With no cure in sight for the cold or the flu, current treatments can at best bring symptom relief or shorten the duration of those symptoms. You can take one of a variety of medications that may help relieve your symptoms. Or you can take the natural approach.

1. Drink hot liquids
Hot liquids relieve nasal congestion, help prevent dehydration, and can soothe the uncomfortably inflamed membranes that line your nose and throat. Plus it’s nice to drink warm.

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 cause an earache. The best way to blow your nose: Press a finger over one nostril while you blow gently to clear the other. Wash your hands after blowing your nose.

3. Stay rested
Resting when you first come down with a cold or the flu helps your body direct its energy toward the immune battle. This battle taxes the body. So give it a little help by lying down under a blanket.

4. Take vitamin C
Boost your immune system with Vitamin C every few hours. It will ensure your immune system is in top condition to fight the virus.

5. Gargle
Gargling can moisten a sore throat and bring temporary relief. Try a teaspoon of salt dissolved in warm water, four times daily. To reduce the tickle in your throat, try an astringent gargle — such as tea that contains tannin — to tighten the membranes. Or use a thick, viscous gargle made with honey, popular in folk medicine. Steep one tablespoon of raspberry leaves or lemon juice in two cups of hot water; mix with one teaspoon of honey. Let the mixture cool to room temperature before gargling. Honey should never be given to children less than 1 year old.

6. Take a steamy shower
Steamy showers moisturize your nasal passages and relax you. If you’re dizzy from the flu, run a steamy shower while you sit on a chair nearby and take a sponge bath.

7. Use a salve under your nose
A small dab of mentholated salve under your nose can open breathing passages and help soothe the irritated skin at the base of the nose. Menthol, eucalyptus and camphor all have mild numbing ingredients that may help relieve the pain of a nose rubbed raw.

8. Apply hot or cold packs around your congested sinuses
Either temperature may help you feel more comfortable. You can buy reusable hot or cold packs at a drugstore. Or make your own. Take a damp washcloth and heat it for 55 seconds in a microwave (test the temperature first to make sure it’s right for you.) Or take a small bag of frozen peas to use as a cold pack.

9. Sleep with an extra pillow under your head
This will help with the drainage of nasal passages. If the angle is too awkward, try placing the pillows between the mattress and the box springs to create a more gradual slope.

10. Echinacea and goldenseal for your stomach
Use herbs such as echinacea and goldenseal which are said to help with influenza, also try ginger tea to settle your stomach.

11. For you throat
Take slippery elm and marshmallow for an irritated throat and cough.
Also you can dissolve a zinc lozenge under your tongue every two hours, not only are these a great immunostimulant, they will also make your throat feel better.

12. Garlic pills to cleanse
Try to swallow 2 garlic pills 3 times a day; these act as an antiboitic and are said to cleanse the system.

13. For your nose try Eucalyptus
Inhale eucalyptus oil by putting five drops in a hot bath or a cup of water.

14. As soon as you can eat..
Start with broth (chicken or vegetable) and dry crackers once you can tolerate food.

Remember, serious conditions can masquerade as the common cold and a mild infection can evolve into something more serious. If you have severe symptoms or are feeling sicker with each passing day, see a doctor.

If you want to avoid getting the flu this winter, follow these proven techniques for boosting your immune system, fighting off germs, and keeping your body healthy.

A few simple recommendations
1. Get enough sleep: Your immune system functions much better when you get enough sleep. Most people really need about 8 hours per night for optimal health. If you’re body is fatigued, it simply won’t be able to fight off the flu virus (or any other infection) very well.

2. Exercise regularly: Exercise helps keep your immune system strong. In fact, a recent study showed that mice who performed mild exercise as soon as they were exposed to the flu virus had much lower death rates.

3. Avoid sugar: Even small amounts of sugar can significantly impair your immune function, making you more susceptible to a flu infection. A large amount of sugar, such as the amount found in a normal can of soda, hurts your immune function for hours.

4. Drink lots of pure water: Keeping your mucous membranes well-hydrated is a key to helping them fight off viruses. Shoot for about eight 8-ounce glasses per day.

5. Reduce stress: Too much stress has a highly negative impact on your overall health and, over time, it will make you much more susceptible to a flu infection. Studies show that prolonged stress is at least partially responsible for 90% of all illness and disease. Regular exercise and sufficient sleep both help reduce stress levels. Also, meditation is a proven stress-buster that is easy, enjoyable and can be used on a daily basis.

6. Wash your hands often: Also, carry a bottle of alcohol-based hand sanitizer with you and use it frequently, especially after you touch anything that others have touched recently (like doorknobs).

