Happy Friday! We are deep into both winter and cold & flu season so I thought I’d take this Free Friday (read our new Friday Five format here!) to share five tips to stay healthy during cold season. As always, I’m co-hosting this linkup with my friends Mar and Cynthia. Don’t forget to link up to us in your posts if you join in the fun! I hope that these tips and helpful and more than that, I hope we all steer clear of sickness during this cold season! Have a great weekend – potential record setting snow (read: a blizzard) is predicted here in DC and I can’t decide if that excites me or not!
- Wash your hands! This is probably the most important thing you can do to stay healthy year around, but ESPECIALLY during cold and flu season. Warm water, soap, get in there. I like to wash my hands first thing when I come into the house to make sure I’m not spreading germs around. Yuck.
- Keep up with your exercise! Yes, it’s cold. But hibernating during the cold months can backfire on you. Besides, you love to run/do yoga/bike/whatever you’re into. Right? Right!
- Know if the flu breaks out in your area! Chloraseptic® is helping to keep you ahead of the flu this season with their online Cold + Flu tracker. To check for outbreaks and symptoms in your area, go here, click on Cold + Flu Tracker and enter your zip code. I’m almost scared to know, but I figure it’s best to be aware, right?
- Keep drinking fluids. Staying hydrated can really help keep you healthy. Sometimes it’s easy to forget this when you are sweating it out like we do in the summer, but it’s still so important! I drink a cup of tea every morning and always have water easily available.
- Get enough rest! Don’t make it easy for a cold to take you down. Make sure you are getting the rest your body so desperately needs. I’m speaking to myself here because I have not been sleeping well lately and I know it’s going to catch up to me soon, so I’m making this a priority.
If you do get sick…you have some options. First, talk to your pharmacist about how to manage your symptoms with medications. Before cold season (AKA now!), stock your medicine cabinet with the essentials. Stick to single ingredient products, so you have you what you need to treat your specific symptoms. These include pain relievers and fever reducers, a decongestant, cough medicine, lozenges and a sore throat spray. Topical medications, like Chloraseptic® sore throat sprays and lozenges are great to have on hand because they are portable, can be used safely with other cold medicines, and have very few side effects. In fact, Chloraseptic® has a great new (sugar free!) cherry flavor that is the #1 pharmacist recommended brand for sore throat liquids/sprays and is perfect to offer you targeted relief. Now don’t go head out in the blizzard, you DC folks, but for the rest of you, you can pick up your own Chloraseptic® spray at a discount! Use this coupon and save big!
You don’t have to be down and out during cold season. Follow these tips and stay healthy!!
How do you stay healthy during cold season?
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
I’m not a fan of Chloraseptic but definitely drink more tea (generally green tea) and hydrate in the cold season months. My biggest pet peeve is people who do not wipe down machines at the gym, so gross. Stay warm this weekend!!
Mar @ Mar on the Run recently posted…Friday Five: How a Runner Prepares for a Blizzard!
Yuck! People who don’t wash their hands gross me out!!!
I get the flu shot every year. I (knock on wood) haven’t gotten sick in awhile. 🙂
Woohoo!!! Knocking on wood 🙂
I’ve just come through my first cold of the season, almost on the mend. It doesn’t get too cold here in Vancouver, but it’s damp and chilly and there are still lots of germs around. Probably your last tip about getting enough rest is where I fall flat. I need to go to bed earlier!
Bradley on the Run recently posted…Friday Five: Races for 2016
Great tips! I did not know about the Chloraseptic Cold + Flu tracker. Thanks for sharing!
*Knock wood* Thanks to elderberry syrup and a generally strong immune system, I haven’t caught any of the colds that my family has gotten this year. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
MCM Mama Runs recently posted…5 Reasons to Hire a Personal Trainer
Whoa I had no idea #3 existed! I really don’t want to know about my neighborhood/my students’ neighborhood – I’ll just wash my hands a lot 🙂 Good luck staying healthy this winter!
