Natural Remedies for the Common Cold

The last thing you need in your busy life is a stubborn head cold and sinus congestion.
Taking the standard over-the-counter medications may leave you feeling groggy and not yourself. Consider some tried and true natural remedies to get you back to work and at the top of your game again.

Steam therapy is one way to excrete the toxins through your pores, as well as stimulate your circulatory and respiratory systems, speeding up the time it takes to get the cold through your system. It can take up to two weeks, once cold symptoms appear, to resolve them, and processing the toxins through your body is important through proper hydration. Consider taking a long hot shower and inhaling the steam deeply to generate a productive cough. You don't want the mucus and congestion to settle in your lungs; and although getting up and moving around may be the last thing you feel like doing, physicians advise to get up and walk around rather than stay in bed all day. Keeping a humidifier going in your bedroom at night is also a good idea to keep the air moist and prevent your sinuses from drying out. 

Keep a bottle of water nearby at all times and limit your juice intake to clear fluids, such as apple or cranberry, rather than pulpy juices. Since the 12th Century, chicken soup has been prescribed as a cold remedy, most likely because of the spices and their decongestant effect on the sinuses. Boiling some cloves over the stove then inhaling the steam also relieves sinus pressure and clears the head, and ginger candy or ale is well known for its anti-nausea properties. Try to avoid a lot of dairy products, such as cheese or whole milk; although they are a great source of protein, they are also a tremendous source of mucus. If your throat is raw and you crave something sweet and soothing, consider a fruit popsicle rather than ice cream for a satisfying treat.

The best approach, when it comes to treating a cold, is to cut it off as soon as that first tickle in your throat hits you. Consider keeping a vitamin C-rich supplement, such as NOW's C-1000 with Rose Hips, in your desk at work. NOW makes their product without dairy or gluten and in a totally vegetarian formula. 

If the cold has already hit, your respiratory system needs all the help it can get so consider Gaia Herbs' Eyebright Bayberry Extract, with goldenseal, a member of the buttercup family and known as a remedy for sore throats. Gaia Herbs recommends adding up to 40 drops of the tincture to warm water or in chamomile tea as a pleasant way to relieve upper respiratory symptoms, along with the fever relief of bayberry. If you have to get back to work and want to avoid disrupting your co-workers with a nagging cough, consider Herb Pharm's Fenugreek Extract derived from seeds harvested at the peak of freshness. You can take the tincture made from Herb Pharm up to five times a day to quiet a cough or to give yourself a silent night's sleep.