Cold Flu Season Prevention Tips

Cold and flu season 2018-2019 is soon upon us so what can we do to not get the

flu? Coming right up hey I'm Dr. Ekberg with WellnessFor

Life and if you'd like to truly master health by understanding how the body

really works make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell

so that you don't miss anything so how come that there is an official cold and

flu season every year do the bugs kind of migrate or is it certain things that

humans do that make us more susceptible so first of all not everybody gets the

flu even though the flu virus there's bugs all around us not everyone gets it

because some people have a stronger immune system some bodies can put up

more resistance so what are the factors that influence that well in your body

you have a system your autonomic nervous system kind of operates on a seesaw and

we call that the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system and the

sympathetic nervous system that's your fight/flight system it's designed to rev

things up to increase your blood sugar to increase your heart rate to increase

your blood pressure to get you ready for a fight

to get you ready to run away and whenever that happens whenever that

sympathetic nervous system is activated you automatically by default

decrease the activity of the parasympathetic and the parasympathetic

is your feed breed system that's what handles your digestion and your immune

system and your repair and your healing and your reproduction so modern human

beings have more stress than we've ever had because we live in a very very

complex world but starting somewhere around Halloween it tends to increase

and that is why we become more susceptible we

increase our stress so what is stress stress is anything that activates your

sympathetic nervous system so that it can be chemical stress structural stress

and emotional stress so in chiropractic we talked about this triad of health

that the human is influenced by chemical structural and emotional factors so

chemical stress would be things like toxins and pathogens and unstable blood

sugar for example all of those are chemical stresses structural stress our

trauma slips and falls but also lack of movement because movement drives the

frontal lobe that inhibits stress so sedentary living in activity is actually

a form of physical stress and emotional stress is when we feel overwhelmed when

you feel tense or frustrated or inadequate or there's just too many

things to do and not enough time and starting somewhere around Halloween with

all of that can be and then going on through the Thanksgiving and then all

the Christmas parties we tend to eat more candy we tend to go to more parties

we tend to not have time to exercise because of all the parties and we're

less inclined to exercise because it's cold and dark and then all the emotional

stress because we have all these things to do and all these parties to prepare

for and all these dinners to cook so stress everyone would probably agree

that for most people stress increases during the holiday season which

coincides with the flu season so knowing that what can we do about it well the

first thing that you want to do is to cut back on sugar because sugar it is

the main form of chemical stress it as soon as you eat sugar you destabilize

your blood sugar you create a blood sugar rollercoaster every time your

blood sugar is low you make cortisol which is a stress hormone and there you

go sugar also feeds all the pathogens all of the bugs that create the flu

the colds and flues they are fed by sugar everything you don't want in your

body everything that feeds offer you loves sugar so number two avoid sugar

okay number three don't eat sugar number four

eat good quality food eat grass-fed meat eat organic meat eat wild caught fish

eat organic vegetables eat quality fat eat grass-fed organic butter eat extra

virgin olive oil eat coconut oil but don't eat sugar I think you're getting

the picture now I really hope so and five stay physically active I know the

season is very challenging because we're so tempted to go inside and just do

other things but we want to stay active the activity drives the frontal lobe the

frontal lobe inhibits the stress response and balances out this seesaw

and you can benefit your immune system by doing that and finally to combat the

emotional stress try to find some time despite all of the hurry to relax put

aside five minutes do some deep breathing put aside some time to do

meditation there's a guided meditation on our site here's a link for that one

so there are a lot of things that we can do and realize that the flu does not hit

you accidentally it does not land on you just because you have bad luck it lands

on everybody and if you have a stronger immune system if your parasympathetic

sympathetic nervous system are imbalanced then you will probably not

get the flu so a lot of people wonder about the flu shot and I'm not going to

get into a lot of detail there my personal opinion is I don't get the flu

shot but I would recommend for everyone to do your research don't take my word

for it and even more importantly don't take your medical

doctor's word for it and don't get the flu shot just because it's offered free

at your local Kroger or Walmart or wherever else you happen to be make an

informed decision and do all the things that it needs to get you healthy and in

balance and strengthen your immune system if you enjoy this sort of content

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helping get the message of health out to the broader public thanks for watching