Relieve Symptoms of the Common Cold with 4 Amazing Homemade Treatments

We all know that medical researchers have yet to find a cure for the common cold. So, the only thing we can do when we’re suffering from this rather mysterious virus, is to find ways to stop the miserable symptoms. Read this informative article and learn 4 amazing, homemade treatments that help relieve the symptoms of the common cold!

1. Drink Hot Chicken Soup

It’s long been considered an old Wives’ Tale that hot chicken soup can cure a cold. While this theory has yet to be proven, medical researchers do know this tasty concoction can help us feel better. How? Tests prove there’s an amino acid in the chicken called, “Cysteine.” Cysteine actually helps break up congestion and thin the mucus in a cold sufferer’s lungs, making it easier to cough it up. It also helps drain sinus congestion.

Homemade Chicken Soup works very well to relieve some of the symptoms of the common cold. However, Dr. Stephen Rennard, a pulmonary specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, has discovered some brands of soup that work even better. The top five soups are:
Knorr’s Chicken Flavor Chicken Noodle, Campbell’s Home Cookin’ Chicken Vegetable, Campbell’s Healthy Request Chicken Noodle, Lipton Cup-O-Soup- Chicken Noodle, and Progresso Chicken Noodle.

2. Take Plenty of Hot, Steamy Baths

Another amazing homemade treatment that helps relieve the symptoms of the common cold is to take as many hot, steamy baths as you can. The heat and steam will actually help you feel better in more ways than one: 1) The baths help stimulate your immunity system. 2) They also help clear the congestion out of your lungs, throat and nasal passages. 3) The heat will relax achy muscles. 4) Breathing the steam will help kill the virus.

3. Hydrate Yourself and Stop the Cough

One of the most important ways to help yourself get over the common cold is to keep your body hydrated. This means drinking plenty of hot, and cold liquids, as well. Whenever you drink fruit, or vegetable juices or water, make sure you put plenty of ice in your drink. Why? Because the ice will help relieve one of the most maddening symptoms of a cold- the coughing. Holding ice cubes in your mouth is a homemade treatment that will help numb the nerves in your throat. Not only will it help soothe your sore, irritated throat, but the ice will help quiet your cough.

If you want to make your ice cubes even more effective, then freeze fruit juices or sports drinks in ice cube trays and use them.

4. Table Salt to the Rescue

You’ve heard of gargling with warm salt water to soothe a sore throat, but have you ever heard of snorting salt water? It’s an amazing, homemade remedy that works! Dissolve a half teaspoon of table salt in a cup of warm- not hot- water. Then, pour a bit of the mixture into one hand. With the other hand, hold one nostril closed. Hold your hand up and snort the salt water into the open nostril. Next, hold your head up and back- you’ll feel it run down your throat. Repeat the process, then switch over to the other nostril.

The warm salt water will help relieve these common cold symptoms: 1) Nasal Congestion, 2) Dry, Irritated Nasal Passages, and 3) Sore Throat and Mucus.

Reference:

• www.cbc.ca