System boost: 12 common-sense ways to fight off colds and flu

Are you and your immune system ready for the stuffy noses, hacking coughs, sore throats, chills or fevers and aches and pains that seem to take over from now until March? Don’t just sit there cowering with your Kleenex. You’ve got some heavy boosting to do. “There are things you can do to not damage your immune system and things you can do to actually boost it,” said Neil Schachter, medical director of respiratory care at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. Here are our Top 12 tips to help you cope during cold and flu season:

1. Drink that water.

Your body tissues need more than oxygen to stay healthy. A well-hydrated body helps to keep your tissues moist and less susceptible to viruses, according to Michael Walker, a hospital clinical nutrition manager in Paterson, N.J. Go for eight 8-ounce glasses a day. If your urine is dark yellow, you’re not drinking enough water.

2. Try to reduce your stress.

“It’s been shown by research that people who are very stressed tend to get more colds and more upper respiratory infections because their immune system is compromised by stress,” said Carol Mahler, a family nurse practitioner in Passaic County, N.J. If you have a pet, you’re in luck because a study found that animals help people relieve stress. “People with animals tend to stay well longer,” Mahler said.

Phyllis Salvato, an advanced clinical hypnotherapist in Monmouth County, N.J., helps her clients reduce stress through a 2-to-1 breathing exercise. “It’s very simple and anyone can do it,” she said. “You exhale twice as long as you inhale. You tap directly into your nervous system. It slows it down.” It’s good to stop your activity and sit quietly for five minutes so that you can focus fully on your breath.

Try to find a little time for yourself every day to do something you like. “When I really can’t take it anymore, I spend 10 minutes on the Internet, scanning for things I want to collect,” said Schachter, who collects old books.

3. Laugh more.

Seriously. “Silly is very good, even if you’re just watching a funny movie, something that allows you to feel that freedom of laughter,” Salvato said. “When you laugh, you release endorphins. You support your immune system.”

4. Develop a more positive mental outlook.

The state of your mental health affects your immunity. Give this tactic a try: “Opposing thoughts and feelings cannot be held simultaneously,” said Salvato. “I can’t be happy and feeling crummy at the same time. So I choose happy.”

5. Get some exercise.

When you exercise, your brain releases endorphins, a chemical that boosts your immune system and gives you that feeling of well-being. It also revs up your cardiovascular conditioning, according to Michael Marcus, director of pediatric pulmonology/allergy and immunity at Maimonides Medical Center in Manhattan. That, in turn, improves blood flow and the delivery of the “cellular component” of the immune system to sites of infection. The cellular component is the inclusive term used for the various types of white blood cells, those fierce infection fighters.

Moderate exercise — walking for a half hour, four or five times per week — will do the trick, said Schachter. But excessive exercise may work against you by putting too much stress on cells associated with boosting immunity. Then, Schachter said, “they don’t work as well and there aren’t as many of them.”

6. Get some sleep.

“We were actually designed to sleep something like 12 hours per day. That’s your natural cycle, at any age,” said Salvato. She pointed out that restorative sleep, which allows the body to heal and renew itself, takes place between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. “When the natural rhythm cycle is disrupted and we’re not getting an adequate amount of sleep, we are doing a tremendous disservice to our immune system,” she said.

To get your cycle back on track, start by examining your sleeping patterns — how much you do or don’t sleep. And try to cut back on or eliminate some of the activities and routines that keep you from sleeping. Maybe you drink too many caffeinated beverages in the afternoon. Or you tend to watch high-action TV shows before you try to fall asleep at night.

“If you’re overstimulated and jacked up, you’re not going to sleep,” Salvato said.

7. Get the flu vaccine.

Medical professionals consider this to be the best way to protect against the flu.

“It does provide protection against a serious illness,” Schachter said. “Most people can go to work with a cold, but with the flu, you’re out for three or four days.

“The flu shot is not 100 percent effective, but it reduces your risks. If you do get (the flu), it tends to be less severe, it reduces the chance of a complication, the worst being pneumonia,” said Schachter, author of “The Good Doctor’s Guide to Colds and Flu” (Harper, $14.95). If you’re allergic to the flu shot, which Schachter said is rare, talk to your doctor about drugs and medications that can be taken over several weeks to help reduce your risk of getting the flu.

Other medications work to reduce the severity of your case of the flu.

8. Wash those hands.

Wash them often and do it the right way.

“Some people just run water over their hands, and they think that’s fine,” said Mahler.

It’s not.

Mahler said the water should be as hot as you can stand it because you need heat to kill germs. Get your hands wet, take the soap and do some vigorous rubbing, about 15 to 30 seconds’ worth, all over your hands, between your fingers and around your wrists.

“Really rub, because friction also kills germs,” Mahler said. Then position your hands under the running water, with your fingers pointed down toward the drain, and let the soap wash off.

You’re not finished just yet.

“If you wash your hands a lot, make sure you moisturize your hands because you don’t want them to get chapped,” said Mahler. She explained that soap chaps and cracks hands, making it easier for infections to enter the body.

9. Get your daily vitamin C.

“Diets high in vegetables and fresh fruits are good for maintaining the immune system because you get a well-balanced diet that way,” Mahler said.

Vitamin C is particularly important for maintaining a healthy immune system. But you need to tap a Vitamin C source every day because your body doesn’t store it.

Good sources include orange juice, grapefruit juice, strawberries, cantaloupe, broccoli, bell peppers, kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and potatoes (but cook them with the skin on or else the vitamin C is boiled off). You need to eat only one source per day, said Mahler.

“You don’t have to take a tablet, but if you’re allergic to juices and fruits, then take a vitamin C tablet,” Mahler said. The daily dosage recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is 75 to 90 milligrams, she added.

10. Choose good sources of protein.

“You want things with good-quality protein because you need protein to make enzymes, and protein helps immune cells kill germs and viruses and bacteria, and it keeps your gastrointestinal tract healthy,” said Walker. More healthful protein sources include white meat turkey, lean pork, lean red meats and fish, Walker said.

11. Do something soothing.

Again, you want to reduce your stress. You also want to prepare your body for sleep when it’s time to go to bed.

A homemade eye pillow suggested by Salvato could help you calm down: Take a clean sock, fill it with rice, sprinkle on a little lavender oil and tie the opening up with a bit of string. Lie down. Place the eye pillow over your peepers. Relax. Zzzzzzzzz.

12. Don’t smoke.

People who smoke tend to get more colds and worse colds than nonsmokers. Smoking deprives your body of oxygen, which it needs to keep tissues healthy.

It also messes with your mucus, that slick, sticky coating on the inside of your mouth and tongue that Schachter says acts like a fly trap.

“Any time a germ floats down there, it gets trapped in the mucus and it can’t get to your body,” he said.

When things are going along as they should, your mucus and the junk it’s carrying are replaced with a fresh batch every hour or so. Filaments lining the inner surface of your body’s airways push the mucus along until you either expel it or swallow it, after which it’s destroyed by stomach acids.

“You don’t want your mucus to sit there because if it did, it would be overwhelmed by the stuff that’s stuck on it,” Schachter said.

Smoking, however, damages the cells that produce mucus.

“Smoking makes you make bad mucus.” Schachter said. “It’s too sticky to move, but (smoking) also paralyzes the filaments” and makes you more vulnerable to getting sick.

Need more motivation to stop smoking? When you quit, immune activity begins to improve within 30 days, according to the Foundations of Wellness at the University of California at Berkeley.