Vibrant You

Under the Weather? 5 Tips to Boost Immunity, Beat Viruses and Get You Back to Feeling Great!

• Bindi Stables

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I am feeling a bit under the weather this week, caught a little virus going around and it’s been no joke! My spirits are honestly pretty high, but my body is definitely asking for support.

Going into winter, rainy season, or flu season - in this episode, we are getting to the exact Immune Boosting Protocol I use and share with my clients and Anti-Viral Tips to Beat the Bug and Get You Back to Feeling Great!

You'll learn

  • The 4 steps to viral immune recovery
  • My complete immune boosting, anti-viral protocol I use and share with my clients including the exact Supplements, herbal Allies, ancient remedies, nutrition, and self-care I use to get me back to feeling great
  • Key differences between bacterial and viral infections (and the need for different lines of treatment!)
  • Why do your symptoms have to say (they are here for you not against you!)
  • Why you can’t “kill” viruses - and what to do instead

Disclaimer - Bindi, this episode and the Vibrant You podcast are not diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing disease. This information is for educational purposes only and Bindi is simply sharing what she's doing this week while feeling under the weather.

Links & Supplements:

Link up episode on the ultimate guide to nutritional supplements.

Thank you so much for listening. I’m so honored that you’re here and would be SO grateful if you could leave me a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, that way we can inspire and educate even more people together.

I’d love to connect with you on IG: www.instagram.com/bindistables

Visit my website for more resources and ways to work with me: www.bindistables.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Vibrant you podcast. I'm your host, bindi Stables, and here we talk all things wellness and vibrant living. You'll learn about integrative health, functional medicine, holistic biohacking and enjoy raw and real conversations on personal growth, mindset and motivation. Optimize your body and mind and become the happiest, the healthiest, most vibrant. You Enjoy the show. Hey, and welcome back to another episode of Vibrant you.

Speaker 1:

I was feeling a bit under the weather last week. I seem to have caught a little virus that was going around. I don't know if it was a variant of COVID or what it was. I was not feeling so hot. Actually, I was feeling very hot. I had a crazy fever. My spirits were honestly pretty high last week, but my body was definitely asking for support. You might even be able to hear that in my voice a little bit.

Speaker 1:

I was talking with a friend last week about all of the things that I have been doing to get my body back to feeling good and great and overcoming what I was experiencing. It's really inspired this podcast episode right here, of course going into winter in the Northern Hemisphere, going into rainy season or flu season here in Bali and some parts of the world. This episode we are getting into the exact immune boosting protocol that I personally use for myself and that I share with my clients, as well as some antiviral tips to help beat the bug and get you back to feeling great. So I'm going to be sharing with you the four steps to viral immune recovery my complete immune boosting antiviral protocol that I use and share with my clients, with the exact supplements and herbal allies and ancient remedies, nutrition, self-care that I have been using to get me back to feeling great, and why our symptoms are here for you, not against you. So the intelligence of some of the symptoms that we may experience when we have some kind of virus, and we're going to talk about why we can't actually kill viruses and what we can do instead. So quick little disclaimer, because I have to. In this episode and in all of the work that I'm doing, we are not diagnosing, we are not treating, we are not curing or preventing disease. This is for educational purposes only and I'm simply sharing what I've been doing over the last week feeling under the weather and some things that I might share with clients inside of my private practice. So let's get right into it. So, first things first. How do you know if you have some type of virus. Right, of course, go to your doctor, that's one.

Speaker 1:

But some common cold symptoms from a viral based infection can be something like stuffy or runny nose, that like scratchy, tickly sore throat. You can have sneezing, you can have watery eyes, maybe a fever, some kind of sore throat or coughing, achy muscles or bones, that headache that you might get. You might feel fatigue, you might feel chills, you may have watery discharge from the nose or the eyes. And inside of all of these symptoms I just want to share with you a bit of the intelligence behind it, because I know it's so easy when I was feeling a little under the weather last week to just feel really bummed about it. I know a past version of me would have felt like, oh, my body's failing, or why is this happening? I wouldn't be feeling this way. But I really like to share the intelligence behind these symptoms.

Speaker 1:

I'm a firm believer that anything that comes up with our health is not a flaw. It's not your body's out to get you. There's actually a deep intelligence. You are a being of nature and when we do catch something like this, the symptoms that we experience are actually here for you. They're not here to hold you back, not here to you know, frustrate you and to keep you feeling down. They're actually very intelligent. So let's come to just the intelligence behind a few of these symptoms and how we can support ourselves through it.

