11 Home Remedies For Your Cold.

Colds can have us on the couch not wanting to go anywhere, and it can be tempting to pick up the instant relief medicine from the drugstore and keep pushing on with our day. If we stay home and get better we reduce the chance of spreading our cold and symptoms to other people with low immune systems, and we take the time to treat our body with the respect it deserves by giving it a break!

The symptoms of a cold are sneezing with a runny nose, headache, coughing, sore throat, and a small fever.

Following are some home remedies for the common cold that will help you feel better and get better in no time. Remember that using these remedies even when you don't have a cold will help prevent any future colds from coming.

1. Try taking 4 tablespoons of coriander and browning them in a frying pan. Once they are brown then boil them with 4 cups of water and 4 slices of root ginger. This will reduce itself to about 2 cups of liquid. Strain the liquid out and drink.
   
   
2. Barley water with honey and some lemon can help to heal and shorten the duration of a cold.
   
   
3. Add cinnamon to your drinks, and as an oil in your vaporizer, as it is a warming herb that can be excelling for treating and preventing colds.
   
   
4. Eat your garlic! Garlic has antiseptic and antibacterial properties, and it will help to reduce any fever that may occur.
   
   
5. Add honey to your tea, and to the food that you eat. It will help you heal quicker and prevent any further infections from appearing.
   
   
6. Try a foot bath with mustard in it, or use a mustard poultice as a rub on the chest. This will act as a decongestant.
   
   
7. Eat ginger as it can help promote sweating, and it will help soothe your throat.
   
   
8. Peppermint can help to reduce the symptoms of a cold. You can use it as aromatherapy for the benefits.
   
   
9. Ginseng can be added to your tea as it will help boost your immune system and fight the infection occurring.
   
   
10. Take a bath with lavender oil in it to help you sleep and give you some relief from your cough. Tea tree oil and lemon oils can also do the trick.
    
    
11. Eat your citrus fruit like oranges and grapefruits as they contain vitamin c, which will help your body fight the infection.
    
    Try giving these 11 home remedies a try for your cold and then incorporate some of them into your life once you get better. You will find that your colds will be less and less. In fact, I haven't had a cold for about 3 years or so.
    
    There are home remedies for everything!
    
    The Doctors Book of Home Remedies: Quick Fixes, Clever Techniques, and Uncommon Cures to Get You Feeling Better Fast

Avocados Have Some Great Uses and Benefits

There are many foods that people are not sure about because of the reputation they get. Avocado has gotten a reputation for being very high in fat. While it is true that they have a high fat content, the fat content is monosaturated fats which can provide health benefits when eaten in moderation. Avocado's are so good for your health they are essentially considered to be a perfect and complete food.

Avocados are a fruit that grow in subtropical trees. They are rich in vitamins a, c, e, and some b-complex vitamins. Potassium is another great quality of this fruit. For the most part avocados have been used for skin problems because the pulp has antibacterial and antifungal properties. They have also been used as a staple for nachos and dip in guacamole.

Avocado has been known to be used for sexual problems. In fact the Aztecs name for the avocado was ahuacatl, which means testicle. They would use it as a sexual stimulant, and they really did believe that it had sexual nutrients - so much so that virgin women were not allowed to leave their house during harvest time!
Other uses include:

• A paste can be made and applied to rough skin and rashes to soothe the skin.
  
• Use as an aid in recovery from illness as it is an excellent restorative food.
• The pulp can be applied to cuts and covered with gauze to prevent infection from entering the body and to encourage healing.
• Aids in digestive and circulatory problems.
• The flesh of the avocado can soothe a sunburned skin.
• Use as a face mask by adding some olive oil with some mashed up avocado and leave on the face for about 15 minutes.

So as you can see, besides the nutritional benefit of avocado it is also a great healer food as well. Adding avocado to recipes is as easy as throwing it in your salad, making an avocado salsa filling for wraps, or substituting it for a mayonnaise spread.

You can also use avocado in many raw food desserts. I have used it as my chocolate icing on cake and it seriously tastes amazing! The book at Ani's Raw Food Desserts: 85 Easy, Delectable Sweets and Treats is amazing and has a chocolate fudge cake (that uses avocado as the icing) that will blow your mind!

Food Combining Can Help Your Digestive System Digest Food Easier

Digestive problems are very common. Heartburn, gas, and other digestive and bowel problem affect almost everyone. These problems are not only annoying to have, but they are also signs of poor digestion and eating habits. You can avoid these problems by chewing your food properly and using a food combining principle that will allow your body to digest the food easier.

