Five steps to help you avoid the dreaded summer cold
Getting sneezy and snotty amid sweltering heat and high humidity can make an unfortunate situation even worse.
'Cold viruses circulate year-round, so it's possible to get sick during any season,' Cleveland Clinic primary care physician Dr. Matthew Badgett said in a statement.
With the warmer weather also comes a different set of viruses than the winter normal cold and flu season, people head and stay indoors.
Staying aware of risk factors can keep you feeling fresh and phlegm-free year-round. Here are five steps to avoid such a fate.
A summer cold can really suck. Staying hydrated and getting enough sleep can be the difference between staying at home and taking a trip (Getty)
Stay hydrated
The summer can make staying hydrated a lot harder than it may be otherwise.
Thirst might not kick in until we're already dehydrated, Sarah Adler, a performance dietitian with UCLA Health Sports Performance, warned.
Higher temperatures mean more sweat. When we sweat more, we need to increase or water intake to maintain our fluid levels.
'Approximately 60 percent of our body is made up of water,' she explained in a statement. 'So we need to make sure we're replenishing our losses, especially with increased sweating in the summer.'
Wash your hands on a summer trip – or bring hand sanitizer
Wanna get away? Nothing may beat a Jet2 holiday, but the risk of exposure to viruses and other sources of infection looms large during summer travel.
The percentage of Americans taking to the skies and streets is expected to be even higher this year, according to accounting firm Deloitte.
Experts say frequent hand washing at airports, in hotels, and really anywhere else can help protect you from the spread of disease – or from spreading disease. People can be infected by touching contaminated surfaces.
'Everybody was really good about carrying hand sanitizer with them and washing their hands through Covid,' Dr. Jill Foster, a professor at University of Minnesota Medical School, told AARP. 'We should really try to up-regulate that again.'
Sleep well
Sleeping well can be a struggle during the summer season, when the nights are hotter and longer.
They're also lighter, thanks to the Earth's tilt and artificial light sources.
But, getting enough sleep is critical to protecting your immune health. Your immune system produces proteins known as cytokines when you sleep. They help you to sleep and you need more when you have an infection.
'Not getting enough sleep may lower how much of these protective cytokines are made,' Mayo Clinic said. 'Also, levels of antibodies and cells that fight infections are lowered during times when you don't get enough sleep.'
Hands off the face!
Wiping your face with your hands may leave you at risk. Experts advise that people frequently wash their hands and carry hand sanitizer (AFP/Getty)
This is a good piece of advice for any time of the year. A cold is a cold.
You can spread germs and bacteria from surfaces to your nose and mouth by just touching your face.
Stay out of the AC, if possible
Amid record temperatures, air conditioning demand and use is higher than ever. Making sure your unit is well maintained can prove the difference between a sick summer and fun in the sun. But, try not to spend too much time in there.
'While air conditioning can be a real blessing in the summer heat, it can also create a cold, dry environment that viruses love. Your throat can suffer from the dry environment too,' West Tennessee Health cautioned.
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Zillow draws so many visitors that it's hard to imagine real estate agents shunning the platform en masse — it's simply too powerful a marketing machine. The MLS model, at least as it exists in the States, is far from perfect. More than 500 local databases form a complex web of overlapping fiefdoms that agents have to subscribe to individually. The recent class-action lawsuits against the National Association of Realtors and major brokerages cast the MLSes not as models of transparency, but as shadowy databases that helped prop up agent commissions by facilitating a sneaky practice known as "steering." There are other models that could work, too: In Australia, for instance, there's a dominant search portal where most people go to find homes, and many places sell via an auction that offers more transparency than the US system of making blind offers. And while the search portals here offer pretty comprehensive views of the market, they've never had all of the listings. There have always been so-called "pocket listings" that float around beyond the reach of the MLSes, available only to in-the-know agents who can offer their clients a leg up on the competition. But hardly anyone in the industry disagrees with the basic premise that buyers like being able to find homes easily and in one place. People may gripe about Zillow's power in the industry or the questionable accuracy of its ubiquitous Zestimate, but the ability to scroll through all the listings on the site — or those on any of the other search portals — is unique to North America. Few probably appreciate this better than Boero, the real estate exec who set out to buy the Italian getaway of his dreams. He did eventually find a place that checked off his boxes: "We're happy with it," he says. But he made that purchase with far less confidence than he had in any real estate transaction in his life. And even today, he has no idea whether it's worth more or less than it was when he bought it three years ago. The whole experience, he tells me, gave him a new appreciation for the American way of doing things. "Within the industry, we've made these comparisons ad nauseam," Boero tells me. "'Hey guys, let's not destroy this very special thing we have. Because just look at the rest of the world and how messed up it is.'" James Rodriguez is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Discourse team. Read the original article on Business Insider
