Continuing on from Friday’s post about my five favorite immunity boosters (apparently when I write “tomorrow” regarding the next post, I mean “two days later”…lol!), I can’t talk about improving immune response without also talking about what to do when even the strongest immune system comes under attack.

For years I did what most people these days probably do: I would pop cold pills to mask my symptoms so I could “keep going.” However, the more I learn and study real food and herbalism, the more I have come to reject this approach. First of all, cold pills only mask symptoms, they don’t make your body kick the virus any faster. Symptoms are your body doing what it’s supposed to do, fight. And since it is fighting off invaders, the last thing it needs is to “keep going” with whatever your usual routine is. It needs rest so that it can kick virus butt.

When I decided to start foregoing cold pills, I needed to find other ways to naturally ease symptoms that also help my body fight invaders. Here are my five favorite ways to do that:

1. LOTS of rest. Yep, right at the top of the list. When I know I’ve caught a bug, or even when I suspect it, I start trying to rest as much as possible. I’ve had experiences where I feel something coming on in an afternoon, so I get into bed super early—even if I’m watching a movie, or reading, or knitting, or even still blog-reading—I just get myself more horizontal than not, try to relax, and go to sleep early. If I don’t feel better by the next morning, I repeat the resting the next day, and by the following morning, I feel back to normal. The key here is not just more sleep, but more rest. Sleeping more doesn’t help if, when you are awake, you’re pushing your body. To let it fight well, it needs a lot of rest.
2. Raw garlic: Garlic has antiviral and antibacterial properties (as well as antifungal), and since bacterial infections can often accompany colds/flu (which are viral infections), garlic is a great tool for helping kick all of it. But these properties are only active when garlic is raw and chopped/exposed to air; cooking destroys them and garlic pills are useless for fighting active infections. So to use garlic as a medicine, you gotta eat it raw. I’ve read that swallowing it with honey can mask the taste, but I don’t advise this since sugar suppresses the immune system. Best to cut a clove into a few chunks and swallow with water like you would a pill. I will eat one clove of raw garlic 3-4 times per day when I have an active cold. I do it on an empty stomach before breakfast, then with lunch and dinner, and then once more later on. I’ve never had any issues with smelling too garlicy, but even if I did, too bad, lol! I’m trying to get better, not appease others. However, the raw garlic is only a temporary measure. I must also mention that I have recently started hearing that there is apparently a campaign going on to discredit garlic by saying it “disrupts brain waves” or some such nonsense. Considering garlic’s long use throughout history, and my own personal successes using it, I’m not worried. Garlic is a wonderful ally.
3. Elderberry tincture: This one I learned about from Kiva Rose, my other favorite herbalist (along with Susun Weed, mentioned in the last post). To quote Kiva:
   

   “Elderberry does not simply stimulate the immune system, instead, it modulates the immune system to more appropriately respond to environs and circumstance. It also disarms the some cold and flu viruses and helps them flush through body quicker, while strengthening the mucus membranes, supporting the body’s natural fever mechanism without overheating, improves energy and stress handling AND last but certainly not least, it tastes great too.” From the post Elder Mother Immune Elixir

   If you don’t have any elderberry shrubs near you for harvesting your own berries, you can get them or a wonderful ready-made tincture from Mountain Rose Herbs. The tincture is especially nice since the one they offer is not only from organic elderberries (if ever you did not want pesticides in something, you don’t want them in your medicine), its alcohol base is made from organic grapes.  A “tincture” is an herb steeped in high-proof alcohol for many weeks; the alcohol is what pulls the good stuff out of the plant matter. You take only a few drops or dropperfuls of tincture at a time, no more, so you don’t have to worry about getting a buzz off the stuff. But regular alcohol, like the 100-proof vodka many herbalists use to make tinctures, is made from grains; if you are avoiding grains, you can use this particular tincture without concern regarding the alcohol used to make it.

4. Avoid all sugar. Depending on where you are on your real food journey, this one may or may not be difficult. But sugar is a known immune suppressor. While avoiding most sugar all the time is a goal to strive for, avoiding it when you have an active infection is important. The body can kick out a cold more quickly if blocks to healing are removed.
5. More bone broth: As I mentioned in my post about immune boosters, bone broth is a major player. When I get a cold, I eat more of it than normal, up to 2-3 times per day, either just warmed and in a mug or made into a soup for a full meal.

So those are my five favorites at this point in my journey. I know that some of these are easier to do than others. The most difficult things will be rest and avoiding sugar, but I believe that both are really important for fighting colds and for general well-being. The fact that we balk at these ideas says a lot about our culture and our health. I truly believe that incorporating more rest into our lives and consuming much less sugar daily are significant first steps toward reclaiming full health.