7. Eat immune-boosting foods on a daily basis: A healthy diet, including a few proven immune-boosting foods, is one of the best ways to avoid catching the flu. The best flu-fighting foods are:

Fresh, organically grown fruits and vegetables – Brightly colored fruits and vegetables are packed with healthy phytonutrients that can strengthen your immune system, lowering your susceptibility to the flu virus.
Fresh raw or lightly-cooked garlic – Garlic has strong natural antiviral properties that can help to fight off a flu virus. Also, garlic provides a strong boost to your immune system, especially when eaten on a regular basis.
Green Tea – Like garlic, green tea has shown the ability to both kill viruses and to stimulate the immune system to fight off flu infections, especially when used daily. Try to drink 3-6 cups of strong green tea per day during the flu season.
Cayenne Pepper – Cayenne has a long list of health benefits and is believed to be a mild immune-booster. Also, cayenne contains large amounts of natural vitamin A, considered to be an important “anti-infection” nutrient.

8. Keep your hands away from your face and head: The flu virus enters your body through the eyes, nose, mouth, and possibly even the ears.

9. Get fresh air every day: During the winter the dry heat from indoor heating systems dries out your mucous membranes and makes you more susceptible to viruses. If you can, during the day, crack open a window or two to give your body some relief.

10. Drink little or no alcohol during flu season: Too much alcohol impairs liver and immune function, which leaves you open to all kinds of infections. Heavy drinkers are especially susceptible to flu infections. Also, alcohol dehydrates your body which is always bad during flu season.

11. Don’t smoke and avoid smoke-filled places: First and second-hand smoke significantly impairs your immune system. It also dries out your nasal passages and paralyzes cilia, the small hairs in your nose and lungs that help keep out viruses.

12. Take regular saunas: Many experts believe that taking a sauna several times a week can help to keep you from getting the flu. Many people, especially in Europe, takes saunas just for this reason. The air you breath in a sauna is too hot for cold and flu viruses to survive.

Yawning is one of the best-kept secrets in neuroscience, it is a powerful neural-enhancing tool. Yawning, for example, has been used for many decades in voice therapy as an effective means for reducing performance anxiety and hypertension in the throat.

Recent evidence that yawning is good for you
Several recent brain-scan studies have shown that yawning evokes a unique neural activity in the areas of the brain that are directly involved in generating social awareness and creating feelings of empathy. One of those areas is the precuneus, a tiny structure hidden within the folds of the parietal lobe. According to researchers at the Institute of Neurology in London, the precuneus appears to play a central role in consciousness, self-reflection, and memory retrieval. The precuneus is also stimulated by yogic breathing, which helps explain why different forms of meditation contribute to an increased sense of self-awareness. It is also one of the areas hardest hit by age-related diseases and attention deficit problems, so it’s possible that deliberate yawning may actually strengthen this important part of the brain.

Hence, yawning should be integrated into exercise and stress reduction programs, cognitive and memory enhancement training, psychotherapy, and contemplative spiritual practice. And, because the precuneus has recently been associated with the mirror-neuron system in the brain (which allows us to resonate to the feelings and behaviors of others), yawning may even help us to enhance social awareness, compassion, and effective communication with others.

You should try it
Try it. Force yourself to yawn 10 times and you will experience this fabulous technique. Don’t feel stressed about it, there is an unexplained stigma in our society implying that it’s rude to yawn, and most of us were taught this when we were young.

Yawning usually occurs when you’re tired, and it may be the brain’s way of gently telling you that a little rejuvenating sleep is needed. On the other hand, exposure to light will also make you yawn, suggesting that it is part of the process of waking up.

But yawning doesn’t just relax you—it quickly brings you into a heightened state of cognitive awareness. Students yawn in class, not because the teacher is boring but because it helps easing the brain’s state of sleepiness, thus helping you stay focused on important concepts and ideas. It regulates consciousness and our sense of self, and helps us become more introspective and self-aware.
Of course, if you happen to find yourself trapped in a room with a dull, boring, monotonous teacher, yawning will help keep you awake.

Yawning mechanisms
Yawning is also very contagious, when your friends yawn you start doing it too. The reason for this is that it helps people synchronize their behavior with others.
In fact, it’s so contagious for humans that even reading about it will cause a person to yawn.

Yawning, as a mechanism for alertness, begins within the first 20 weeks after conception. It helps regulate the circadian rhythms of newborns, and this adds to the evidence that yawning is involved in the regulation of wakefulness and sleep.

So what is the underlying mechanism that makes yawning such an essential tool? Besides activating the precuneus, it regulates the temperature and metabolism of your brain. It takes a lot of neural energy to stay consciously alert, and as you work your way up the evolutionary ladder, brains become less energy efficient. Yawning probably evolved as a way to cool down the overly active mammalian brain, especially in the areas of the frontal lobe. Some have even argued that it is a primitive form of empathy. Most vertebrates yawn, but it is only contagious among humans, great apes, macaque monkeys, and chimpanzees.

A real neurological treat
Dogs yawn before attacking, Olympic athletes yawn before performing, and fish yawn before they change activities. Evidence even exists that yawning helps individuals on military assignment perform their tasks with greater accuracy and ease.