Food combining is simply eating the right types of food together that make it easy for your body to digest it. Of course, eating a large variety of food is healthy for us to do, but it'srnot good for our digestive system to sit down and try to digest it all at one meal. We are under the impression that we have to have one of every food group on our plate at every meal and that's simply not true. In fact, it's not good for us.

Our digestive system has one of the most important jobs of our body. When you eat food according to what will be easiest to digest you are doing your digestive system a huge favor by allowing it to do its job properly.
For example, digesting proteins and starches have different digestive requirements. So if you eat them in one meal it becomes hard for your body to digest either one of them well. Proteins require an acid environment to digest properly while starches require an alkaline environment. You digestive system can accommodate both environments at one time, but it obviously cannot create both at the same time!

Fruit has very special requirements and should always be eaten by itself. Fruit is one of those lovely foods that quickly passes through your digestive system on its own. But if you eat fruit with starchy foods or with protein the fruit cannot just pass on through the digestive track like it should, as it gets mixed up with other food that doesn't have that privilege. The sugar will then ferment in your stomach and bring about bloating and gas.
Melons are even quicker at going through the digestive process and should be either eaten alone or with other melons. This will avoid sugar fermentation in the stomach.

Here are the basic rules for food combining:

1. Vegetables with starches are fine
   
2. Vegetables with proteins are fine
   
3. Protein and starch are a no-no - Think meat and potatoes!
   
4. Fruit is always eaten alone or with other fruit
   
5. Acid fruits with nuts and seeds are okay
   
6. Acid fruits with sweet fruits are okay
   
7. Melons are eaten alone
   

We have been living on the wrong food combinations for a while now thinking that they are normal. For instance, burger and fries are consumed daily by millions of people, but this combination of food is making their digestive systems work harder than they should, and they are possibly causing digestive problems just from that meal. Now pile on 3 meals a day like that, eaten every single day.

So the next time you sit down to eat, give your digestive system a break. Take it into consideration and make its job easier. Your body and health will thank you!

For more tips on eating right for optimal health visit Kari's website at Alternative Health Ideas.

SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms and Home Remedies

There are many things that can affect our days and the outlook we have on them. Rude people, unwanted situations, and too much stress can all shape our day and our outlook on it. But who would have thought we may have another thing working against us that is out of our hands completely! The reality is that the season change may be doing more damage to you and your emotions than you know.

Seasonal affective disorder affects millions of people each year, and the further you are away from the equator, the more likely you are to suffer from it. Most suffers get it during the winter months when the light become limited. But SAD can also happen when the weather changes to sunny and warmer weather.
Whether it's the warm weather or the darkness that gets you, you can recognize the disorder as a shift in mood when the season changes, and the weather and light follows suit.

Symptoms can look and feel a lot like depression and include:

• Isolating yourself from the world and the people in it 
• Loss of appetite
• Sleeping more than usual - SAD has been connected to the production of melatonin which is a sleep related hormone.
• Overeating
• Despair
• Lack of focus and concentration
• Anxiety
• Suicidal thoughts.

The causes of this disorder are not entirely known yet. The fact that some people are more prone to it than others may point towards the unique individual's chemical makeup, health conditions, outlook on life, and age.

Another cause could be the disruption of your body's natural rhythm. If you are a creature of habit then you are used to functioning in a certain amount of daylight, waking up to a certain amount of daylight, and the specific weather that allows you to do the stuff you love. When that all changes it can be hard on your body and your outlook.

Reduced sunlight can cause a drop in serotonin which is a chemical that affects your mood.

When you are trying to determine if you have SAD, look for patterns and tell-tale signs that may be occurring. Do you get sad every winter? Did you get sad when the season changed? Do you get depressed when the days start to shorten? Listen to your body and answer the questions honestly. This will help you understand why you are feeling the way you are.

Because the symptoms so closely mimic depression you may think you have you depression instead of SAD. But you may have SAD instead of outright depression. Make sure you note when it started and what was happening around the time it started. Any changes that took place when it started including the season, life, diet, medicine, exercise, drugs, or anything else that could have caused the feelings you are experiencing. This will help you determine if the depression came from a change in life or something else.

Some home remedies to help you with your seasonal affective disorder are:

• Make it a rule to spend more time in the light. (At least 30 minutes in the day)
• Get active and get your muscles moving! Exercise is a great mood lifter.
• Take a vacation somewhere sunny and warm! Hey - your health demands it!
• Do not drink or do drugs as this will only make you feel worse
• Buy a light box to use for at home light therapy
• Eat a healthy diet - avoid processed and junk food.
• Get enough sleep.
• Avoid stress

If you can't get rid of it on your own, get help. Go to your doctor or a mental health professional. Do not let it take over you life.