Speaker 1:

So let's say a really common symptom, like last week. I had a really high fever, actually for several days, and the intelligence behind a fever is actually that it's cooking the virus. This is your body's innate intelligence increasing your basal body temperature to actually cook the viruses. You see, viruses cannot actually survive above normal body heat, right? It disarms the virus when we have those higher levels of body temperature. So it's not necessarily something that we should suppress. Like I didn't do anything last week to bring a fever down. I mean, I was watching it. Of course, you can get too high of a fever and it can cause damage of the organs, it can cause dehydration, so we need to be mindful of that. But for the most part, fevers are a wonderful thing. It's your body's intelligence trying to stop the replication of the virus in the body. So I was just letting myself sweat, I was encouraging the fever. I was trusting my body and saying, okay, this is a wonderful thing to have a fever. My body's doing exactly what it's meant to do.

Speaker 1:

A second symptom that I was experiencing was a lot of coughing. I wasn't having as much of a runny nose this time around. However, you could have that, and there's actually intelligence behind that too. Whether it's a bacterial or viral infection, your body's trying to discharge a lot of this pathogenic load, and so there's ways that it can be released from the body through coughing, runny nose, watery eyes, all these types of symptoms, and there's actually intelligence of that. That's your body trying to rid yourself of the pathogen.

Speaker 1:

Another one that can come up is sore throat, or I had like really, really, actually quite painful and tender, like swollen lymph nodes. So lymph nodes we have many in the body, but if you ever go to the doctor with a cold or a flu, they may kind of press around and poke around in your throat, in the top of your neck. So if you kind of go on either side of your trachea, in the throat, kind of under the chin, you can kind of just gently palpate or poke around there, and when we are feeling under the weather, you may notice that there's two little balls or little lumps that become swollen or inflamed or more full at that time and those are actually your lymph nodes. And swollen lymph nodes is, again, it's intelligent. It's your body pumping up your immune system. Right, our lymphatic system and our lymph nodes is increasing the white blood cells that we have to really fight off any sort of bacterial or viral based infection. So of course, it can be uncomfortable, but there's intelligence. Again, they're swollen for a reason.

Speaker 1:

And finally, fatigue. And of course, when we're feeling fatigue, the intelligence behind that is that our body's asking for rest. It's saying, hey, we need to preserve as much of our energy reserves as possible to boost our immune system and to disarm this pathogen floating around in our system to either kill it off or disarm it. And, yeah, fatigue is really intelligent. It's saying slow down, we got to preserve our energy when we're feeling under the weather, so it's natural for us to feel fatigued.

Speaker 1:

Before we get into the actual protocol, I just wanted to share with you a little bit on the differences between viruses and bacteria. So viruses and bacterial infections, they are like same, same but different, actually very different in many ways. Very similar symptom picture, right, we can have runny nose, coughing, sneezing, sore throat on both sides of the spectrum, bacterial or viral but they're from a different cause. So, unlike bacteria, viruses can't actually be killed because they aren't technically alive to begin with. Viruses don't breathe, they don't eat, they don't produce their own energy, they don't have their own cellular structures or independent metabolism like there is inside of living organisms or bacteria. Instead, viruses are more like these genetic instructions wrapped up in a little protein coat, relying on host cells right you and I to replicate and to function.

Speaker 1:

So we can't actually kill viruses, but what we can do is disarm them, and that's what we really do inside of functional medicine and integrative health protocols is that we focus on rendering the virus harmless by disrupting its ability to reproduce or to further infect. So traditional killing methods, like antibiotics that you might use for a bacterial infection, actually won't work on viruses. And if you do have a viral infection and you're prescribed antibiotics, it can actually make it worse because now we don't have all the bacteria that actually are important part of our immune system that can help disarm that virus. So we need to be mindful of that and of course you can talk to your doctor and of course you'd wanna be doing the right testing to see if it is bacterial or viral, and of course there's natural protocols that we can use as well, and a viral approach is is often about interfering with the virus's genetic material and really boosting our immune system to help control the infection, focusing on containing the virus rather than destroying it because we can. So prevention and building the body's resilience is really key here.

Speaker 1:

So a few little tips is number one prevention is always easier to deal with than getting a full blown virus and needing to take care of it. So, of course, tips like maintaining hygiene If the people around you are sick, wash your hands all the basics we all know those things right. Focus on immune boosting right. Try to eat well all year round. Eat your plants, eat your antioxidants, get healthy nutrition, eat organic when you can. You know everything that you can do to focus on immune boosting is gonna help to prevent. You know you from getting the virus or therefore building up your physical resilience that if you do get it, symptoms tend to be a lot more mild when our physical body's in a level of balance and strength to begin with.

