- 1. Know When Not to Treat Symptoms
- 2. Blow Your Nose Often (and the Right Way)
- 3. Treat That Stuffy Nose With Warm Salt Water
- 4. Stay Warm and Rested
Looking for a natural or alternative treatment for your cold or flu symptoms? Here are tips that may help relieve your symptoms.
1. Know When Not to Treat Symptoms
Believe it or not, those annoying symptoms you’re feeling are part of the natural healing process—evidence that the immune system is battling illness. For instance, a fever is your body’s way of trying to kill viruses by creating a hotter-than-normal environment. Also, a fever’s hot environment makes germ-killing proteins in your blood circulate more quickly and effectively. So if you endure a moderate fever for a day or two, you may actually get well faster.
Coughing is another productive symptom; it clears your breathing passages of thick mucus that can carry germs to your lungs and the rest of your body.
Even that stuffy nose is best treated mildly or not at all. A decongestant, such as pseudoephedrine, restricts flow to the blood vessels in your nose and throat. But often you want the increased blood flow because it warms the infected area and helps secretions carry germs out of your body.
2. Blow Your Nose Often (and the Right Way)
It’s important to blow your nose regularly when you have a cold rather than sniffling mucus back into your head. But when you blow hard, pressure can carry germ-carrying phlegm back into your ear passages, causing earache. The best way to blow your nose: press a finger over one nostril while you blow gently to clear the other.
3. Treat That Stuffy Nose With Warm Salt Water
Salt-water rinsing helps break up nasal congestion while also removing virus particles and bacteria from your nose. Here’s a popular recipe:
Mix 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda in 8 ounces of distilled, sterile, or previously boiled water. Use a bulb syringe or nasal irrigation kit to squirt water into the nose. Hold one nostril closed by applying light finger pressure while squirting the salt mixture into the other nostril. Let it drain. Repeat two to three times, then treat the other nostril.
