{"id":52251,"date":"2016-01-04T12:09:33","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T06:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/?p=52251"},"modified":"2016-01-04T17:24:02","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T11:54:02","slug":"how-to-avoid-common-winter-ailments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/india\/how-to-avoid-common-winter-ailments","title":{"rendered":"How to avoid common winter ailments?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Preventing<\/a><\/h3>\n

What are the common winter related ailments?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Winter is well and truly with us, and as always, it is better to watch out for certain ailments that usually accompany the drop in temperature.\u00a0 It is well recognised that conditions such as arthritis and heart diseases can worsen during this period.\u00a0 However, broadly speaking, commonly occurring cold-related ailments could be classified as respiratory and skin conditions.<\/p>\n

Respiratory conditions such as upper and lower respiratory tract infections (common cold, flu and pneumonia) occur commonly, while asthma and chronic bronchitis may worsen during the cold season.\u00a0 As far as possible, avoid individuals who already have respiratory infections, as contact with contaminated body parts, and inhaling droplets exhaled by them are sources of infection.\u00a0 If you do develop infections, keep yourself warm, take rest and hydrate yourself adequately with warm fluids.\u00a0 Antibiotics rarely help as most of the infections are likely to be due to viruses which do not respond to them.\u00a0 Those with pre-existing asthma and bronchitis should take extra care to make sure that they keep themselves warm, and take their medications and inhalers regularly.<\/p>\n

Cold weather causes dryness of skin which can lead to intense itching, especially on the shin, thighs, trunk and arms.\u00a0 Besides, pre-existing conditions such as eczema and psoriasis can worsen during winters.\u00a0 Keep your skin moisturized at all times.\u00a0 Exposure of skin to sunny weather is important to prevent the worsening of conditions such as psoriasis.<\/p>\n

Why is it difficulty to stay healthy in winters?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
    \n
  • Cold weather is not conducive to hard work.\u00a0 This means dragging yourself out of the bed at six in the morning, and going out for a walk, jog, swim or to the gym is a very difficult proposition.\u00a0 Winter is also associated with the festive season during which we are likely to consume high calorie food stuffs without giving the body a chance to burn off the extra calories.<\/li>\n
  • Sedentariness leads to lack of circulation in the extremities, lethargy and increase in the fat levels in the body.\u00a0 Fat cells are known to produce pro-inflammatory substances when stimulated by the immune system as a response to infections.\u00a0 This means that the body has to cope with the excess inflammatory substances, more than what is necessary to ward off the infection, leading to not just illness, but a weaker immune response to illness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    What can be done to reduce cold related ailments?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    In an interesting experiment conducted by scientists at the Chosun University in South Korea, which was published in the journal,\u00a0<\/span>Scientific Reports,<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>laboratory mice were studied for the effect of exercise on the markers of inflammation.\u00a0 Mice were divided into two groups; exercise and sedentary.\u00a0 Those in the former group were made to swim around in shallow water, while those in the latter group remained restful.\u00a0 After three weeks, Staphylococcus bacteria were inoculated into mice of both the groups.\u00a0 Inflammation set in rapidly and strongly in the sedentary mice, while the response was far more measured in the swimmer mice.\u00a0 In addition, potent antimicrobial cells were produced in the swimmer mice which directly killed the bacteria.<\/p>\n

    It appeared that the swimmer mice had developed a more effective immune response system, which may also be the result of reducing the fat cells that produce inflammatory substances because of the exercise that they were subjected to.\u00a0 While admitting that these are only animal experiments, the authors of the study concluded that regular exercise could considerably improve the immune defence mechanism even against viral infections such as cold and flu.<\/p>\n

      \n
    • As far as diet is concerned, high calorie food stuffs should be avoided.\u00a0 Carrots, mushrooms, ginger, garlic, honey, green tea and chamomile tea are particularly good winter foods.<\/li>\n
    • In addition to diet and exercise, if you keep yourself and the house warm, expose yourself to as much sun as possible, and do breathing exercises and meditation to regularise the breathing pattern, the impact of winter-related ailments could be significantly reduced.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      What are the common winter related ailments? Winter is well and truly with us, and as always, it is better to watch out for certain ailments that usually accompany the drop in temperature.\u00a0 It is well recognised that conditions such as arthritis and heart diseases can worsen during this period.\u00a0 However, broadly speaking, commonly occurring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3532,"featured_media":52268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11315],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-52251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-india"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3532"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52251"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52270,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52251\/revisions\/52270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}