Feeling a little unpleasantly green.

 

I've been feeling a little ill the last few weeks, which has made writing in this blog not really something I've been thinking off.  This time I felt so bad I caved and took copious amounts of lemsip and cough medicine. It's not something I normally do, usually I just let my body deal with it on its own accord, having a hot drink with lemon juice with honey (sometimes), and maybe take some paracetimol if I need to lower my temperature. I generally prefer to do this as it gives my body a chance to deal with it on its own and get my immune system working. But it did make me think, are there any natural remedies that you can take when you're ill that actually work.
So far, the natural products usually put forward as the best ways of dealing with a colds, vitamin C, zinc and echinacea, don't do too well on the research front, with the mixed results generally leaning towards the negative.  Even chicken soup isn't getting the thumbs up, mainly because its difficult to find something that looks, feels, smells and tastes like chicken soup to compare it too.  So what can you use?

1. The first seems pretty obivous, lots of rest!  Dealing with a cold (or flu) does take a lot of energy and so, ensuring that that's the only thing it has to deal with, increases your body's ability to deal with the illness and to get better sooner.  This I definitely try and do, but I have to admit I get easily bored lying in bed for hours.
2. Drink hot drinks.This is really just to spot dehydration, relieve congestion and help sooth inflamed areas.  It's not a cure, but it does help make things feel better.
3. Gargling.  Again, not really a cure, though gargling with warm water and salt can help with the actual infection, but it does help smooth your throat by moistening the area and removing the particules that cause inflamation in your throat.
4. Steam.  Great for adding moisture to dry chest and throats, as well as opening up sinuses to allow breathing and to remove infected mucus from the body.
5. Honey.  Designed to keep the hive healthy and happy, honey has antioxidants, antibacterial and antiviral properties.  Best with the least amount of processing possible, honey can help boost the immune system, soothe soar throats, improve coughs and helps eliminate the secondary bacterial infection that you can get with colds and flu.
6. Ginger. Containing compounds called gingerols, which has been shown to reduce pain, inflammation, germs and viruses, its one of the best ways of reducing the affects of the cold or flu virus and helping your body to get rid of the virus itself. Mixed with honey and warm water, a warm ginger drink can be one of the most soothing things you can take while feeling ill.

If I'm honest I usually try most of these when I'm feeling ill, but probably not to the extent that I should to actually make a difference.  As I've said before, I get bored very easily when ill and don't really do the things I'm meant to do.  Next time I'm not feeling great, which hopefully won't be for a very long time, I'll test all of these to see if they actually work and, if so, how well they work compared to the pharmaceutical things I used this time.

Empties #1

As anyone trying to use up products will know, it takes a lot longer then you would expect.  But I have decided to work my way through my stash to use up items that have been sitting there for a while and to reduce the duplicates so that's what I'm doing.  This is what I've got through so far.

24 Hour Naked - Coco de Mer Body Butter.

I have to admit I love this stuff, I smell totally edible, but its not moisturising enough for my skin in the winter and I can't buy it again until I've used up the other moisturisers.  Just a self tanning moisturiser (I have no idea why I brought this) and a body butter from the Body Shop and I'm out of moisterisers.

Botanics Enlivening Body Polish.

Not a big fan of this.  It's meant to exholicate your skin and have oils to help moisturise at the same time, but I didn't really find that it work particularly well.  The crushed shells didn't help exholiate by skin and the oils weren't concentrated enough to actually add any conditioning to my skin.  It's discontinued now, but I wouldn't buy it again even if it wasn't. 
Actually I've decided not to buy anymore body scrubs at all, but instead I'm going to use something a bit more mechanical (and Japanese) to help remove the dead skin and detox the skin intself. A dry skin brush to brush up my body before I take a shower. Mine's from Botanics at Boots.

Scrubby, scrubby.

Sorting my clothing.

Ok, I'm not exactly a clothing hoarder and I can fit most of it into a tiny little wardrobe.

With an unbelieveably large number of jumpers in the back.

(There's more in there, I'd just have to take all my clothes out to really show them all.)  But, despite the small number it's definitely more than I really need and, while I do wear all of it throughout the year, I reach for some items for more than others.
So here's the plan.  Realistically I only need 5 of each item to be happy (5 strappy tops, 5 short sleeved tops, 5 long sleeved tops, 5 skirts - I actually only have 3 at the moment -, 5 dresses, and 5 trouses - shorts aren't really needed where I live), though I'll keep the number of jumpers higher as I definitely need to be able to layer those.  As I have more than 5 of most things I really don't need to be buying anymore clothes until it's time to replace one of the 5 that I need to replace.  This will not only stop me from buying items I don't need, and so not be so environmentally unfriendly, but also save me money.  Win win all round really, and thankfully I'm not big on following fashion so I'll not going miss out there.