How to Avoid Colds: Boost Your Immune System Naturally This Winter

Episode 8: How to Stop Your Kids Getting Constant Colds

Avoiding colds every winter during "sneezing season" can feel impossible, right? But some families seem to sail through winter barely catching anything. What's their secret?

In this episode, I'm sharing exactly how to boost your family's immune system and speed up recovery time when colds do strike.

What you'll learn:

• Why children get up to 12 colds per year (and it's not your fault!)
• The difference between a robust immune system and never getting ill
• My "magic combo" for cold prevention: My Winter wellness pack!
• Top homeopathic remedies for colds: Aconite, Allium cepa, Gelsemium
• How to tell the difference between a cold and flu

4 practical tips to avoid catching colds:

• Why rest is non-negotiable (and how to actually make it happen)
• The role of hydration in keeping mucous membranes healthy
• Foods that boost immune function (and how to hide them for fussy eaters!)
• When to take supplements for maximum effectiveness

Cold symptoms explained:

• What's normal and what needs medical attention
• How long symptoms should last
• Why children's symptoms often last longer than adults'

This episode is perfect for you if: Your kids are constantly sick, you're tired of missing work due to illness, or you want to support your family's immune system naturally through winter.

Having a few key remedies on hand means you can treat symptoms as soon as they appear – which makes all the difference in how quickly your family recovers.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Homeopath in Your Pocket, where I help busy working mums discover how to support their family's health with confidence. Hi, I'm your host, Neila Prabhu, a licensed homeopath with 20 years of experience as a pharmacist. As a mum of two girls, I totally understand the juggle of family life firsthand. Each week, I'll share practical, actionable tips that you can use today to support your family's well-being. So let's get started. But the facts might surprise you. The average adult has two to three colds per year and up to five coughs per year, and this number rises for children up to 12 colds per year. Children's immune systems are not fully developed until about eight years old, meaning that they're more susceptible at a younger age and it's harder for them to avoid colds. Having a cold is sometimes seen as an inevitability of the cold weather, central heating, and returning to work or school after the summer or after the Christmas break. But it can be miserable for parents who are taking care of children or suffering themselves or both. So, how are some people avoiding colds? What's their secret? So, in today's episode, I'll be sharing four tips to boost your immune system and speed up recovery. So, tip one, get as much rest as possible. It allows the body time to heal. Children are really good at this. They listen to their bodies and they just crash and sleep. Adults, we tend to push through, don't we? We don't listen to our bodies. And sometimes there is good reason for this. We have to keep working, doing school runs, powering on, even when the body is screaming for rest. So if you want to avoid getting sick or recover quickly, rest is a non-negotiable. Your immune system does its best work when you're resting and sleeping. So give your body what it needs. Tip two fluids are essential to keep mucous membranes working correctly. So warm drinks, soups, juices, water, whatever you can manage. Just keep drinking. When dehydrated, mucous membranes in our mouths, in our nose, they dry out and it's easier for viruses to take hold. So keeping hydrated supports your body's natural defence mechanisms. Aim for plenty of fluids throughout the day, especially if you feel a cold coming on. Tip 3 high dose vitamin C, zinc, and echinacea taken together for two to three days at the start of a cold. This is my magic combo. I've been recommending this and using it for the last 25 years. It can vastly speed up recovery time. Vitamin D and B6 are also a good idea to throw in the mix. These nutrients work together to support your immune system. And if you catch them, catch it early enough, so at the first sign of that weird scratch throat or that tingling sensation at the back of your nose or a runny nose, they can make a huge difference. They can shorten the length of your cough or cold. So here I'm talking about taking high dose vitamins for a short period of time, not just a regular daily multivitamin. If you want to hit it hard and fast, giving the immune system the support it needs to fight off the virus quickly at the time it needs it. So high dose vitamin C, I'm talking about one gram, and that normally comes as a fizzy tube alongside 15 milligrams of zinc. You pop that into a glass of water with the echinacea tincture that I sell, and that is my magic combo. Just quickly, this can also be used for children from age one upwards. It's echinacea is not suitable for pregnant or breastfeeding women. Tip number four fruits and vegetables. Not only do they contain over 75% water, they have the vital