How to get over a Chicago Cold Flu Quickly
The cold and flu season is here again and if you work in a high rise building in Chicago like I do, you will be exposed to the germs of thousands of people who work in your building, eat at the restaurants you go to and sneeze on you while riding the CTA. The virus exposure levels in the city of Chicago have to be about 100x more than what you would experience in the suburbs. Even if you go to work there, it’s smaller buildings, you drive your own car and suburbanites don’t go out to eat every meal. I have noticed that the first year people come to work in our building they get sick about 10 times. (seriously) and then the second year either their immune system steps up the effort to fight them or they have developed some immunity to the viruses they had last year. It’s a hard first 12 months because you are exposed to everything bad and are usually stressed, dehydrated and living on no sleep. (the typical city way of life) Here are some tips I have been using to try and have a winter less sick than last year. So far I have had a cold once this season compared to about 5 “sonic death colds” and flu last year by this time. See if any of this info helps:
1. Drink lots of liquids. I don’t know why this matters but it does. If you don’t consume about 5 water bottles worth of liquids a day you should. It can be other stuff than water but try not to consume too much diet cola because it dehydrates you more. Alternating between water and soda is better and avoid alcohol if you’re sick.
2 The only cold medicine that works on clearing your nose is sold behind the counter these days because of the stupid people who decided to melt down cold medicine in mass amounts to make meth. So, go to Walgreen’s and get the Walatin-D generic Claritin-D from the pharmacist and your nose will be a lot clearer and you might be able to get to work.
3. Chicken Noodle Soup is good for a cold. Your body sneezes and sweats out all it’s salt so a bowl of chicken noodle is good to replenish fluids and the salt is ok too. Any other time of year this would be too much salt. Plus there is something good about basic old fashioned Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup.
4. Use the Kleenex that blocks and kills 99% of viruses. This helps it from spreading all over the office.
5. Wash your hands all the time, and keep sanitizing cleaning wipes and hand sanitizer at your desk. The office cleaning crews are there to take the garbage out, vacuum and wipe crumbs off the tables. They do not clean with any cleaners that disinfect or kill germs. I think they really just wipe down everything with a wet rag because it’s cheaper and they don’t have to carry a bottle of disinfectant cleaner around all day with them. Expect every door knob, microwave button, phone, bathroom door and elevator button to be crawling with germs. Use your sweater sleeve to touch these things if possible. If not, wipe your hands with sanitizer when you get back to your desk. .
6. Boost your immune system with vitamins, healthy eating and Danactive yogurt. I have personally liked the Danactive Yogurt. I think that has helped me a lot. Fruits and Veg (not starchy ones) are also very important on a daily basis.
7. Don’t kiss, hug or shake hands with anyone else when you have a cold. Please, this just spreads it around.
8. Sit in the end seats or single seats on the train. People on the CTA L trains and buses are all about invading your personal space as much as possible and seeing how much they can annoy you before you snap, so avoid all contact with other people on the train and don’t touch anything! It’s as slimy with germs as possible. Consider every surface in there to have been licked by someone gross. The first thing you do when you get home is wash your hands immediately. Before you touch anything.
9. Get 8-9 hours of sleep a night. Your body can fight more illnesses if you get this much sleep and it makes a marked difference in how many times you get sick and how long it lasts. I know we all have to work, but canceling out on non-necessity stuff is ok in the name of health. That’s why we have social networking online right?
10. Get the flu shot if you can, they help with some of the worst bugs out there, but I always thought they would be a year behind vaccinating you for last year’s bug because of the development process cycle. I am not sure how true that is though. If you are in the high risk groups get this anyway.