I can’t believe London’s one week of summer is already over and its time to take out the warm jumpers (I don’t know why I even put them away..). This also means that people everywhere start getting ill and being in a closed environment, like an office, is a fast way of catching the flu.

Fear not, for I will give you the super easy recipe for preventing a cold from ever developing in your body.

Sometimes people ignore the simple ways because they either don’t believe that natural simple ways work, or they are too lazy to peel a root and prefer a packet of yucky chemicals that make you cough up powder :/

MAKE SURE TO DO THE NEXT STEPS THE MOMENT YOU FEEL YOUR THROAT TINGLING!!! Even if you think you’re just dehydrated during flu season, don’t take the risk! If you wait just one day it may be too late to prevent it.

So here’s what you do to prevent a flu / cold naturally:

Step 1: Buy some ginger root, or at least some ginger powder if you can’t get the fresh root. You really don’t have an excuse not to, you can find it even in the smallest supermarkets and it costs less than a pound for a big root – much less than a packet of Lemsip!!

Step 2: Peel the root and grate about a spoon-full of it into a tea cup (grating is better than cutting as it makes more juice come out, I even use a garlic squeezer sometimes). Pour in hot water and squeeze in some lemon (to taste). Drink the ginger tea throughout the day, it should be strong enough to make your throat feel…gingery. P.S. I couldn’t stand ginger before, but once I found the benefits, I made myself drink it, now I love it!

Step 3: Buy some Tiger Balm (should be available in most pharmacies or online, just click the link). This stuff is incredible, I can’t survive a winter without Tiger Balm. Take a little bit and rub it on your throat, where the swollen glands are, and you can put a bit on your chest too. You will feel a burning sensation and it will feel hot for a while afterwards. Make sure to put on a scarf (preferably one you don’t need, as it may stain) and fall asleep with the scarf on. There are several types of Tiger Balm, the red one is stronger and it stains your clothes, the white one may stain a little bit. I would recommend using a glove for this – it’s hard to wash off your fingers and if you rub your eyes with it…it’s not fun!!

Step 4: There really is no step 4 since you should be cured within one or two days if you keep drinking ginger and sleeping with Tiger Balm, but please have some common sense and don’t walk around in a t-shirt outside. Wear a jacket and a scarf, make sure to keep warm…it’s amazing how many people do that, so I thought I should mention it just in case… It may also be a good idea to eat lightly, if you eat a whole pizza at lunch then your body will be too busy digesting to fight the cold.

Just in case you already caught a cold, the steps above will also help tremendously, though usually if you start feeling crappy then it takes a couple of days for your body to naturally get rid of the virus.

Here’s an ayurvedic recipe if you have fever:

Make tea with half a tea spoon of each of these:

✽ Coriander seeds (grind them)
✽ Ground fennel powder
✽ Cinnamon

If your fever is over 38 degrees C and you’re starting to shake, a super fast way to cool yourself down is to rub alcohol/vodka over your body. It sounds weird (yes I’m hearing a lot of Russian jokes now) but that’s how my parents treated me as a child and I can tell you – it really works!! Fever goes down in 10 secs.

What NOT to do when you have a runny nose:

This is something that I find rather incredible, when people get sick, they immediately start making hot milk with honey – OMGGG there’s no thing worse for you at this stage!! Milk makes your body produce MORE mucus so you will be blowing your nose for way longer than you naturally should be.