It’s that time of year again that everyone dreads, flu season. Getting the flu sucks, but this year it seems that the flu has become an epidemic where hundreds of thousands of people are succumbing to it. Reading reports on the news about the “flu epidemic” is scary because of how many people are dying from it. With that being said, when you’re in college it is extremely important to do everything that you can to stay healthy and avoid the flu. Getting the flu can not only affect your health (obviously), but it can also affect your academics which is the real reason that we are all here. It may seem like an uphill battle against the flu for college students because of all the different ways that we can be exposed to it, like through dorms, un-hygienic living areas, being in large crowds, etc. For busy college students like myself, we prefer easy ways to prevent things like the flu because it is a topic that is not constantly on our minds. As college students, we would just prefer to make a couple of lifestyle changes and have some easy “go to” methods for preventing the flu and illness so that we can focus on academics and other things in our busy lives.
Luckily for all of us college students, there are some very easy ways to prevent the flu. Some of these are lifestyle changes, but in general these are very easy to adopt and to continue.
Sleep
I know that for college students this is extremely hard, but this is really one of the easiest ways to prevent getting sick or the flu. The recommended number of hours of sleep per night is between 6-8 hours. If you aren’t getting that amount because you are staying up all night studying, you are suppressing your immune system so you’re more likely to get sick. Try planning out your day so that you can block out reasonable times that you can finish homework or study, so you can get your 6-8 hours of much needed sleep.
Eat a healthy and balanced diet
This is another hard one for college kids because of all the options we have in terms of on campus food, and most of the food is maybe not the freshest or healthiest. I know that this would take some conscious effort to do, but maybe start out eating at least one “healthy” meal or snack a day. This way you can get your nutrients and vitamins that you need to boost your immune system. My personal picks for healthy foods/snacks are yogurt and meat. Meat is a good source of zinc which helps produce white blood cells, and yogurt has lots of “good bacteria” that fight against disease causing agents in your intestines.
Take a multivitamin
This is an extremely simple way to prevent illness or the flu. It just requires you to take a multivitamin every day. How easy and effortless is that? The multivitamin is a great source of all the vitamins and minerals that your body needs to boost your immune system, especially if you don’t have such a healthy balanced diet
Wash your hands regularly
This should be very self-explanatory, but it is very surprising that not many people do this! You should wash your hands after using the restroom, before eating, after touching door knobs, and after using a computer in the computer lab. I know that this is more of a conscious effort, but once you start doing it a lot it will become second nature to you.
Don’t share food and drinks between people
It is extremely easy to pass germs between people, especially if you are sharing food and drinks. Although sometimes this is more of a conscious effort, it is something that college students especially should be aware of. At parties don’t use a cup or take a drink that is not yours because you never know what kind of germs other people are carrying around with them.
Get a flu shot BEFORE flu season
Although flu shots are not a 100% full proof way to prevent the flu, they are still a great way to get your immune system prepared for the flu. The flu shot injects a tiny bit of the strain of flu inside of you, which gives your immune system the chance to make antibodies for that particular strain. If you were to then get the flu, your immune system would respond immediately to kill the virus. In this case you may not even show symptoms of the flu, or if you do, the duration of the flu is much much shorter. Every year I always get my flu shot, and I am proud to say that I have not really been extremely sick at all!
These are just some of the things that I do to prevent the flu/illnesses. They are all pretty easy once you get used to doing them, and then they become second nature. I hope that you can adopt some of these tips so that you can stay healthy and happy during flu season!
Whitney's Med Blog 