Speaker 1:

So you know, just to kind of give you an idea, a friend of mine who I think I may have caught the virus from, I guess a couple of weeks ago she was really unwell. She was coughing like crazy. She thought she was feeling better. Maybe she was still a little bit contagious at the time that I saw her and she said that like she felt like she was on her death bed. It was just such an intense viral load for her and she felt so unwell and for a very significant amount of time, and for me it was like it was a couple days feeling really under the weather. But my symptom picture was not nearly as severe as hers.

Speaker 1:

Right, and part of that, I kind of say, is because of just all the immune boost that I'm doing all year round and keeping well and keeping balanced all year round as best as I can. So try to catch it early if you can. If you're noticing, you kind of know and you build the body awareness to know when your body's feeling under the weather. Right. So if you're feeling a little bit lower immune, lower energy levels, you feel like the start of, maybe like a little tickle in your throat, we want to take action right away. Prevention's number one. But if we don't have that luxury, then as soon as you start to feel something you want to go straight into immune boosting mode, because if you can kind of catch it early, it's a lot easier to boost your immune system and prevent it from turning into something full blown. I wasn't able to catch it early. I tried my best. I thought I was feeling better two days in, but turns out I wasn't. So we do our best.

Speaker 1:

But of course, another thing here is that if you're a woman, during the four phases of your menstrual cycle your immune system actually goes through radical changes. And last week I was in my luteal phase. And did you know? Your body's so intelligent as a woman that your immune system will actually on purpose decrease itself in that luteal phase. Because if you were to have fallen pregnant in ovulation, your immune system will on purpose drop down so that your immune system doesn't attack the foreign body of a growing fetus right During the active conception and doesn't, you know, start to kill off the growing fetus. How cool is your body, women. That's so fun to know.

Speaker 1:

So the only times that I ever get sick throughout the year it's not very often. Maybe once or twice a year I might catch a little cold or a flu if something's going around, but I will always catch a flu in luteal phase. Any other phase of the menstrual cycle, I can, you know, be around people that are sick, and I don't seem to catch anything but luteal. When your body's a little bit more run down, it's natural that we may feel that. So even just adding in some immune boosting during that phase can be really helpful. So, yeah, keeping our bodies healthy and resilient all year round is really key, but let's get into if you do get sick, right? So what are the four steps to viral immune recovery, right? So again, these viruses are a little bit different than how we may manage bacterial infections like strap throat or some of these other things. But for viral infection, the four steps to viral immune recovery are number one, boosting our immune system. Number two, stopping the replication of the virus. Number three is to disarm the virus, because, remember, we can't actually kill viruses, but we can disarm them. And then step number four is to recover from the damage of the viral based infection.

Speaker 1:

So let's get into the immune boosting protocol. So when would I actually use this protocol? I would use it in the context of it's flu season and I just want to boost my immune system. I would use it if someone around me is sick. So as soon as I was around that friend that was coughing, I immediately started it. I would use this while traveling because naturally you're just, you're sleeping different, you're eating different, your immune system might be a little bit more compromised when we're traveling. I would use it during luteal phase Again, when I need a little bit of an extra immune boost or I'm feeling just a little bit like lower immune or more fatigue in that luteal phase. I would use this protocol if I'm feeling under the weather or just stressed or just actively feeling unwell. So what is this? Immune boosting and antiviral protocol? Okay, again, this is not medical advice, just sharing what I have personally done. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

I have five main areas for you here. So the first area of focus is on supplementation, nutritional supplements. So there's a few here. The first that I would focus on is nutraceuticals, or ortho molecular medicine, which is fancy words for saying the science of vitamins and minerals as medicine. So the first nutraceutical that I am taking is vitamin C. So vitamin C is very effective antimicrobial. It boosts our immune system, it increases our cellular defenses, it repairs the body because it's very antioxidant. So it helps recover from viral damage and in this case I like to use the form called a sorbic acid vitamin C, and I take 1000 milligrams three times a day. So if you're feeling under the weather, you can do your own research, make your own decisions, talk to your doctor I have to say all that and take two to 3000 milligrams of vitamin C to really boost your immune system if you're under the weather.

Speaker 1:

The second nutraceutical that I take is vitamin D3. So the colocalcepheral form is best, the vitamin D3 form, and during this time I'm personally taking a higher dose. I'm taking 4,000 IU's of your international units of vitamin D3 per day. And vitamin D3 is amazing. It's a super immune booster, it reduces viral replication and it's just a very powerful way of boosting your system.

