1. Eat real food. This one is hard, but true. As much as I don't want to admit it, Taco Bell is my weakness. I can't help it. And my husband knows it. He knows if he mentions it, I'll always give in. Always. To avoid him bringing it up, I try to always have a meal planned that he'll enjoy.
More so than eating out, because really, we only eat out like 2-3 times a month, is doing your grocery shopping wisely. Unfortunately, like many others, our budget won't allow for 100% of our food to be real, and unprocessed. I just pick and choose my battles. Our spaghetti sauce doesn't need to be organic, but we do need to buy gluten free spaghetti. Stay away from refined sugar, bleached flours, and artificial sweeteners. The obvious stuff.
2. Use/diffuse essential oils. Thieves from Young Living is a good one. I (when I remember) rub some on my boys' feet before I put them in the church nursery, go out to a public place, or take them outside when it's cold out. Even just smelling it straight from the bottle is known to be beneficial.
3. Know you won't get sick. I know it sounds silly, but this really works for me. Proverbs 23:7 says, For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: I only applied this verse after a few years of knowing this tip. I whole-heartedly believe in this. My husband, on the other hand, knows he will get anything that goes around. I told him about the bad flu going around, and he said, "Great. I'm going to get that, too." Also, a few weeks ago my husband came home telling me how he had thrown up his lunch. I asked, "Who did you find out was sick?" He was shocked, because that's exactly what had happened. A co-worker had told him he was up all night with the flu. (My husband showed no other signs of the flu.)
Around the same time I detected a slight discomfort in my throat, but I kept attributing it to a dry throat. I would not let myself believe I was getting sick, because as soon as I did, I would get worse. Do you know what happened? It was the shortest sore throat ever. (For me, anyways.)
Just don't get it in your mind that you'll get sick. It will help. Try it! Of course, it won't always work, but there's no point being down all the time about catching everything.
4. Eat a lot of garlic. You might stink, but garlic is really good for your immune system. I personally like garlic. A lot. That also might be why I don't get as sick. Garlic is more powerful than you might think.
What if you or your children do get sick? Good question, seeing as my youngest was just sick with a really bad cold. I didn't feel he was sick enough to merit a doctor visit, because I wasn't going to give him antibiotics anyways, so I asked for advice from a few "crunchy" friends. I was already applying thieves to his feet, homemade vapor rub to his chest, and standing in the steamy bathroom with him.
I found that lavender is an antihistamine and helps dry up mucus. The next three days, every hour, on the hour, I'd apply lavender to this chest, vapor rub on top of that, and homemade garlic oil to his feet. Literally within the day his nose was so much better. We also diffused oils at night in his room. (I believe eucalyptus and peppermint? My husband picked out the oils.) After those three days he was so much better! I saw improvement after one day, but three days later all he had left was a left over cough and an occasional booger. I also made him a smoothie. We only had vanilla almond milk in the house, so we blended milk, a frozen banana, some honey (for his cough), raspberry flavored emergen-c, and some vitamin d drops. He loved it! It was really sweet due to the honey. My older son found it after half was gone, and he finished it all at once!
He also had a fever, but a fever is the body's natural response to something in the body. A low-grade fever is good, so I never did anything, because I wanted his body to do what it needed to do.
My in-laws, and my husband and I also fervently prayed the first night he was sick. That was a big help, because the Great Physician is the greatest healer.
I am not a doctor, nor have I had any medical training. These are just a few tips that has helped our family.
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