Why Do We Take Antibiotics???

Yes, it’s the holidays.  We all stress ourselves out by running around in crowded shopping malls, staying up late wrapping presents or online shopping, eating sugar and cookies, drinking more wine and beer than normal, and most of all, running up the credit cards spending way too much money on presents.  Then, when the dust clears, you are left with a scratchy throat, runny nose and a cough.  Does this sound familiar?  Of course this happened to me as well, we are spiritual beings having a human experience

Now we need to decide, how are we going to handle these symptoms?  For many, they make a call or visit to their medical doctor and ask for some antibiotics.  My question is, why?  First of all, did you know that antibiotics do nothing for a viral infection?  Most common symptoms of the cold (runny noses) are from a virus, not bacteria so taking an antibiotic will NOT help, but it can also harm you by lowering your immune systems ability to fight the virus. (Evidence of this can be found in two studies: The first study is published in Science Translational Medicine and the second appears in Cell Reports.)  The second problem when you take an antibiotic even if you do have a non-life threatening bacteria, antibiotics attack not only the bad bacteria, but also the helpful bacteria in your gut thus leaving a void for even MORE bad bacteria to take over once the antibiotic is stopped.  Now, don’t get me wrong, antibiotics save lives every day however, no doctor could argue that they are way over-prescribed for conditions that your normal immune system should be able to handle.

So, here is what we personally do in my household…  First of all, we stop doing the things that got us into trouble in the first place.  We start eating healthy again with lots of fruits and vegetables along with an increased intake of water.  We make sure we get our rest and avoid toxins such as white flour, sugar, caffeine and alcohol.  We get outside and get some fresh air and sunshine on our faces. We take a walk or some other form of exercise (preferably outdoors if you can.)  We make sure we are taking our Ester-C vitamins several times throughout the day, as well as making sure that we take our regular multi-vitamins. We de-stress with a morning Kundalini Yoga ritual at 5 am before we start our day.  (If we have a runny nose, we do forward-folds, cat and cow exercises several times throughout the day to get the snot moving around and out of our noses.)  And last, but most certainly not least, we get our spines checked by a chiropractor (including myself!) to make sure that our nervous system is working to its optimum.  It has been know for a long time that an adjustment boosts the immune system 7 times stronger!!!!  The next thing we know, we forget we even had that nasty cold, cough, or sore throat!

Allow your body to work as it is supposed to. Build your immune system rather than depending on a pharmaceutical every time you have a symptom!