Speaker 1:

So vitamin D3, we do have to be mindful because we can take toxic levels. Right, we can have too much vitamin D, unlike vitamin C, where if you have too much, it's water soluble, you're just gonna pee it out. However, with vitamin D3, we can reach toxic levels. So it is wise to know where your vitamin D levels kind of sit by lab testing. So that's, I know where my vitamin D3 levels sit. So I feel comfortable and confident taking that higher dose of vitamin D3. However, if you do have toxic or high high levels of vitamin D which is not common, by the way, but it is possible then we would wanna just be mindful of that. So always wise to test or just take lower dosages. So 4,000 IU a day. I'm taking 2,000 IU with breakfast and 2,000 IU with dinner, and vitamin D3's fat soluble, so we always wanna be taking it with food.

Speaker 1:

The third nutraceutical that I'm taking is zinc, which is a powerful mineral. It is excellent immune boosting. It's a powerful antimicrobial and antiviral agent. And the form of zinc that I'm taking I like to take zinc citrate in this case, but I'll just name a few of them here that you could take. Maybe you have some in your medicine cabinet or you can look for these online Zinc citrate, zinc gluconate, zinc glycinate or byglycinate, chelated zinc or zinc chelate or zinc picolinate. These are really the best forms. These are the more functional forms, therapeutic forms.

Speaker 1:

What we don't wanna be taking is something that just says zinc, because guaranteed it's the cheapest, you know, most ineffective, inabsorbable form Whenever it just says zinc, and I created a whole podcast episode on this. I think it's called the Ultimate Guide to Nutritional Supplements, so I'll link that up in the show notes of how to know how to create the best nutritional supplement purchases and know which forms to take. And I kind of decode how to read a supplement label and some of the scams that are out there in the supplement world. But if you're just seeing zinc on your nutritional supplement label, guaranteed you're getting the cheapest form. So it should say the form of zinc, zinc citrate or zinc gluconate.

Speaker 1:

What I don't recommend is the mineral-based form. So all the forms that I shared with you here are amino acid forms of the mineral. So it's the mineral attached to an amino acid. It makes it very bioavailable and easy to digest. What I don't recommend is just pure mineral or rock-based forms. So I don't recommend zinc oxide or if it just says zinc it's probably zinc oxide and they're not advertising zinc oxide because they know that it's the least bioavailable form and it doesn't make their product look very good.

Speaker 1:

So I'm taking 30 to 60 milligrams per day in divided doses. I'm taking, let's say, 15 to 20 milligrams with lunch and 15 to 20 milligrams with dinner. I'm taking it away from my morning iron because they can reduce the absorption of each other and zinc is just really great to take at night. That's kind of when it's most recommended. Please remember that zinc should always, always be taken with food or it can make you nauseous. I've actually taken zinc on an empty stomach and vomited before, and that's common. So just make sure that you're taking it with food and you'll be perfectly fine.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so those are the top three supplements or nutraceuticals. I'm gonna share two bonuses with you here. So the other ones that I'm taking is NAC, or also known as N-Acetylcystine, and NAC. This is a supplement that's so powerful. It's a powerful antioxidant. It supports our cellular defenses, our body's tissue repair. It reduces the severity and the duration of our symptoms. It also is really great for reducing, like the runny nose, the runny eyes, the cough, those types of things just symptom support, and I'm taking 1200 milligrams a day. So 600 milligrams with breakfast, 600 milligrams with dinner, and that works really great to support my immune system.

Speaker 1:

The final one I'll share with you is Corsatin, q-u-e-r-c-e-t-i-n Corsatin and this is an amazing product. It inhibits viral replication, promotes viral inactivation, so disarming that virus reduction of symptoms. It's an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and I'm taking 500 milligrams a day with breakfast. So these are all great products and supplements that you could do your research, you can talk to your practitioner about.

Speaker 1:

You can also get an IV. So that was something that I did twice in the last week when I was feeling a bit under the weather, just to help boost my absorption. So the thing with doing IV-based infusions is that it goes straight to your bloodstream right. It bypasses the digestive system. Absorption is instant. Absorption is really effective. You're getting a higher dose of those things. Of course, you need to be working with a qualified professional and someone that really knows their stuff. You don't wanna just get something off the street you wouldn't do that. But yeah, you just wanna really do your research, make sure that you're getting it from a qualified place. But yeah, iv infusions can also be very supportive for get delivering those nutrients in a really effective way.

