If your immune system is strong enough then you will not get the flu. When a person's health is too low, the body's intelligence tries to raise it. The job of the body is to try to make the person fit and healthy, not fat. Its only goal is the best health possible. But people have many other priorities like entertainment, fun, being, getting a lo done, making money and being admired.

So when your health (immune system) drops too low, the body's intelligence tries to force you to do something about it. How healthy your immune system is, is proportional to how clean or free of toxins the body is. The body's metabolic wastes are included in these toxins. Your body is constantly eliminating toxins but sometimes it gets backed up. Things that help the body detoxify are heavy sweating caused by heat or exercise, fasting, sleeping and eating a healthy diet. The opposite things, like lack of sleep, causes the body to get backed up with these toxins.

People get less sunlight during the cold weather which means that they get less vitamin D that helps the immune system. During the cold weather people sweat less, so exercise and saunas can help them to sweat more. The skin is one of the 4 excretory organs of the body which also include the lungs, liver and kidneys. The colon is an organ of elimination. It is not an excretory organ since it is outside the body proper. That is medical jargon (2: the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group).

With Bikrams Hot Yoga, you do yoga exercise in a room that is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and this causes you to sweat a great deal. Americans have a tendency to over eat and under sleep especially around the holidays. Many on the forums before Thanksgiving were asking about colds and flus.

The body's intelligence allows you to get sick so you will do the things that you were unwilling to do, like eating less, like taking off work and sleeping more. Then after the flu, you are healthier than you were before the flu. If you do not do these things then the flu can last a long time.

The fastest way to get over a cold or the flu is fasting, according to Mark Twain and I. That causes the body to detoxify at the fastest rate possible. The book, Prescription for Natural Healing (by James Balch M.D. and Phyllis Balch CNC), says "When you feel a cold or illness coming on or are just depressed-- fast!" If you can't fast, then just eat only fruit, especially fruits high in vitamin C, until you are better. Fruits require the least amount of digestive energy. You already know about getting plenty of rest and drinking enough fluids.

Here is another variation of fasting that has become popular. Since it is easier and supplies vitamin C in a food form it may be better for colds and flus. When it comes to vitamin pills, try to avoid consuming them. They are not foods. Studies show that they act very differently inside the body than vitamins in foods. Since vitamin C pills are very cheap (about 8 cents each) and each one contains (500mg) the amount of vitamin C in 7 whole oranges, then no one should never get the flu or a cold. But the vitamin C in one whole orange is better for you than 100 vitamin C pills.

Try to buy organically grown produce until the USA becomes as civilized as Russia where it is illegal (a crime) to sell anything but organically grown produce. This alternate fast is discussed on the fasting webpage. It is called Lemonade Diet, Master Cleanse or the Master Cleanser Lemonade Fast. Lemons contain a lot of vitamin C like other citrus fruits. Copyright 2007 by Chuck Bluestein