Indeed, yawning may be one of the most important mechanisms for regulating the survival-related behaviors in mammals. So if you want to maintain an optimally healthy brain, it is essential that you yawn.

A chemical story
Numerous neurochemicals are involved in the yawning experience, including dopamine, which activates oxytocin production in your hypothalamus and hippocampus, areas essential for memory recall, voluntary control, and temperature regulation. These neurotransmitters regulate pleasure, sensuality, and relationship bonding between individuals, so if you want to enhance your intimacy and stay together, then yawn together.
Other neurochemicals and molecules involved with yawning include acetylcholine, nitric oxide, glutamate, GABA, serotonin, ACTH, MSH, sexual hormones, and opium derivate peptides. In fact, it’s hard to find another activity that positively influences so many functions of the brain.

Conclusion
You should yawn as many times a day as possible: when you wake up, when you’re confronting a difficult problem at work, when you prepare to go to sleep, and whenever you feel anger, anxiety, or stress. Yawn before giving an important talk, yawn before you take a test, and yawn while you meditate or pray because it will intensify your spiritual experience.

You can consciously yawn, it takes a little practice and discipline but it will make you feel incredibly relaxed, and highly alert.

Not bad for something that takes less than a minute to do.

A little bit of stress is good for the body, but when it builds up we need to learn how to deal with it, so take a deep breath and get working for a better mental health.

First : Identify the problem
Try to view stress as a warning that some aspects of your life might need changing. In order to beat stress, you’ll need to work out what these aspects are. OK, it sounds simple, but often we are unaware of just how much stress a relationship/job/lifestyle is causing us. Try and think about the causes of your stress and make a mental note of them. Once you have identified the causes you need to tackle them.

Second : Think positive
“Everything’s getting on top of me”, “I can’t cope”, “My life feels out of control”. Most of us find ourselves having thoughts like this from time to time, but it is possible to take control of these negative tendencies. Just a bit of positive thinking can turn you back onto the path of happiness and healthiness. Clearly, negative thinking can make you sick. Tests have shown that people who focused on bad times had weaker immune systems and also displayed increased activity in the part of the brain associated with mental problems such as depression.

My best advice here is to use NLP on yourself.
If you think you’re not good enough on something -> Repeat yourself you’re the best. Litteraly, just tell yourself ‘I’m the best’ and keep going. Yes you gotta keep going and repeat this to yourself day and night for weeks, then months until this becomes second nature. This just works

Third : Relax
There are endless ways to relax your body and mind; it can be as simple as closing the door to the world and having half an hour on your own with a book, but introducing some formal relaxation into your life will really pay off too. Here are a few suggestions:

Breathing: OK, so we do it all the time, but very few of us do it properly. Re-train your breathing patterns and you’ll soon see an improvement in anxiety and tension levels as well as your state of mind. Mental health charity Mind can suggest some simple breathing techniques.

Massage: Use this hands-on remedy and feel an instant improvement to your body’s built-up tension. Try to find a masseur, it’s usually 30 pounds an hour outside London. Really well worth it. If your budget doesn’t stretch that far, ask a partner or friend to work on your body tensions instead.

Exercise: Choose the right exercise and you’ll feel both energised and relaxed. As a general rule, yoga and Tai Chi are excellent for reinstalling calm by focusing on breathing and centring the mind, but any physical exercise will reduce stress by using up adrenalin and other hormones that the body produces under stress, as well as relaxing the muscles. If you’re skin just watch some Youtube Yoga video and copy the moves

Orgasm: Unlikely to be prescribed by your GP, but the powers of letting off steam in the bedroom can work wonders. Can you honestly think of a time that you’re more relaxed than those post-coital moments curled up in bed? Thought not.

Other stress-busters:
Eat a healthy diet: Processed foods, too much salt, sugar, alcohol and caffeine can all drain energy and often leave you with that ‘wired’ feeling.

Get enough sleep: The best way to do this is to regulate your sleeping hours by going to bed and waking up within a time slot of 1-2 hours.

De-clutter your life: Take anything you don’t use to a charity shop, recycle old magazines and clear away the pizza boxes from under your bed. Then go to work/college on Monday and give your desk the once over. This is the quick-fix of all de-stressers.

Just say “no”: To demanding colleagues/friends/family. You know how much you can cope with, so pick out the important stuff and delegate the rest. Prioritising lists can often help you decide what really needs to be done – and what can wait.

Try to set aside at least 30 minutes each day to switch off from the world, unwind and focus on what has stressed you during the day.

Laugh: Of course laughing works, it does improve our mood, it also relieves stress and improves our immune system. The next time you find yourself with a frown on your face, consider this: four-year-old children laugh on average 400 times a day, whereas adults only laugh 14 times. So go on, get those funny videos out and invite your friends over for some serious cheering up.