Speaker 1:

So I will link up my personal immunity protocol and the supplements that I've personally been taking in the show notes. I'm actually also creating on the backend of the website bendystablescom. I'm actually creating a whole shop page for you of all of my favorite products. So it's been a work in progress All of the products that I personally use and love. I'm gonna be creating a whole shop page for those recommendations for you. So I will let you know when it's live, but I'm so excited to share these with you. Okay, so that's number one supplements.

Speaker 1:

Number two area is nutrition. So of course, how we eat when we're feeling under the weather really matters. So the overall general rules when we're feeling under the weather is to allow our nutrition to be one really simple, no-transcript. On the lighter side, so we're not eating too heavy, not hard to digest foods. We want it to be easy to digest, nutrient rich, right. So lots of vegetables and mineral rich foods and easy to digest. So things like soups and stews. So I've been eating a lot of soup over the last while. It's warming, easy to digest, it's simple, it's light and it delivers nutrients in a really easy to digest way. So what I'm not eating is a lot of processed foods, heavy foods, inflammatory foods, you know, fried foods and oils, things like that and just keeping it really simple. So that's my nutrition when I'm feeling under the weather.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the third area let's get into is herbal allies. So, of course, talk to your health practitioner. Unlike nutraceuticals, where everybody needs vitamin C and vitamin D and that's kind of basic, there can be some contraindications with herbs. Herbs are amazing herbal products and roots and fruits and all the things. But if you are taking any medication or if you have any underlying health issues, there can be some contraindications there because herbs are powerful. So I'm not gonna share doses of things on purpose because it really is so bio-individualistic and I'm gonna share with you the main immune boosting and antiviral herbs and products that I've been taking personally over the last little while that you could do your own research on.

Speaker 1:

So the first antiviral herb that I've been working with is elderberry. Elderberry is amazing. It's very antiviral herb or berry actually, we use the berries primarily and it boosts cellular defense and it boosts our body's tissue repair. So you can purchase it as like an elderberry syrup. I actually I love to make my own. I buy my own dried elderberries. You boil them for a very, very long time, boil it down and then you can consume it and just add like honey at the end and it's really really excellent way to get that extra nutrition and those antiviral properties. So it's very immune boosting. Elderberry.

Speaker 1:

The second herb everyone knows this one echinacea. So echinacea is a very powerful antiviral herb, really immune boosting. So I've been taking this in the form of tea. You can get it in tea form. You can get it in tincture form. It's a really excellent, just like standard antiviral go-to herb when we need it. Golden seal this is another herbal ally. It's very immune boosting, so it really builds our body's resilience and boosts our immune system. So that can be taken in tea or capsule form, tincture form. And again, I'll link up a lot of these products that I use in the show notes and I'll have them in the shop as well when it's ready. Astragalus is another really immune boosting one. A really good antiviral one is Andrographis, also known as Sambiloto. So I've been taking very high dose of Andrographis.

Speaker 1:

All of the bitter, bitter, bitter herbs, so things like neem Andrographis. There's one more that I can't think about the moment, but all the ones that are very, very bitter in nature are powerful antivirals and they're blood purifiers. So in Ayurveda we say that the different flavors right, so sweet, sour, spicy, salty and bitter these five flavors have different effects in the body and the bitter taste is very great for reducing a high fever, for killing pathogens, right, it kind of tastes like it's gonna kill something. Right, the taste of something really bitter. You know it's good for you but it doesn't taste very good. So I've been taking high doses of that in supplement form. They also use Andrographis in pathogenic cases of malaria and dengue some more severe viruses like that. Andrographis is excellent and we've seen a lot of success with that as well, and there's also studies and research on its effect. Okay. So another bitter one is, of course, neem. Taking neem and Andrographis we don't wanna be doing these for too long, but especially in that initial viral load I was taking higher doses of those.

Speaker 1:

Next is licorice. So I actually keep by my side a little jar when I'm feeling under the weather. If you're with me on video, I have like a little jar of just genuinely broken down pieces of licorice root and whole cloves. So clove and licorice. What I actually do with these is I literally just keep a chunk in my cheek pocket all day. So I have like a clove and a piece of licorice.

Speaker 1:

The licorice is really soothing for sore throat. So if you have more like the dry, painful, red, inflamed throat, licorice is like a soothing balm for it, and clove is very antiviral. It also has like a slight numbing agent. So in some forms of like holistic dentistry, when you have a toothache or when you need to like freeze a tooth or something, or there's a lot of tenderness in the gum tissue, they'll actually apply some sort of food grade or medical grade clove essential oil to the tooth because it has such a numbing effect. So I literally keep a chunk of licorice and a chunk of clove in my mouth all day, every day, and I sleep with that as well. That's also safe for kids, right, cause they're just food based and it's such a low dose. The only risk, of course, is you have to be careful if they're too young, like the risk of choking. I personally sleep with it in my cheek pocket at night. But yeah, if there's a risk of choking, of course you'd want to be careful with that, and with kids you'd need to be mindful as well.

