Stay Healthy Year-Round: Effective Strategies to Reduce Cold and Flu Incidence

It is of utmost importance that we pay attention to strengthening our immune systems naturally.  Using certain herbs, foods, supplements and homeopathic remedies can help you avoid catching a cold or flu and build your immune system.  If you do catch a virus, they can help relieve the symptoms and shorten the duration and severity of the illness. What most people don't realize is how much your daily diet has an impact on the strength of your immune system.  If you or your child are eating sweets daily, processed foods, junk food, drinking soda or other sweetened beverages regularly, you are weakening your immunity and will be more likely to catch viruses. One teaspoon of sugar (soda has about 9-11 tbsp.) can weaken your immune system for 4 hours.  I believe that this is why so many people are now having an extreme difficulty fighting illnesses.  (Besides repeated antibiotic use).

Try eating more vegetables, at least 4-5 servings a day!  Along with eggs for breakfast, how about a few pieces of steamed asparagus, some spinach, squash or a few tomato slices.  Have a salad with lunch, and at least two vegetables with dinner.  Fresh fruit can also bolster vitamin C and help build resistance.  

Eat berries daily!  Especially frozen - freezing berries breaks the cell wall and releases more color pigments containing the beneficial bioflavanoids.   Avoid all white flour (eat only WHOLE grains), baked goods, sugary cereals, cookies, cakes, candy, and sweets.  You'll feel so much stronger than you realize!  

Good Natural Vitamins a MUST!

It is very important to take a good quality, plant-based not synthetic, multi-vitamin/ mineral supplement daily which supplies you with vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, proanthocyanadines, bioflavanoids, green foods, enzymes and more.  

• Taking 2000-4000 mg. of  Vitamin C every day will help you fight infections.  
• Eating garlic regularly or taking odorless garlic capsules helps fight viral, bacterial, and yeast infections.  
• Bee propolis is known as Russian penicillin and is often found in natural vitamin supplements.  It is collected by bees to protect the hives from infection.

Super Antioxidants

I HIGHLY recommend using Super Antioxidants daily!  Not only because they help reduce the signs of aging, along with aches and pains, but they can greatly increase your immune system, being 20 - 50 times more potent than Vitamin C and E!   

• Using Echinacea (purple coneflower) herbal extract regularly can help you avoid or reduce the severity and duration of viral illnesses.  40 drops for an adult taken 4-6 times a day at the first sign of a cold can help you avoid it completely.  
• 
  Olive Leaf extract is proven more powerful than penicillin in fighting upper respiratory infections, sinus, strep and throat infections!  
• Those with autoimmune diseases should consider using Astragalus instead of Echinacea to strengthen the spleen and immune system.  It is a safe, long term immune system tonic.

Oil of Oregano

My favorite is a high-quality, full-strength Oil of Oregano.  It is a very powerful agent against bacterial, viral,parasitic, and fungal infections.  I recommend keeping some on hand!  It's an excellent general tonic and immune stimulant.  You can take one or two capsules a day, or place one or two drops of the oil under the tongue to go immediately into the blood and lymph system.  4-5 drops can also be placed in juice and taken several times a day.  This can be your best defense against the flu!  

Therapeutic value of Colloidal Silver

Also consider using Colloidal Silver for excellent anti-viral protection!  It works great to help avoid or reduce symptoms of colds and flu.  What most people don't realize is that the body has an innate ability to rejuvenate and restore itself to optimum health. When taken daily, Colloidal Silver acts as an optimal immune system supporter by helping the body fight invaders. Medical tests indicate no known adverse effects from the use of properly prepared Colloidal Silver, and there has never been a recorded case of drug interaction with any other medication. The body does not develop a tolerance to Colloidal Silver and no allergic reaction has ever been recorded.

How Colloidal Silver Works:

1. The presence of Colloidal Silver near an invader disables its oxygen-metabolism enzyme, its chemical lung, so to say. 

2. Within a few minutes, the invader suffocates and dies, and is cleared out of our bodies by the immune, lymphatic and elimination systems. 

3. Unlike pharmaceutical antibiotics, which destroy beneficial enzymes, Colloidal Silver leaves these tissue-cell enzymes intact, as they are radically different than those enzymes of primitive single-celled life. Thus, Colloidal Silver is absolutely safe for humans, reptiles, plants and all multi-celled living matter.

Not to be underestimated is the value of maintaining good colon health.  The Chinese have long equated respiratory problems with poor bowel function.  If waste product is not being removed in a timely fashion then toxins build up in the body, and particularly the respiratory system.  Be sure to take herbs which perform a good bowel detox, as well as keep the intestines in fighting shape with friendly bacteria, such as acidophilus or bifidophilus. Enzymes are a must. Take a broad spectrum enzyme combination, both with meals and between meals.

• Regular daily exercise and fresh air will also keep your lymph moving and your immune system strong.  Try rebounding (jumping on a mini-trampoline) everyday, even if it's just 2-5 minutes, several times a day.  
• Be sure to wear a hat when out in the cold.  
• Getting plenty of sleep and daily relaxation to reduce stress will also help.  Keeping your self strong and healthy not only protects you from the flu, but many other illnesses as well.