How to not catch a cold
Cold-free for a year: my 9 step simple and natural protocol for prevention + first line of defence
Hi! This is Leyla from A Day Well Spent, a newsletter seeking pathways to more purposeful living.
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My cold-free year
One of the extremely useful things about daily journaling is the recording of events. As well as writing about what I’m grateful for, I also note in the margins any useful nuggets of info relating to illnesses and ailments for both myself and my husband.
I therefore know that the last time I had a cold was a year ago to the week. I remember it well, it was a good and proper bastard of a cold that lasted 7 days. These are how the scrawled notes read:
Fri (Day 0) - sore throat?
Sat - sore throat
Sun - got a cold but mild
Mon - mild cold, moved from throat to chest
Tues - (no journal)
Wed - bad cold, last night it felt like I was swallowing razor blades and golf balls, now a dry cough
Thurs - v bad coughing, slept upright on the sofa all night
Fri - bad coughing on sofa all night again
Sat - did not cough last night and slept in the bed!
We’ve all experienced colds like this and they are most unpleasant.
A year later and I am yet to catch another cold; I’ve only had one instance of the beginnings of a sore throat that I got rid of in one day (based on the info in this post). In that time, my husband has had two colds and I’ve managed to ward off both of them. I was a kid the last time I had a chest infection or took any antibiotics.
Obviously, tempting fate like this means I will be struck down with the plague within hours. But until then – considering the average amount of times an adult catches a cold each year is between 2-4 – my track record for the past 12 months isn’t bad.
I should note, I don’t live with any small children who have been lovingly described to me by parent friends as ‘walking petri dishes’. And as I’ve talked about before, I will happily not leave the house for several days at a time. So my likelihood of catching a cold may well already be less than a parent to a young child who takes daily public transport, for example.
But I also think it’s down to something else: I have developed a drug-free and nature-based cold and flu protocol with a focus on prevention and the first line of defence. I have also tuned myself to listen to what my body is trying to tell me, rather than ignoring the way I am feeling and soldiering on.
We in the Western world tend to wait until we are sick before we take action. But doing all you can to prevent getting the cold in the first place is much easier than trying to shift those tickly chests and runny noses that can hang around for weeks and sometimes turn into infections.
In this post I share my cold and flu protocol for:
1) Prevention (6 steps)
2) The first line of defence (3 steps)
3) If the cold does take hold (two brands I turn to)
It’s also worth noting that there is one thing I do in particular and pretty much every day, for which there is a wide body of evidence demonstrating how it can strengthen the immune system and overall health.
I do it, my husband doesn’t do it. He gets the colds, I don’t. I believe there is no such thing as coincidence.
All of the steps below are based on simple, natural and herbal remedies that I have found work for me and I believe are key to why I haven’t succumbed to the snot for 12 months *touches all of the wood*.
As we are now firmly in the grip of cold and flu season, I hope this proves helpful!