Here’s how to avoid catching the common cold or whatever’s going around your office.
I’ve been exposed to lots of sickness and sick people, especially during peak allergy season and again during the winter months when cold, flu, and covid make the rounds. And following these habits, I haven’t come down with anything for well over a year now. It’s amazing how our body works when we give it what it needs.
The body is always healing and good health is our default. Disease happens when something gets in the way of that default.
The key breakthrough is taking daily Quercetin, Bromelian, and Zinc. But it’s important to note they rely on the healthy foundation habits below.
If you compromise the foundation, the supplements won’t work as well.
Breakthrough:
Take Quercetin, Bromelain, and Zinc daily. These work like a virus shield – pretty amazing.
Foundation Habits:
Lay the foundation for optimum health with these habits:
Get enough sleep:
For most adults, we want to get at least 7 hours of sleep per night. Less then that makes us susceptible to getting sick, having hypertension (high blood pressure), and even developing some cancers.
Minimize stress:
Realize that stress doesn’t come from any outside situation, it’s actually our internal response. So we have a lot of control over stress and can retrain how we handle stressful situations most of the time. If we’re not paying attention we take shallow breaths. Instead, belly-breathe full breaths (through your nose). When you do stress, breath and workout. Check out my article on Dissolving Stress for more info and practical application. I also recommend Replace anxiety with relaxed vigilance (parasympatchetic activation) since this goes hand-in-hand with Stress response.
Massage toxins out of feet regularly:
Gravity helps circulate blood down to our feet, but it also interferes with the return flow so things tend to pool in our feet to some degree. If our cell drainage system gets stuck or backed up, disease forms. Even a quick 30-second foot rub moves the toxins and waste that accumulate out of your feet and into your circulatory system to be dealt with properly. I like to use a fascia scraper. Scrape the bottom of your feet from toes back towards your heel (encouraging flow in that direction).
Get sunlight:
We need much more sunlight than most of us are probably getting in modern society. Get outside regularly. Open windows and let light in – we need full spectrum light.
Sunlight is good for our eye health and our body. LED light isn’t great. Natural sunlight is best (open the blinds, work near a window), but if you can’t work near a window use incandescent or full spectrum (Chromalux) bulbs and go outside for walks regularly.
Take vitamins:
They act like an insurance policy for key elements missing from our diet. Here’s my recommended stack.
Minimize ultra processed foods and seed oils:
Aim for at least 80% clean foods. What to eat.
Don’t drink to excess:
Alcohol impacts sleep quality and dehydrates you. This may go without saying, but avoid smoking and drugs as well.
Positive mindset:
This dovetails into minimizing stress, but worth noting the very real and measurable placebo effect. Our mindset and positivity have a measurable impact on our health.
It’s critically important we realize the reverse is also true. The “nocebo effect” is defined as “a substance that causes undesirable side effects as a result of a patient’s perception that it is harmful rather than as a result of a causative ingredient.” This means that if you think you’re getting sick you can make yourself sick. Don’t let negative or cynical people influence you here – keep a healthy frame of mind and know your default is good health, especially if you’re following these tips.
Try these out and let me know about how you’ve avoided the bug that’s going around the office (or kid’s school). How long are you going now without getting sick?
If you do get sick, can you now pinpoint which of these caused it? Was it because you didn’t get enough sleep or stressed out? Knowledge is power (and health) 😊.
In good health,
-Ira