How to prevent influenza in winter and how to get better quickly

Influenza is also known as the common cold. It is highly contagious. Basically, if one person catches a cold, everyone in the room will be infected, and then spread to other people. It is especially easy to get it during the season change and when the temperature changes significantly, such as in winter. So how can we prevent the flu?

How to prevent influenza in winter

The basic preventive measures for influenza are as follows:

1. Avoid going to crowded places and ensure that the room is well ventilated. If you cannot avoid going to public places, it is best to wear a mask.

2. Pay attention to personal hygiene and wash your hands frequently. When you come home from outside, wash your hands, face and nose first. Reminder: use hand sanitizer to wash your hands, and let the hand sanitizer stay on your hands for more than 15 seconds, then rinse with running water for 20 seconds.

3. Pay attention to physical exercise, strengthen your physical fitness and improve your immunity.

4. Eat a balanced diet, drink plenty of water, and eat more fresh vegetables and fruits.

5. Go to bed early and get up early, pay attention to rest, and don’t stay up late.

6. Getting the quadrivalent influenza vaccine is an important measure to prevent influenza, especially for obese people, infants, the elderly, patients with chronic diseases, pregnant women, etc., because these people may suffer from more serious complications once they get the influenza.

How to recover from flu quickly

1. Take anti-virus measures in time.

When facing influenza, antiviral drugs should be used for treatment as early as possible. That is, within 48 hours, the antiviral effect is best, which is the golden time. After 48 hours, it can also be used and is effective, but the benefits are secondary.

It is recommended that once you confirm that you have the flu, you should go to a local regular hospital in time and receive antiviral treatment under the guidance of a doctor. Flu symptoms can last for 3 to 5 days. Symptomatic treatment measures include reducing fever, expectorating, and replenishing fluids. The earlier the treatment, the faster the recovery.

2. Avoid infecting others.

Influenza is different from the common cold. It is highly contagious and spreads quickly. It can be transmitted to others or family members through the air and the environment. It is recommended to pay attention to isolation. Generally, it is most contagious on the 2nd to 4th day.

In order to avoid infecting others or family members and cross-infection, it is recommended to maintain a certain degree of isolation from them during treatment so that you can recover faster.

3. Personal hygiene management

Also pay attention to personal cleanliness and hygiene, such as washing hands frequently, preferably with soap and running water, and ventilating the room you live in, keeping the windows open at least twice a day, each time for about 15 minutes. This will leave no place for the virus to hide, and the flu will get better faster.

Why is it easy to catch a cold in winter?

According to traditional Chinese medicine, summer is yang and winter is yin. That is, warm and light things are yang, and the corresponding cold and heavy things are yin. Yin and yang will affect each other. For example, when yin prevails, it will invade the weak yang and cause the object to appear in the state of yin, while when yang prevails, it will invade the weak yin and cause it to appear in the state of yang.

The temperature in winter is low, while the temperature inside the human body is relatively high. This means that the outside of the body can be regarded as yin and the inside of the body as yang. When the cold and yin air outside the body is heavy, it will invade the relatively weak warm and yang air inside the body. The first thing to be invaded is the human skin. Traditional Chinese medicine regards the skin, lungs, and nose as one, which are generally called lungs. When the skin is invaded by the cold and yin air, it will be in a cold state, and people will feel cold in the body and limbs, cough, and have a runny nose. This is the initial symptom of what Western medicine calls influenza and traditional Chinese medicine calls colds and flu.