Feeling Under the Weather? On the verge of sickness? Or wanting preventative measures to avoid getting sick? Try these natural remedies!

Don’t jump straight for the bottles of pills or sugary cough drops that can actually repress immune function, harm your gut and damage your long-term health. Instead, try using these four super easy, natural methods to boost your immune system, fight bacteria in your home, and help you recover faster.

Not only will they help deal with sickness, but they offer many other health-promoting benefits as well. This means you may get healthier in the process rather than simply stave off symptoms –  without any harm to your precious body!

Sickness Prevention & Recovery Remedies

If you’re starting to feel a little scratch in your throat, stuffy nose, or are just run down and want to fight off a common cold or sickness, then try these super simple options to stop it in its tracks.

1. Essential Oils Diffusion or Bath

These five essential oils are great for helping to treat the common cold and well as for preventing sickness. They can be used individually or combined into a blend as needed.

• Peppermint– this wintery smelling oil is anti-microbial and helps to promote respiratory cleansing, relieves nausea, reduces allergy symptoms, loosens mucus, and relieves muscle pain.
• Eucalyptus – often used in spas, this fresh scent also works as an expectorant and anti-microbial/disinfectant, reduces pain and inflammation, fights infections and relieves respiratory conditions.
• Lemon – lemon oil can support lymphatic drainage to get over colds faster, is purifying, aids cough suppression and can help clear mucus. It also smells very sweet and fresh and can be a mood-booster, which is nice when sickness has you feeling a bit grumpy.
• Ginger– another anti-inflammatory, spicy-scented ginger can also promote blood circulation, reduce nausea, eases colds and sore throats, and is an antiseptic for fighting infections.
• Oregano– this helps to boost the immune system, aids the respiratory system, fights inflammation, contains anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, and can help prevent and treat viral infections.

Try blending 2-12 drops of honey, castille soap, or carrier oil to help disperse them into a warm bath (peppermint oil is not safely recommended for baths). Or add about 3-15 drops into an essential oil diffuser (depending on the amount of water in the diffuser). The oils can be inhaled or absorbed by your skin, so either way will be helpful. I personally like to use a diffuser in my home office or living room area so that both my husband and I can reap the benefits without having to use gallons of water. But a calming bath, especially if you add Epsom salts, can be amazing when you’re feeling achy or ill!

Oils are powerful, so you want to be careful not to use too much. Depending on the amount of water, you’ll need to adjust how many drops you use. Check out this guide from Mountain Rose Herbs for diffusing safely.

The links above will also take you to their essential oils that I use and trust, because not all brands are created equal. Their safety, harvesting, quality, and purity are at a very high standard and you don’t need to worry about any synthetic fragrances or watered-down oil that many companies put out there. They’re also priced really well!

2. Elderberry Syrup

This is a much better alternative to syrups that you would find in the drug store that typically only cover up symptoms versus actually helping you to heal internally. Specifically, Elder Ultra Syrup from Mountain Rose Herbs. I like this one because it combines three powerful and all-natural healing agents: elderberry, echinacea, and astragalus. It also uses only honey as a sweetener as opposed to refined sugar. These herbs all help to boost your immune system and fight bacteria and viruses so you can more easily fight off and prevent sickness.

3. Avoid Junk Food & Alcohol

This is the time when your body needs lots of nutrients, vitamins and minerals, not processed food that is going to be hard to process and tax your body even more. So skip the drive-thru, takeout, or homemade mac and cheese just because it’s easy or comforting. Instead, load up on colorful veggies & fruits, lean proteins, beans….and LOTS of water.

Immune Boosters

In addition to the remedies mentioned above which can also be used for prevention, the following natural and simple solutions tips can strengthen your immunity to keep sickness at bay and help you get over sickness faster if you do happen to catch something.  

1. Supplement with Mushrooms

I’m not just talking button mushrooms from your grocery store here. There are actually some specific types of mushrooms that are superfoods and adaptogens (help your body adapt to stress) that are full of amazing properties that boost your health. Unless you live in specific parts of the world, you won’t find these at your local market or mountain where you can scrounge some up. Instead, these are best taken as powders or pills which also helps with potency. From reishi to shitake to turkey tail to king trumpet, there are several great mushrooms to strengthen immunity, protect your gut, fight tumors, boost energy and reduce inflammation.

I like blends rather than popping a ton of pills or have to buy 10 powders. I won’t go into each mushroom in detail here, but instead will give you some options I like that include many great immune-boosting blends. You can find more details about some specific mushrooms in the link below.

• Mushroom Coffee: I have found a coffee that includes a blend, and that warm morning cup that improves my health is my preferred way to go! Much tastier than a pill, plus it gives a natural boost of energy and focus. Check out RyzeSuperfoods.com for a low-caffeine coffee (code HOLLY15 will get you a discount). You can also read more about it here and how the mushrooms included improve your health.

• Mud/Wtr (Mud Water): a coffee-alternative that tastes more like cocoa. Typically, this is my afternoon choice because it has less than 20mg of caffeine so it won’t keep you up at night. It includes cordyceps, lion’s mane, reishi and chaga, as well as turmeric which is an awesome anti-inflammatory and cinnamon which helps fight bacteria.

• Powder Supplement: My husband always puts this 10-mushroom blend into his morning protein shake, which I would say is the easiest/tastiest way to include these into your diet without a bunch of pills and it covers up the taste nicely.

All of these options are also calming, provide focus without jitters, and give a natural energy boost which is great before a workout!

2. Exercise

Don’t worry about heading to your local CrossFit to push yourself to your limit and pay high prices for a membership. In fact, the more intense your workout, the more it depresses your immune system for about 24 hours afterward! While high intensity exercise IS beneficial for long-term immune system strength, muscle growth, cardiovascular capacity, and athletic improvement, doing it all the time can make you vulnerable to sickness. In fact, simply walking 30 minutes per day can help to fight disease and sickness.

So get moving for at least 30-60 minutes each day. I recommend mixing up low intensity like walking or easy swimming with harder activities like weight lifting or a spin class. After one hard day, take an easy day to recovery with a walk, rest, or yoga. Or just do moderate activity daily, like a light jog, bike ride or strength training. If you need some ideas, check out my YouTube channel for some full body and core workouts, as well as more health tips.

If you’re not sure what to do or how hard to workout, contact me to start a personalized program to help you maintain your health and reach your fitness goals. Visit my Programs page to get more information or contact me [email protected]

You just might be feeling better already, knowing there are several simple and affordable way to naturally prevent and fight sickness this season!

Have you tried any of these natural healing methods? If so, leave a comment about your experience with them!

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