch! Our hands touch everything from handrails, to chairs to money and none of that is clean. When you touch your face you are providing transportation for the germs on your hands into your body via your eyes, nose and mouth. The average person touches their face on average 3-to-5 times per minute, which seems like a gross overestimate, until you become conscious of touching your face and you realize that you do indeed touch it a lot.
3. Get plenty of sleep
4. Don’t share food, drinks, or Chap Stick with other people. Have your own tube of toothpaste instead of sharing with everyone in the family.
5. Drink plenty of water. Soda doesn’t count.
6. Clean doorknobs, bathrooms and children’s toys with disinfecting cleaner often. If you travel, bring a pack of Clorox wipes with you to disinfect on the road.
8. Get some fresh air. Stay active and open the windows at home every so often.
9. Get a flu shot. Yes, really. If you can save yourself 2-to-3 weeks of feeling like you have been run over by a truck and are being dragged underneath it, isn’t it worth it? There is a new flu shot formulation for people ages 18-to-64 this year that is injected into the skin rather than muscle and the needle is tiny.
10. Avoid kissing on the lips of you feel yourself getting sick.
11. Stay at home if you are sick.
12. Use paper towels to dry hands when you are sick rather than cloth hand towels.
13. Throw used tissues away.
14. Watch out for double dippers. When enjoying a meal with friends, it’s always best for everyone to scoop out some of that tasty dip onto a plate to avoid food contamination.
15. Finally, keep track of your symptoms. Colds very commonly start out with a bit of a scratchy throat and then symptoms progress over a couple of days, with most resolving in around a week. Antibiotics will not treat a cold. The flu has a fairly sudden onset of fever, aches, chills and tiredness.