vitamins and minerals that our body needs to heal. So smoothies, soups, even fruit juice lollies, if somebody has a sore throat. It's all a really good way to hide these for fussy eaters as well. So if your children are not keen on vegetables, blend them into a smoothie or make a vegetable soup, and this can actually be a real game changer in trying to get these fruits and vegetables into your children. And as I said, for sore throats, homemade fruit juice lollies are brilliant. They're soothing, they're hydrating, and kids love them. So what are the symptoms of a cold? So according to the NHS, cold symptoms come on gradually: a blocked or runny nose, or both, headaches, muscle aches, coughs, sneezing, a raised temperature, and pressure in the ears and face when your sinuses are blocked, and you can have a loss of sense of taste and smell. So some important points here. The symptoms are the same in adults and children. Sometimes the symptoms last longer in children, which is extremely frustrating. And just when you think it's getting better, the cough lingers another week or two. As I said before, children's immune systems are still learning, so they often take longer to shake off the cold compared to adults. And there is a difference here between colds and flu, and that's worth noting. So flu tends to come on quite suddenly, it's a much more severe, it's a high high fever, body aches or bone aches, and extreme fatigue. You crawl from your pit of your bed to the bathroom to go to the toilet and you crawl back again. It's what I call the 50 pound note disease. If there was a 50 pound note on the floor, you wouldn't stop to pick it up because you're that tired. Colds are milder and they develop gradually. So if you're feeling absolutely wiped out and really feverish, you're much more likely to have the flu rather than just a cold. So, what remedies do we have with for homeopathy for colds? So the acute symptoms of colds, coughs, and flu can be helped immensely with homeopathic remedies. So you can do this yourselves at home. Several remedies work brilliantly for different presentations of colds. So having a few key ones on hand will really help to treat the symptoms as soon as they appear. So my top three for colds are aconite, allium seepa, and galsemium. So each one works slightly differently depending on the specific symptoms of your cold. Acinite is really good to take at the start of a cold. Allium seepa is for when you have a very runny nose, and galsemium is good again at the start of a cold, which may then tip into flu. So keeping these common remedies at home alongside a guide or knowing what to do is going to help you to enjoy the autumn and winter season without suffering too much. And it makes all the difference in how quickly you can recover. So, what are your action steps today? Number one, prioritize rest and hydration. If you feel a cold coming on, don't push through, rest as much as you can, drink plenty of fluids, warm teas, soup, water, whatever feels good, because the body needs this to fight off the virus effectively. Step two, stock up on immune-boosting supplements. So the high dose vitamin C that I mentioned, the zinc, the echinacea tincture. All of these are presented in my winter wellness kit, which I will leave a link for in the show notes. So you've got all of those ready in the cupboard at that first sign of a cold, and you can take them three times a day for the first few days, and that can really help to nip that cold in the bud. And step three, keeping those homeopathic remedies on hand. So please do contact me for which specific ones you would need, but you're then prepared with the best remedies so that they are right there for your family's needs when the cold season hits. So to sum up, the average adult has two to three colds per year, and children can have up to twelve per year because their immune systems are still developing. Colds are seen as inevitable during the winter, but there are lots of things that you can do to help yourself avoid them or recover faster. So, rest, hydration, high dose vitamin C with zinc and echinacea, plenty of fruits and vegetables, all of this is the key to supporting your immune system. Cold symptoms are a runny nose, sore throat, headaches, coughs, and pressure in the ears and face due to blocked sinuses. And homeopathy can help immensely with acute cold symptoms. So having a few key remedies on hand so that you're ready should anything happen. And contact me if you'd like help with stocking your natural medicine cabinet for the cold season. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you found this helpful, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review as it helps other busy mums discover the show. If you want to dive deeper, book a free discovery call to see how we can work together one-to-one, or join me on Instagram at Homeopathic Harmony, where we can continue the conversation. And don't forget to grab your free guide to beating insomnia when you join my email list because I know sleep is precious when you're juggling everything else. The links are in the show notes. I'll see you next week.