Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Cold showers = good health?

Colds. Bleuch. I am totally over them this month: my daughter's nose runs like a leaky faucet filled with congealed grossness, I can hear my son coughing at night, and I haven't been the best either. I've spent the last little while in health purgatory - not sick enough to call in sick at work, or call in reinforcements while I spend all day in bed, but not well enough to be on form either. Not sick enough to get any sympathy from anyone, but feeling yucky enough to want to complain to anyone that will listen about how I am feeling. 'Tis an annoying place to be, health purgatory. 

So, how to get better? What will turn my daughter's nose-faucet off for good? What will make me feel less sorry for myself? I consulted Modern Mothercraft to see what the 1945 woman would have done. 

Take Vitamin C? Good idea. Looks like some advice hasn't changed. Change shoes and socks when wet? Check. Get lots of sun? Good idea in theory - shame I haven't seen much of the blazing yellow stranger recently. So far, the advice looked good and not too different from what you'd read today. 

The next part, though, didn't convince me - rub the chest with camphorated oil. Having never heard of camphorated oil in my life, I turned to Mr Google to look it up and stumbled upon some discussions about whether or not camphorated oil is endangering the lives of babies. Hmmm. Maybe not for me, then, unless I use the small quantities found in Vicks. 

I then read: "a cool shower in the morning, followed by vigorous exercise, will render a child more resistant to colds."

Not sure about you, but I can't think of anything I feel like less when ill than having a cold shower followed by exercise. I entertained the thought for a millisecond of trying it out tomorrow morning, but can't  make myself go through with it. The mornings here are too cold, and I am too lazy. Plus, the morning routine is manic enough as it is, I can't imagine putting my children through cool showers followed by exercise as well. We get enough exercise as it is running around madly trying to get ready in time, and in my case, running for the bus. I'd like to keep telling myself that's enough. 

So, no cool showers for us, so in health purgatory I stay. But, all of this talk of cool showers has made me really fancy a hot bath, so I think I'll so that instead. Sorry Modern Mothercraft, but this time I am completely disregarding your advice! 

2 comments:

  1. Hope you feel better soon. We're a bit the same in our household. I swear we've gone through 50 boxes of tissues!!

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    1. Thanks! Hope you get better soon as well :)

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