I just got some Airborn so I’m hoping that helps me ward of germs from all the kidddos at school!
I use Emergen-C if I feel a sore throat or sniffles come along and make sure to drink some hot tea and other hot things. It usually keeps things at bay. Some soup always helps too. i didn’t know about #3! Thanks!
I haven’t had Chloroseptic since I was a kid. Man that brought back memories! 🙂 I confess, I did just click on the tracker but when I entered a zip code, it didn’t work. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. My hands are gross right now from how much I wash my hands. Lotion is important too. Stay safe this weekend with your snow predicted. It will be exciting at first, but will get annoying pretty quickly. Take it from someone who survived the winter last year in Boston!!
I would add – don’t have kids! – to the list. I swear, I keep getting sick because they are endlessly sick from all the germs at school. Plus, first-graders are just nasty when it comes to spreading all their “love” around classrooms, buses, etc. If I make it out of this winter alive, it will be a miracle!!
I’m flying on Sunday and I also have heard that it is good to put Vasaline on the inside of your nose as a barrier to the airborne germs. I love your tips and am trying desperately not to carry anything bad to the assisted living place where my mom lives. She’s in the unassisted portion but there are loads of daily interactions with the others that live there.
I’ve never tried Cloraseptic! I’ve been having a couple of clementines each day to ensure I get my dose of Vitamin C. I got sick with a cold last weekend, so hopefully that’s it for me this season! But with working at an elementary school, who nows!Sa
Great tips – especially rest and exercise!! Hope not to need that Chloraseptic!
Staying well hydrated is one of my secret weapons! Lots & lots of tea.
I also try to take emergen-c at times when I know that I’m under a lot of stress pre-preemptively.
I love Chloroseptic Spray. It is actually a problem. The grape one (though I hate grape flavored things) is my JAM
All great advice. My mom always used to make us use Chloraseptic spray. I didn’t know it was still around!
I always have Cloraseptic & Vicks vapo rub in my medicine cabinet because that’s what I used as kid. I always tend to let them expire because I rarely get sick, but just this year I remembered to buy new ones. Good luck with the blizzard!
I am obsessive about washing my hands and have to have lotion available because all the washing dries my hands out.
I don’t understand how people don’t wash their hands! GROSS!!
Not a fan of chlorseptic (too harsh of a taste) but enjoy ricola or ludens for sore throats and coughs.
I drink lots of herbal teas during the winter also.
Stay war ma d safe this weekend!
I stock up on Emergen-C!
smitha recently posted…#FridayFascinations: 5 Things I am Loving This Week!
I don’t know if I’m getting sick, but I need cough drops to help my dry throat. Since it got cold in a hurry here, the heat’s on everywhere. I’ve woken up with a dry, sore throat the past two mornings so I need to stop at the store on my way home.
YES to washing hands!! OMG it kills me the amount of people who still don’t wash their hands… smh…
Yeah, I flet like I was getting sick a lot last year so I’m definitely trying to wash my hands more and drink more water. And taking vitamin C. Hopefully that helps me out this year.
chaitali recently posted…Friday 5 – things I’m doing during the snow storm
Great tips! The fluids, hand washing and rest are my essentials. I have recently started using essential oils and diffuse Thieves in the house too. My husband was sick recently and I managed to not get it by doing these things! Have a great weekend!
This is especially tough for me since I work at a middle school and am constantly surrounded by germs! I wash my hands constantly and make sure to stay hydrated. I’ve also used Zicam whenever I feel the onset of a cold and it’s helped reduce my symptoms (tastes horrible though!). Can’t believe how crazy our weather is going to be this weekend!!!!
Jen@bubblyrunner.com recently posted…Friday Faves
Instead of knocking on wood, I’m beating on my desk! Hope that helps as I’ve not been sick this year. I wish I could say I knew why but I don’t. Your tips are all good things to practice!
