How to prevent a Cold Nose from Making you Sick?

As I write this it is snowing in the east and many homes are without electicity. A recipie for a cold nose.

Actually the purpose of today’s blog is to tell you what to do about a cold nose so you won’t get sick. Some conditions you can get include coryza—which is fancy name for the common cold, rhinitis—means runny nose, rhinosinusitis – nose and sinuses are infected, or the flu.

Why do people get sick when your nose gets cold?

Although there are theories and many myths, the fact is that people do get sick following a cold nose. Here are some useful steps you can take against the known rise in illness during the cold weather:

When you are out in the cold, you get chilled. This reduces your immunity system. Remember you can be in the cold –without getting chilled. It is primarily when you get wet and come in still wet that does the harm. Change your wet clothes as soon as you can

When you nose is cold, your nasal cilia slow down. Normally you have millions of tiny hairs called cilia that beat in harmony to move bacteria and viruses out of the nose and the chest. When cilia are too slow, then the bacteria/virus remain in place, and multiply.

Typically you come in from the cold, you are late, so you rush into the office or classroom. There, everyone is sneezing and coughing. The bacteria lands in your nose and instead of being moved away by the cilia, the bacteria remains in place, multiply,, and before you know it, you are sick.

Prevention

Since we know the mechanism, what can we do to prevent the problem?

Ideally, once you come indoors, you should drink hot tea, lemon and honey and smile, before you enter your classroom or office where the sneezers are located. Of course that is not always practical.

Whatever you can do to warm the nose helps. For example you might walk up and down the hallway first before entering the classroom. Or warm your hands to use to warm your nose. Or just a warm drink.

Other steps: Hummmm. Go “ooooommmm’ for a couple of minutes. This vibration will get the nose and chest cilia moving. Jump rope and jumping jacks do this too.

Smile. Science has shown that smiling raises your immune factor.

If you get sick easily during the cold season, consider regular pulse wave irrigation with my gadget, the Hydro Pulse™ nasal/sinus irrigator. (www.hydromedonline.com) This does several things. It pulses the cilia so that the cilia keep a normal pulse speed. The Breathe.ease compound that is added to the Hydro Pulse for salinity, is an enhanced formula designed to stimulate good cilia movement. The pulse wave action removes ICAM-1, a product naturally present in your nose which is the portal of entry of the cold virus. If you wash out the ICAM-1 then the virus has no doorway by which to enter.

Other steps you can take to prevent illness when its cold:

Yogurt and Probiotics. These raise your immune system.

You may or may not have a fever with a common cold. A fever means your body is fighting the virus. It means you should remain in bed. If the fever is slight, I don’t recommend drugs to lower it. If the fever is quite high, time to see a doctor.

Good sleep. Forget the eleven o’clock news. Read a good Algebra book. Actually the more formal steps you take for going to sleep: brush your hair, bubble bath, cream, brush teeth, etc and the more regular your time of going to bed, the better sleep you get. The better the sleep, the better you will overcome any illness by your natural immunity.

In general, hot tea, lemon and honey is the best disease fighter during the cold months. It has to be green or black tea, with or without caffeine.

Stay well!

Questions: Some readers write that they like to have question, sort of review the material. See if you like this:

Question: If you don’t have a fever, does that mean you don’t have a common cold?

Question: Does tea have products that stimulate cilia movement?

Question: Should you avoid yogurt during the winter?

Please tell your friends to visit my blog here so that we can all be healthier.