It’s flu season!!!

Yes, vegans get sick. As much as we like to think we are, we are not invincible. Despite that, my eating habits have not been the cause of my weakened immune system. No, because no matter how healthy your habits are, if you stress, fear, or worry, you will get sick. These past few weeks, all I’ve been doing is stressing, fearing, and worrying and it was only a matter of time before my body began to destroy itself due to the high amounts of cortisol surging through my veins.

But also, it’s winter. People get sick in winter so I thought I’d tell you what I do when I get sick so that you know what to do the next time your body fails you. Or more accurately, you fail your body.

Take Action as Soon as You Can

When I can, the second I realise I might be falling sick, I take action to stop the bacteria before they start to get comfortable in my body. When I can, I make a soup with ginger, garlic, onion, chillies, cayenne pepper, cloves, and turmeric and I eat that for dinner. There’s no real recipe for this, I kind of just throw them all in a pot of water in no specific quantities, let it simmer and infuse for a while and eat it. I adjust for seasoning but try to make it as strong as possible so the good chemicals in the ingredients can work their magic in my body. The next day I usually feel much better and the early onset of a cold is gone.

 

Medication

In a perfect world, I would perform some home remedies the second I realise I might be falling ill but this isn’t a perfect world; it’s the streets outchea. When I don’t have time to heal myself naturally before the disease really kicks in, I have no choice but to resort to pharmaceuticals. My mother has a lovely cocktail of pills she dispenses when I fall ill and I just take those 2-3 times a day until I’m no longer sick. When Dr Mum isn’t around I take a mix of immunity boosting pills, vitamin C and Zinc a couple of times a day until I’m no longer sick.

 

Rest

Sleep is the best thing you can do when you get sick. It’s the time your body can focus on healing itself instead of focusing on thinking, moving, eating, and whatever else it is you do when you’re awake. Sometimes you can’t sleep because you have a life to live but when you’re sick you should at least slow down the pace and chill a little. Spend the day watching Netflix or whatever, just don’t expend so much energy. Let that energy be used for healing.

Eating Well

There’s a reason why they say food is medicine. There are certain foods that are incredibly healing to your body. Foods high in zinc, vitamin C, and vitamin D are great at fighting a cold so I try to eat a lot of beans, legumes, seeds, dark leafy greens, broccoli, and citrus fruit. Food like oats, sweet potatoes, garlic, and mushrooms are incredibly great at boosting the immune system so I try to get them in, whatever means necessary.

 

Stop Stressing

This is probably the hardest thing for me to do because there are many things that give me anxiety but it is the most important thing you must do when you get sick. You can do everything else right but if you don’t reduce your stress you won’t get better. You see, stress raises the cortisol levels in your body. Cortisol is a stress hormone that can really do damage to your body. It can make you retain fat and gain weight and it destroys your white blood cells, weakening your immune system. Once you reduce stress, cortisol levels come down and your body can start functioning properly again and start healing itself. Whatever it is you do that calms you down, be it yoga, meditation, or watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians, do it.

Home Remedies

Whenever I can, I try to use home remedies to heal any cold or flu symptoms. These include drinking teas with cinnamon and ginger for a cold and chewing cloves for a sore throat. Medication is expensive so I would much rather buy relatively inexpensive ingredients to get rid of pain and irritation. More often than not I don’t even need to buy anything because I already have these ingredients in the kitchen. Not only is this a more natural way of healing yourself but it’s way cheaper. For a student budget, that’s a win.

I hope this information has helped, especially the infographics I have so lovingly prepared for your ease of acquiring information. Make sure to like and share this post with all the people you love and wish no sickness upon and tell me what you do when you get sick. I’d truly love to know.