Staying Healthy During Flu Season

MSN has an article, “Secrets of Women Who Never Get Sick”, which is right up my alley. I am pretty serious about not getting sick. The last time I took a full sick day for an illness was..nevermind, I don’t want to jinx it – but I was diagnosed with chronic sinusitis. It is caused by my allergies and I attacked it. Until then, I hadn’t really thought about being pro-active in preventing the everyday bugs. But really – deep winter is miserable enough without being sick.

Anyway. I already do several of these things – washing hands often (although I am sure it is not 12 times a day) and jumping all over the first signs of a cold. And notably absent on the list was getting a flu shot.

I was interested to see this about getting a regular massage:

“Most studies show that massage can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and heart rate—and lowering these is likely to cause your stress level to drop, one key to building immunity. "Decreasing stress increases your immune cells," says Tiffany Field, Ph.D., director of the Touch Research Institute of the Univer­sity of Miami School of Medicine.”

I don’t think of massages as “stress reducing”, but as “pounding out all of the knots in my muscles”. And I certainly don’t do it once a month. But what was really interesting was the “what doesn’t work”. I read it as, “People really try this stuff?”

“Don't put a topical drug up your nose

Some frequent travelers report that this simple trick is germ-killing genius. Not so, says Neil Schachter, M.D., director of respiratory care at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. Neosporin treats only topical bacteria, not the ones that cause airway infections. Plus, it's powerless against viruses and may irritate your sensitive nasal lining.”

The article missed a good one, I think. Get enough sleep is a no-brainer.