Certainly prevention is better than cure. And mind it, not only colds, but no disease can come to you until your body has lost its defensive power to combat the invader’s attack. So prevention does not only mean to keep yourself in clean and hygienic environment, but to put every effort toward increasing your body strength and vigor. Thus, rather than prevention, our focus should be to prepare ourselves against any disease which can come in our way. So here we go:

• Spend as much time as you can, in open, pure air: Caged air is the only air that is dangerous. Free-moving air is always perfectly safe to breathe any hour of the day or night, or any season of the year. And this Free-flowing air Contain enormous amount of oxygen in it, which the caged air does not. This purity and abundance of oxygen has lot of benefits to offer as far as our health is concerned. A lot more people have so many constraints to spend their time in open environment because of nature of their jobs. This excuse has one remedy, i.e. to sleep outside. We spend one third of their time in sleep. Very right has been said about outdoor sleep that “Even the best ventilated room in the world is far more inferior in healthfulness to an outdoor sleeping-porch or balcony”. Living out of doors gives the skin exercise, and further keeps fresh air in the lungs. It is one of the foremost methods of prevention against colds. Army men remark that as long as they sleep out of doors, even if exposed to bad weather, they almost never catch cold, but soon as they resume living in houses, chances of getting colds increases. Long and deep breaths taken slowly and rhythmically, say 5-10 minutes a day are greatly helpful.

• Skin Training: Sometimes your skin becomes so sensitive to drafts/chills that a small amount of exposure of skin to these produces colds. Sensitiveness can be because of many reasons.  To combat this sensitiveness, we provide training to the Skin. Skin training is the first hygienic steps toward establishing a resistance to colds. Skin training goes as under:
  • First of all, one should accustom himself to a gentle draft. The persons, who are over-sensitive, should avoid over-exposure to drafts while they are in process of changing their habits. Do this process in gradually increasing manner. After few weeks, you will observe a lot more change in your sensitiveness.
  • Cool bathing, although neglected, is a great tonic in itself and is another important feature of skin training. The water should only be cool upto a limit that give you a gentle plunge at the start and after that you can enjoy the bath. Care should be taken that the water should never be any cooler than you can readily and pleasantly react, or warm up to, during the bath and afterward. Cold bathing, performed regularly, harden your skin against cold. Now, if you cannot warm up properly after a cool bath, then there is surely something wrong with your habits; better to change them, and keep changing them, until you find you can enjoy the cold bath. Cold bathing is not advisable to persons affected with kidney trouble.
  • Light Clothing: The wearing of loose, porous clothes and exercise in open air with minimal clothing are also valuable measures in skin training. Very heavy wraps and fur coats, if at all worn, should be worn only during unusual exposure, such as when driving the vehicle.
  • Overheated rooms should also be avoided completely. In rooms where large amount of movement takes place, either in form of machines or people, the temperature should not be allowed to rise above 65 degrees Fahrenheit. And in ordinary offices, the temperature should be kept under 68 degrees Fahrenheit and adequate ventilation should be provided.
  • Avoid Over-eating: As already been told, over-eating, great many times, results in nasal congestion which makes you susceptible to colds.
  • Avoid over fatiguing the body: Over fatigue when happen tend to reduce body vigor and break your muscles, rather than helping them to become strong i.e. why it is always healthful to take quick, light exercises than the violent ones. Reduced body vigor, obviously means, more susceptibility toward colds.
  • Last but not the least, keep Yourself away from the environment that tends to contain the disease germs.

So In Nut Shell, Keep yourself away from foul, stuffy air as much as possible, especially in crowded rooms; bath in cool water every morning; sleep with your windows open and if possible, sleep out-doors; take plenty of exercise in the open air. With these rules followed, you will merely catch colds, and even if you catch, you will have little difficulty in throwing off those. Colds are comparatively trivial things in themselves; but, like all infections however mild, they may results in serious inflammations in any of the deeper organs such as lungs, kidneys, heart, or nervous system. And if avoided, they can often make an opening for the entrance of tuberculosis or pneumonia germs. Don’t neglect the colds, though however mild it is. If you find that you take cold easily, find out what is wrong with you, and change your unhealthful habits.