The holiday season also kicks off another less festive part of our year, flu season. Fever, chills, weakness, and a host of other symptoms can leave you feeling terrible for several days, during the most wonderful time of the year!
Luckily, the common characteristics of proper etiquette can lessen the chance you and your loved ones avoid flu season all together. Follow these nine quick tips to keep your immunity high and exposure low!
1. Be proactive
Staying up-to-date on your immunizations and shots will help prevent sickness and keep you feeling great throughout the year. A regular multi-vitamin and plenty of healthy foods will help keep your body in good condition to fight off any sickness that may be spreading through the area. Setting a good example will help encourage others to do the same!
2. Keep it clean
More so than any other time, the combination of holiday and flu seasons signal the importance of keeping your hands clean. You may be cooking food for other people, eating food prepared by others, and doing a lot of hand-shaking and hugging with all kinds of people at parties and family gatherings. It’s important for you and others to keep their hands clean to limit the spread of germs.
3. Stay active
Integrating a steady exercise habit during the holidays will help build up your body’s defenses and give you more energy during this holiday season. Just a simple walk through the neighborhood, 5 minute workout, or short run will do wonders for your health and waistline! For ideas, fitness site The Simple Gym offers a 12 week starter series to get you going!
4. Rest up!
Along with exercise, a good night’s rest will help your body recover from the daily grind. While waking up later isn’t always an option, try going to sleep 15 minutes earlier per night until you can squeeze that extra hour of sleep out of the night! Here’s a quick tip for falling asleep earlier too… read fiction books. Compared with non-fiction (especially self-help books) which encourage future projections, a fictional story (or biography) present natural stopping points. Of course, if you’ve stayed up all night with a good story, this may not work for you either! Just a suggestion.
5. Be politely assertive
If you notice someone isn’t covering up a cough of sneeze, then find the courage to politely assert your (and others) wish that he or she try to keep their sneezes to themselves. Try these lines:
I’m so sorry you’re not feeling well, can I get you some tissues?
I can see you’re a little under the weather, could you cover your mouth when you cough?
6. Offer help
Keep hand sanitizer, fresh wipes, and tissues with you at all times, and offer them to people around you who seem to be feeling sick. This helps protect everyone while helping the sick person feel better too!
7. Be selfish
At a party, or even family gathering, keep a hold of your own cup, plate, and cutlery. While this may seem like common knowledge, it is not always practiced! Be selfish about your own cup and anything that will go near your mouth, even chap stick. Offer your generosity in other ways, like with gifts, time, and food. But not your spoon!
8. Cover up
Be sure to dress properly for the weather, and not wear too few clothes for this cool season. Hypothermia and other cold-related illnesses rapidly lower your body’s natural immune defenses, and make it easier for the flu to gain a metabolic foothold! In another sense, politely covering up your mouth to cough or nose to sneeze is a cornerstone of proper etiquette, and is the best way to prevent a sickness from spreading.
9. Don’t be a hero
If you’re feeling sick, don’t be a hero and head in to work to infect other people. Sick days are in your contract for a reason, so use them! Many people are able to do some work from home if needed, but an office full of sickly people trying to go the extra mile doesn’t serve anyone well. Especially if you work in food service or retail, and have lots of interaction with customers, do everything possible to stay at home and get better!
What other ways can we help ourselves and others avoid getting sick by practicing good etiquette and healthy habits? Or, if we do find ourselves sick, how do you bounce back? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Photo by Juhan Sonin