Speaker 1:

Okay, last few ones for you here a lemon balm. So lemon balm herb or tincture or capsules is amazing. You can make teas. It tastes delicious, it smells delicious. Most people know lemon balm for its like anti-anxiety and calming effect, which it certainly has, but it's also one of the most powerful antivirals out there. So it really helps to just boost your immune system. It's antiviral, antimicrobial and it will have you feeling much better real fast. So I love lemon balm tea. Okay, pine needles this is so cool Specific species of pine tree, the pine needles, are actually very effective for specifically reducing the effects of spike proteins from certain viral based infections.

Speaker 1:

So I've been doing a tea I'll just share with you, kind of like the tea that I've been doing. I've kind of been combining all of this. So I've been doing echinacea and I just have the medicine woman in me I have a whole cupboard of just bulk herbs fresh, organic, dried organic herbs and then I just make my own teas, my own blends, my own tinctures and whatnot here in Bali, and I've been combining echinacea, golden seal, astragalus, pine and licorice, because I've had quite a sore throat as well, and I've been making a tea or a decoction of that. And then the really bitter, bad tasting ones, I've been using those in capsule form because they just don't taste very good. So that's a really excellent remedy.

Speaker 1:

And then, finally, all of your culinary herbs can be really supportive during this time. So food is medicine and all of these culinary herbs that you're you know you can cook with are really great. So they're immune boosting, they're antimicrobial, so things like garlic, ginger's, excellent oregano so fresh or dried oregano leaves, basil leaves, fennel seed, peppermint is excellent for opening up the airways, rosemary is excellent. Turmeric is really immune, boosting and antimicrobial. So, remember cultures around the world, all these like traditional cuisines, like Indian cuisine and Egyptian cuisine, even like earlier Aztecs, like modern day Mexican food, you know, coming from Mayan and from Aztec cultures. They are full of all of these culinary herbs that are really immune, boosting and purify the blood. So, yeah, we can always work with these in our kitchen and allow our food to be our medicine as well. Okay, so those are all of our herbal allies.

Speaker 1:

Let's get into some ancient remedies. So this is the fourth area that we're looking at, ancient remedies. So I'm gonna be sharing from some Ayurvedic perspective. So my background, my first love in medicine, was Ayurvedic medicine and I spent quite some time in India and studying Ayurvedic medicine, which is the oldest medical science known to humankind, and it's really intelligent. It uses plants as medicine. It uses our lifestyle as medicine, our food as medicine to really rebalance and heal the body. So some ancient remedies for you home remedies.

Speaker 1:

Number one is when you have a sore throat or you feel a tickle in your throat and you wanna prevent it from moving that infection from the throat into the lungs because you're breathing through the throat all day or you're breathing through your nose all day. Oftentimes what happens is it'll start as a sore throat and then through breathing right, that infection can move up into the sinuses through breathing or it can move down into the lungs through breathing. So if we can catch it in the sore throat before it moves up or down, that is obviously ideal. So we can gargle, so doing herbal gargles. I add salt, so Himalayan or sea salt, to make like a saline solution mix that in some warm water. You can either just do that or do salt and baking soda. That's a really, really great, just anti-microbial, rinsing kind of agent in the back of the throat to reduce the pathogenic load.

Speaker 1:

But I also add some herbs, right. So I add turmeric, which is really anti-microbial. I add licorice, because again it's like this coating, soothing balm for a sore throat, and I also add a little bit of trifle of powder. So let's just like, keep it simple Salt, baking soda. You probably have some turmeric at home and if you have some licorice powder at home or licorice tea, you can also just steep a licorice tea and add salt and baking soda and turmeric and do like a gargle. So I fill a big cup of warm water with those ingredients and then I gargle. So take a big sip, gargle it in the back of my throat, move my head side to side to make sure it gets everywhere, and then I spit it out and I'll gargle an entire big cup of that kind of like tea-like solution with salt and baking soda in it. So that's really excellent. So the Nexel Home Remedy is again I just hold that right, my little clove or chunk of licorice in my cheek pocket. So that's like the original ancient throat lozenge is really just holding those herbs directly in your mouth and allowing the medicine to really penetrate into the throat area.

