It’s not a matter if you’re going to get the flu or a virus, it’s a matter of when.

Sometimes we want to do anything we can to feel better, like putting something super-toxic into our bodies, which can have long-term implications. 

Instead of doing that, try these 7 natural remedies that could help you handle viruses, colds, and flus so you can avoid missing work activities, stay out of the hospital, and avoid toxic medications.

7. Staying Hydrated

Staying hydrated is so underrated. Diarrhea, fevers, and vomiting all cause massive water loss. We have to get that water back in, and then some.

When we are trying to rehydrate after being sick, it’s extremely important to get electrolytes such as magnesium, sodium, potassium, and chloride in to drive the water back into the cells.

You should be drinking at least half your body weight in ounces of water each day. Broth would also count, and you can add healthy salt into it.

You can also add in some electrolyte powder in the form of Energyze and balance your fluids back out.

You should constantly be drinking water and taking minerals with it whether you’re sick or not.

6. Get An Extra 1-3 Hours of Sleep

Get more sleep! This means you’re skipping your morning routine or workout, whatever it may be. You’re sleeping in.

You’re pushing back the clock as far as you possibly can, and that can be tough if you have a family or job you have to get up early for, but it’s necessary.

At the end of the day, you have to start cutting off devices and turning the TV off. Turn off your internet and get to sleep way earlier.I recommend trying to go to sleep around 8 o’clock, or whatever ‘early’ would be for you.

You have to commit to that extra 1-3 hours of sleep when your body is shut down from sickness.

Your body is making you tired because it’s fighting the invader inside of you, and you need to lean into that and rest.

Ideally, we would do that before we ever get sick, but sickness is our body’s way of slowing us down to get extra rest.

1-3 hours of extra sleep per day is absolutely crucial early on in the infection.

If you don’t get enough sleep, your body is going to make you sleep when you’re sick, and you end up being in bed all day. 

5. Bone Broth

There’s a reason we all eat chicken noodle soup when we get sick. The health benefits of broth is what it’s associated with.

If you’re making your own broth, you want to avoid noodles because you’ll just be getting extra carbohydrates in.

The broth itself has a ton of beneficial properties, especially for your immune system.

It’s loaded with collagen, which is going to help seal your gut up and help restore the lining of the gut. 80% of your immune system is in your gut, so that’s important.

By putting in more collagen, L-glutamine, and nutrients that are very gut-friendly and found in bone broth, you are going to boost your immune health.

Get broth without all of the unhealthy extras that Campbell Soup includes today. 

Try making your own, or get true bone broth, which could be a little more pricey. If you want a recipe to make your own, you can find one here and start making it at home.

You can use a crock pot and seep the collagen and nutrients out of the bones and into a liquid. 

You could also add in all kinds of spices and vegetables.

Drinking a nice warm cup of bone broth is going to help you feel better because you’re not eating much, it’s going to loosen up the sinuses and congestion, and provide lots of minerals if you add some sea salt.

That extra sea salt can help you get some extra magnesium, potassium, sodium, and chloride, which your body needs to stay balanced.

You could be sipping that all week. Whatever you don’t drink at first, you can store in the fridge and then easily reheat it on the stove.

Just make sure that you keep it out of the microwave, because that’ll kill the nutrients in it!

4. Zinc

Zinc is incredibly important because it stops viral replication. But it can’t do it alone.

It needs something called a zinc ionophore, which is like a bus that gets it across the border outside of your cells.That zinc ionophore is quercetin, otherwise known as vitamin P. 

Once zinc is in your cells, it’s going to stop viral replication, which is going to stop your common cold from getting you bedridden or hospitalized.

Zinc is incredibly important to load up on so that you don’t ever reach that point during cold and flu season.

I recommend between 25 and 50 milligrams per day when you’re sick. There’s no need to be at 40 or 50 every single day; I usually take 10-20 milligrams. 

In addition to supplements, you can get zinc from food a variety of different food sources, such as:

• Cashews (5-6 milligrams per serving)
• Beans (Also a good source of magnesium)
• Oysters (40-50 mg per serving)
• Meat 

I also recommend eating citrus fruits or onions, which are high in quercetin bioflavonoids to help you absorb the zinc.

3. Teas

There are all kinds of great teas to help you out when it comes to sore throats or feeling achy.

My favorite to make is a turmeric ginger tea. Turmeric is very anti-inflammatory, which you need when you have a cold or a flu. 

Ginger is also a great anti-inflammatory, soothing for the throat, and settles a nauseous stomach. You can add these ingredients individually, or you can combine them together like I do.

You can actually shave your own turmeric and ginger roots and steep that in a cup of tea, or you can buy packaged turmeric or ginger.

If you do that, make sure the bags that you get the tea in aren’t bleached. You don’t need more chemicals going in when you’re sick.

Another plant you may not be aware of is star anise. Star anise is a seed pod from a shrub commonly found in Asia, and is how they came up with the concept of Tamiflu.

They studied star anise and found that it actually helps prevent flus, and helps people recover from flus.

They extracted out that ingredient, patented it and turned it into Tamiflu so they could charge more for it.

Or you could just take the real stuff, which doesn’t have all the side effects and the nastiness to it.

You can combine star anise with turmeric and ginger in a tea. I haven’t had it myself, so I don’t know exactly what it tastes like, but you can always make tea taste better by adding some raw local honey to it.

Honey is very soothing, and studies show that raw local honey can have the same effect a cough medicine does, without the side effects that cough medicines have.

Honey is very antiviral, so it’s a good option to add to a tea to make it taste a little better.

2. Nebulizer 

Having a nebulizer on hand could be the difference between decongesting your sinuses or being in the hospital. 

I didn’t get one of these until recently, during 2020, but it’s basically like a little mask that goes over your mouth and nose and that you breathe in steamed air through. 

You could just nebulize water, because steam is very good for opening up and decongesting the pressure in your throat.

My tip is to add some vitamin C powder to the water, mix it up, and nebulize the vitamin C. Getting that in there makes a big difference for the upper respiratory tract when it comes to viruses. 

You could also add in silver serum, which is a form of colloidal silver. Nebulizing is really good for viruses and microbial infections, especially in the throat, lungs, and respiratory cavities. 

1. Vitamin D

The sun is our number one source of vitamin D, but when it goes away, we have to start supplementing to make up for it. 

If you want to start taking vitamin D, it can’t be D2, it needs to be D3. I have several videos that can show you why you should stop taking vitamin D2. 

Vitamin D3 is super important, and there are a lot of other things you should take it with to improve its effects. 

It should be taken with vitamin K2 to prevent arterial calcification.

It should also be taken with magnesium to prevent depleted magnesium levels, and because magnesium converts vitamin D so that it can be used in your immune system.

Zinc helps the absorption of vitamin D.

Vitamin D should also be taken with the other fat-soluble vitamins E, K2, and A. They work with the absorption of vitamin D3, and all of them need fat.

You can also take these with an omega/turmeric to keep inflammation down. Or you can take them with a Doctor Livingood Coffee with some coconut oil, butter, and collagen, or a bone broth, to provide healthy fats.

If you’re coughing a lot and you need some remedies that don’t involve toxins or cough syrup, I have some remedies that can help you suppress that cough in a video that covers it.

I also have a complete virus guide that sums up a lot of what I just talked about, and also an entire workshop that breaks down all things immune health.