I do love the new format for Friday Five! I hope to participate more, Thank you for doing this link up!!!
Good list. I’ve been doing a better job lately on fluids but a worse job on sleep. I know I need it and it will help so many things, but just always takes the hit.
John @ run. geek. run(disney) recently posted…Five Reasons to Own 2XU HYOPTIK Thermal Compression Tights | #FridayFive
Our son started school this year and Infeel like we’ve been constantly fighting off some sort of bug! We keep up on our vitamins and do a ton of hand washing to try to combat some of the yuck he brings home! Both my husband and I have noticed that even if we do get sick that if we keep running/working out it doesn’t seem to last as long.
Oh did I need to read this! I only saw my students one day this week and I woke up the following day with a sore throat and a stuffy nose that I am blaming solely on them haha! We had a nice conversation about how to cough and sneeze into our elbows. They call it chicken wing 🙂 I will not be checking out that website because the thought of the flu sincerely sends me into a panic so I’d rather be in the dark ha!
All of these tips are perfect! I’d add eat a little extra vitamin C. I really like clementines! And keep your hands away from your eyes. I have the worst habit of constantly picking at my eyes. Sickness spreads quickly this way. Happy Friday!!!! 🙂
Jess @ run pink recently posted…5 Tips for the Struggling Home Workout + a Wicked 100 Workout!
#2 and #4 make such a huge difference for me. I don’t get sick often, but I used get a little winter cold every year until I started training during the winter. I have to keep hydrated to run well, so it’s a nice cycle that keeps me healthy. Have a good weekend. Enjoy the crazy snow and stay safe and warm!
Elizabeth recently posted…Race Recap: Broke Man’s Winter Warm Up Weekend
YES to hand washing!! We have nurses from the Infectious Disease Control unit who walk around the hospital, watching to make sure staff members are washing their hands; it’s like the hand-washing police! I love it!!
Continuing to exercise during cold and flu season is a great way to try and stay healthy. Most people assume its counter productive, but it’ll help you to keep your energy levels up and help you to boost your immune system.
Kathryn @ Dancing to Running recently posted…Friday Five – Potpourri v. 11
First off, I hope you’re staying warm and safe in DC. I’ve seen the news reports and it doesn’t look pretty for you guys, yikes!
These are great tips- especially hand washing when you’ve been in germy places (gym, grocery store, basically anywhere out in public these days). I agree that exercise helps keep colds and sickness at bay too, something with the immune system. And of course get lots of vitamin C… good thing those Cuties mandarin oranges are in season!
I hope you are able to stay safe and warm this weekend my friend! Those are some great tips for staying healthy. Knock on wood I’ve managed to avoid getting sick so far. Here’s hoping I stay healthy over these next few weeks as I build to the Phoenix Marathon!
Leana recently posted…How I Ran For Hours on a Treadmill
I be sure to disinfect phones, keyboards and remote controls…. germs thrive there.
Plenty of fruit for me. And yes handwashing is key. I saw someone posted about kids spreading their germs. It’s somewhat inevitable. Fortunately both of my girls are in the clear right now.
Washing hands is key and I really make sure to disinfect any gym equipment and airplane rails. Lots of germs 🙂 Thanks for the linkup
Deborah @ Confessions of a mother runner recently posted…Loving Lately-January
Can’t wash my hand enough! I also do everything I can to stay hydrated and start drinking even more green tea if I start to feel the beginning of a cold coming on.
I just try to pretend I’m not sick. 🙂 Really though I needed a post like this. I’ve been supremely lucky all winter that I haven’t gotten knocked down yet. Whatever else I can do to keep it away from me until spring would be awesome!
I am a big fan of hot tea and honey. I swear the Celestial blueberry tea has magic healing powers 😉
So far so good with health, but there’s always one kid who gets a cough and it will spread to the others! That cold and flu tracker is neat, mine said moderate.
Kids are like germ cubes, lol!