Colds can't keep you down anymore

By Brooke Barron, staff writers

February 1, 2008 | 6 a.m.

You promise yourself you will not get sick. Then you wake up Monday with chills, a fever, aches and a runny nose. Now that fall, winter and finals are upon us, it’s crucial that students take care of their bodies or otherwise suffer a mucus-y consequence.

Freshman Danielle Donley said the feeling she gets upon realizing she has a cold is downright sickening. “I get so frustrated on days when I wake up sick, especially on days I know I can’t afford to be feeling under the weather,” Donley said. She always wishes she had washed her hands more or gotten her fill of Vitamin C.

Taking extra steps to remain healthy is especially crucial for the college student. “Getting sick here at OU is so much easier because, not only is there stress, which is unavoidably associated with coursework, that hurts the immune system, but there are thousands of people you come in contact with everyday," Donley said. "You’re sharing public buildings and other facilities with these people, and this is an entirely new environment that your body is trying to get used to.”

Protecting the body against the germs and viruses in this new environment is exactly what will maintain a healthy immune system in the long run. Staying healthy during cold and flu’s prime season is as simple as listening to what every mom and grade school nurse has ever directed.

Healthwise Incoporated, a health source and awareness Web site, advises students who want to prevent a cold to:

Wash hands often.
Be extra careful around people with colds.
Avoid shaking hands or touching anything that has come in contact with bodily fluids.
Keep hands away from the face. The nose, eyes and mouth are places for germs to enter the body.
Eat well.
Get plenty of sleep.
Exercise. This helps the body stay strong, so it can fight colds.
Not smoke. Smoking makes it easier to catch a cold and harder to get rid of one.

Another effective prevention tactic for the flu, according to the Hudson Health Center Web site, is the common flu shot. The influenza vaccinations shot, designed to prevent the flu virus all together or greatly reduce symptoms, is generally administered by the student health service on a first-come, first-served basis during December and January of each year.

If the cold or flu has already attacked a student’s immune system and prevention is no longer an option, Hudson’s Web site encourages students to drink plenty of water. This will prevent dehydration and help to break up mucus, flushing it out of the body’s systems. Hudson also recommends washing hands frequently, taking Tylenol or Ibuprofen for fever and headaches, and gargling with warm salt water.

Jamesetta Newland, author of “Primary Care Protocol: Influenza,” recommends multiple remedies, such as using a humidifier and taking hot showers to relieve a stuffy nose and head, using paper tissues people can throw away to avoid spreading germs, putting a dab of petroleum jelly on red and raw noses to ease pain, using nasal spray and using cough medicine to soothe a sore throat.

Donley also warns students not to push themselves too hard when they are sick. “Getting sick during the school year is always an irritating issue for me," she said. "I don’t like to miss class and the material, so I end up pushing myself to get through the day, which inevitably delays the healing process my body needed to go through to get better.”

Should a student feel illness coming on, taking some time to relax is one of the biggest remedy factors. Driving the body to do one thing after the next, all day every day, only will dwindle the immune system‘s ability to fight disease. Students are inclined to blow off the advice that mom and the school nurse gave about protecting the immune system because they’ve heard it so often, but really, it’s taking time to do the little things each day that is going to be the deciding factor for a student’s health in the future.

“Doing little things each day is really what’s going to keep you from getting sick," Donley siad. "If I had to give a piece of advice to students it would be: Remember that sleep comes before homework. Neglecting to get the recommended amount of sleep does no justice to your immune system and will eventually make you sick, which means you won’t be well enough to get your homework done efficiently in the first place.”

Take an extra two minutes for washing hands when by a bathroom, hit up Ping for a 15-minute run on the treadmill, and put down the french fries in exchange for an apple in the dining hall. Small changes are what will leave some students standing as A-plus scholars during finals week while others are curled up in their tissue-covered beds, watching reruns of trashy reality television shows, whimpering over their deflating grades.

---