Speaker 1:

The third little ancient remedy for you is steam. So steam is another method of diffusing medicines into the airways specifically. So you can create what I do, because I just make a big pot, I boil some water and then, as it's cooling down, I'll add in number one eucalyptus essential oil right, or tea tree essential oil those are excellent and the aromatic compounds inside of those essential oils the steam elevates them and brings these particles into the breathing airway. So it's excellent for dislodging mucus. You don't have like a really thick, congested sinuses. They're kind of like that headache that is just from congestion of mucus and phlegm inside of the sinus cavities as well as that like more damp, heavy cough. Doing this steam can really help move congestion inside the lungs so you can actually cough it out and release that, so it's not that like kind of hacking sensation all day.

Speaker 1:

So you can either do it with modern day essential oils. Use food grade if you can. Eucalyptus, clove is great. Doterra and Young Living are the two brands that I recommend. They're just much higher in quality than what you'll find. Please don't use Walmart or pharmacy ones that you'll find. Please get them from a qualified source, but products like OnGuard essential oil or thieves. So that's doTERRA and Young Living kind of blends with, I think, clove and eucalyptus and maybe tea tree and lemon all these more immune, boosting, anti-viral, anti-microbial essential oils in there. Otherwise, again, you can just use salt, baking soda, turmeric powder, you can use peppermint leaf and all those aromatic compounds will still be inhaled into the airways and have a really immune boosting and symptom relieving effect.

Speaker 1:

Okay, next little home remedy for you onion on the soles of the feet. So this is an ancient remedy in Ayurvedic times. Maybe your grandmother did this when she was young is. You would literally just take a slice of raw onion, put it on the soles of the feet and then put socks on it and then go to sleep at night, and this is known. This is more like. I'm not sure that I could show you scientific data or research on this, but I do believe you know it brings the blood flow away from the central channel, brings them into the feet, helps relieve toxins. It improves circulation. So, yeah, I've tried it before and it's actually been really helpful. So, yeah, take what you will from it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, another ancient remedy is colloidal silver. So colloidal silver has been used since ancient times, Egyptian and Indian times. Back in those days, they would simply place a silver coin in drinking vessels because it would ionize and it would release some of the silver particles into the water, and silver is massively antiviral. So, of course, quality and sourcing really matters. Please do your research. Again, I'll link up a colloidal silver product that I love and take in the shop as well as in the show notes. But, yeah, colloidal silver can be really effective.

Speaker 1:

Please remember, don't take colloidal silver on a metal spoon, okay. So when you're measuring it out, you don't wanna be doing that, because it actually neutralizes the ions of silver inside of the solution, inside of the water that it suspended in. So really we wanna be consuming it out of a glass cup or out of a plastic spoon is fine, or if it's in a dropper, you know, you can take it from the glass dropper directly, and colloidal silver should always be in a glass bottle, not plastic and certainly not metal. I don't think I've seen that out there, but just in case. Okay, neti pot, let's talk about that real quick.

Speaker 1:

So neti pot, if you've never heard of it, is like taking this little kind of teapot looking thing with warm water and salts. You can do it with herbs as well, like turmeric and licorice. It's very soothing and basically what you do is you tip your head over a sink and you put one, you put the spout of the kind of teapot or the neti pot we call it, in one nostril. You tilt your head forward and basically the water is gonna go up your, let's say, right nostril into the sinus cavity and it's gonna pour out the left nostril. So the idea behind it is that it helps to rinse out the excess mucus and congestion inside of the sinuses and can be really great for opening up the breathing pathways. There's some genuine like contraindications here where it can be really effective as a prevention and like after you're already finished being sick and your sinuses have cleared a little bit but you actually don't wanna be taking neti pot lightly. You don't wanna be doing it when you're too congested, because you can actually get trapped water stuck in your sinuses and it can cause, like my partner he did neti pot when his sinuses were a little bit too congested and that water got trapped in there and it actually caused a very severe ear infection. It can cause, like throat infection or, yeah, like all kinds of things that we just like don't want eye infections, things like that. So we do need to be mindful of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's like a lot of technical rules in Ayurvedic medicine. Like I was shocked. Normally people talk about neti pot so casually I'm like, oh, yeah, it's great, rinse your sinuses and whatnot, but it's a very specific medical therapy, right, that should be used in right timing, like some rules that we were always recommended. My teacher, like you never do neti pot before sunrise or after sunset, right, you never do it on rainy days. You never do it when you're already low immune or when the sinuses are already too congested. Yeah, you always use very sterile water. There's very specific ratios of salt to water. Because there was too much salt or not enough, it can cause burning. So, yeah, do your research. Maybe one day, if anybody wants this, I'll do a full episode on some of these ancient Ayurvedic remedies, like neti pot, and kind of share the exact science behind it and how to do it in a healthy way and all the contraindications, but that's a whole other episode. Okay, you guys, so that is our ancient remedies.

