6 Ways to Protect your Family from the Flu

6 Ways to Protect your Family from the Flu

To some, the fall season is a time to decorate their homes with pumpkins and Halloween lights, to others it is about the leaves falling in their yards, raking leaves and drinking cider by the fire. The colder weather also brings to mind longer indoor hours and the ‘cold or flu season’.

What do you do to protect yourself and your family and your aging loved ones during this season?

You may have heard of the flu shots and the pills that may protect you from flu bugs. What about preventative measures that mom or grandma ordered years ago? Even the doctors and nurses may have given you some simple ways to stay away from the flu of the season.

Here are 6 ways:

1. Wash your hands. Sounds simple…but many of us forget this instruction. Wash your hands before handling food, eating, touching your eyes, nose or face. Frequent hand washing with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer can take away the germs. Mayo Clinic has an article on hand washing dos and don’ts.
2. Keep your hands away from your face…children like to touch their eyes and nose. Sometimes adults do it as well. Germs spread easily through our nose, eyes and mouth. It is a habit that most of us are not aware of.
3. Get plenty of rest. Lack of sleep affects millions of Americans and it is linked to many types of diseases including heart diseases, diabetes and depression. Sleep deprivation will also cause us to be less alert and weaken our immune system. Make sure your family gets plenty of rest to increase immunity and fight the flu bug easily.
4. Eat a well balanced meal. Our busyness and over scheduled lives can lead to more fast foods and TV dinners which may result in an imbalanced meal. Fresh home cooked meals that incorporate the 6 food groups are the best remedy for a good healthy life. The groups are fresh vegetables and fruits, lean meats and beans, nuts and seeds, grain which includes bread, rice and pasta, milk products and fats. Please check out New York Times’ article on balanced diet.
5. Vitamin D. For most of us in North America, the colder months means less exposure to sunshine, which is the natural way of getting Vitamin D. We need to add to our diet, Vitamin D supplement or foods that are rich in Vitamin D like fortified milk, fish and eggs. Vitamin D is known to prevent several autoimmune diseases.
6. Drink plenty of water and exercise. Our body needs constant rehydration to flush out impurities. Imagine your body without water is like a toilet without water to flush the ‘junk’. An adult needs about 8 oz of water per day. Exercise and constant body movement are known to produce natural virus killing cells. Take a walk or join a local gym to keep your body healthy.

Caregivers, mothers, grandmothers, children, grandpa, fathers… we all need to take care of our own body before we can take care of our loved ones. Remember when you are on an airplane, and the flight attendant comes with safety instruction about the air mask? They instruct you to put the air mask on yourself before helping your child.

Likewise, take care of your health and take natural preventative measures and help your family do the same.

A daily check-in call could be the lifeline, the joy you give someone that makes the biggest difference in their perception of what old age is like.

Contact me at 317-480-1038 today. Let’s make a difference together.

I’m Diana Beam, Founder of Keeping in Touch Solutions. It is my heartfelt desire for every person to live a happy and healthy life in the place they call home, no matter what their age. You can’t put a price on peace of mind for your parents and yourself. It’s priceless . . . and significant.

For that reason, the goal of every Keeping In Touch Solutions program is to provide a caring connection and service that both the elderly and their caregivers can rely on to make living that good life easier.