Speaker 1:

Okay, final area that I wanna get into is self care. Number one in self care is rest. So rest is so important when we're feeling under the weather. I have and I wear, if you're with me on video I have my aura ring, which is a bio wearable biotracking device that shows everything from my body's stress levels, my body's readiness levels. It's a sleep tracker. It shows my heart rate, my heart rate variability, all this good stuff that gives me measurable data on what's happening in my body that I can interpret to know my recovery from such a virus. It shows me my body temperature, so it shows when I have a fever and when that fever subsides. So interesting little thing is that my aura ring on the second day or second or third day that I was feeling sick was I had a readiness score of 41 out of 100. And my readiness score is usually range on a bad day like 75 out of 100 to in the 90s on days that I'm normally feeling well. So to see a 41 was very validating that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, my body needs rest. So I really prioritized that. I didn't go to the gym. I think once or twice I went out for a gentle, gentle walk just in nature with just my partner, just get some fresh air, but kept it really low key. So no exercise really focused on sleep. I wasn't sleeping well at all because I was coughing all night. But yeah, focusing on just like getting more sleep, or I will give myself a little nap in the afternoon If I know I'm not getting enough rest through sleep at night. So rest is number one.

Speaker 1:

Number two we can bring in things like essential oils using them. So on my desk I don't have it anymore, but on my desk the whole time I was feeling sick is I would have like a little bottle of Eucalyptus essential oil and you know, a few times throughout the day I would just be opening the lid and taking a big sniff of it in my left and right nostril, using it as an inhalant. You can also use essential oils like Eucalyptus or Tea Tree or that thieves and on guard product I shared from Young Living and DoTERRA effectively, you can dilute them in a little bit of a carrier oil, like coconut oil or olive oil, and rub them into the soles of the feet. You can add it into your bathwater. Again, it should be diluted in a carrier oil because it can burn the skin. It's strong stuff. Or you can put, like peppermint essential oil, diluted in a carrier oil, on the temples if you ever have some kind of headache. So essential oils I really bring in when I'm feeling unwell as part of my self-care.

Speaker 1:

And then the last two pieces of self-care I'll share with you is having a warm bath. So warm bath is great. It improves circulation, it helps with those body aches. Again, increasing our body temperature a little bit really helps to kind of like burn up those pathogens or viruses. And I add epsom salts and baking soda as well as a little bit of diluted essential oils, and that works really great for me.

Speaker 1:

And then, finally, you gotta stay hydrated. So, especially if you're sneezing and eyes watering and coughing or have a fever, it's really easy to get dehydrated. So you really need to focus on drinking plenty of fluids at least two liters of water a day and ideally focusing on warmer fluids. That's gonna boost the immune system, improve your circulation and warm fluids are very soothing on a sore throat and helps. That warmth really helps to break up mucus and congestion in your sinuses, the lungs and all that good stuff. So, goodness, that was a lot today. You guys, this is the entire immune boosting protocol, antiviral protocol that I use. We got into everything from supplements to nutrition, to herbal allies, to ancient remedies, self-care and beyond. So I hope this was helpful.

Speaker 1:

If there's any questions you have, you can always reach out to me on Instagram. My handle is at Bindi Stables, that's B-I-N-D-I Bindi with two I's and Stables with a B, and I'd love to hear any questions you have. If you need help finding products, maybe I can make recommendations for you. Or I'd love to hear your top takeaways from this episode. And please do save this episode, download it and make sure you send it to anyone who is feeling under the weather at the moment. So if you have a friend or a family, mother or a colleague that's been feeling under the weather. Do share this with them and let's spread this knowledge that everyone knows how to take best care of themselves during the season.

Speaker 1:

So that's all for today. I'm sending you so much love. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you back for another episode real soon. ["the Love of Love"]. Thanks so much for listening. If you loved today's episode, please spread the love by subscribing and leaving a review, or if there's someone in your life that you think could benefit from this conversation, please share this episode with them. I would love to hear from you over on Instagram at Bindi Stables, or visit my website, bindestablescom, to connect and work with me. Thank you so much again for being here, and I'm celebrating you in this journey of becoming the happiest, the healthiest, most vibrant you.