Traditional Asian Medicine tells us HOW TO BEAT THE FLU!
1.) Speed up the body’s flushing of toxins.
There’s many ways to do this. I usually suggest
hot Epsom Salt baths.
Here’s how:*
Fill a bathtub with hot water. Add 2 cups
Epsom Salt, more in a large tub.
There should be extra hot water boil some on
the stove if necessary.
Position some bath towels in your bed a layer
underneath you and a layer
for above you.
Get in the full tub. If the flu is in your head,
get your head
underwater (face up please & breathing, ok?)
Add hot water as you get
used to the heat. Soon any part of your body
still exposed to air will
bead up with sweat. Shortly after this your body
will begin to insist
you get out of the tub. Count to thirty slowly,
and then get out. What
happens in the next 90 seconds is critical. Towel
yourself off and dive
directly into bed. Don’t delay or get chilled.
The towels below and
above you absorb the sweat and keep the mattress
and blankets from being
soaked. Stay there and sweat from twenty to forty
minutes, and repeat
the process every few hours. Three or four sweats
serious dents most
flus, and can be done in one day. Now just because
you feel better
though doesn’t mean you’re done. You’re just
out in front a bit, kind of
surfing ahead of the toxic wave. Your body will
continue dumping its
load, so it’s a good idea to visit the tub once
or twice a day for a few
more days.
NOTE: Yogi Bhajan sez two cups of vinegar, but
a longer, half hour soak with water as hot
as you can take it. At end of a half hour, you
will start sweating!
2.) MAGICAL Flu Tea
Ginger root and slippery elm in apple juice/water
(50/50) make a mean flu
tea. Ginger root is as close as the grocery store.
Slippery Elm is in
Traditional Medicinal’s Throat Coat tea, at the
health food store.
Don’t make a beverage tea. Make it medicinal—steep
it for at least one hour.
Brew it in a mixture of half water and half apple
juice. Boil a two quart
pot. Rinse the root but you don’t have to peel
it. Cut up a generous
handful of ginger slices, about 1/8” thick. Take
five or six Throat Coat
tea bags and, when the pot boils add tea bags
and ginger slices. Turn off
the heat, cover and let steep for one hour. Reheat
and drink. One dose is
3-4 cups, and if you’re serious you’ll give yourself
several doses/day.
Dilute it if it’s too strong, but then drink
more tea.
Slippery elm is cooling. It soothes sore throats
and Wind heat-type flus.
Add more slippery elm when sore throat is the
main problem or when you have
thick, yellow/green phlegm (yucch!) Ginger is
for Wind-Cold. Add ginger for
runny, thick clear or white phlegm and sore muscles.
It’s a rare flu indeed
that survives several rounds of sweating and
regular dosing with ginger
root/slippery elm tea.
NOTE FOR STUDENTS INTERESTED IN TRADITIONAL
ASIAN MEDICINE:
TAM sees Wind as
the evil spearhead of disease. It drives Damp, Heat and
Cold into the body. You’re on the beach on a
hot morning, sweating. The
wind comes up and at first it feels good and
cool. But after awhile WIND
starts to annoy! 
To a TAM practitioner this is the body’s protective
bubble of Chi, Wei Chi, being breached. That’s
why it annoys—the body
says “enough!” Wind combines with other evils
and drives them into the
body. Wind Damp creates heavy headaches, sinus
congestion, aching
muscles and joints. Wind Heat brings a sore throat
and thick, yellow
phlegm. Wind Cold brings more aching muscles
and a head cold with clear,
runny phlegm. Acu-points and herbs can drive
the Wind out of the body.
Anyone can stimulate acu-points with finger pressure.
We’ll look at some
simple herbs anyone can use to drive the wind-flu
out of the body in a
moment. Chinese herb formulas can be very helpful
and are particularly
important when Wind gets stuck. When Wind-attack
isn’t completely healed
it can turn into things like arthritis and rheumatism.
Naturopathics—the Overdue Cleanse
Here’s another idea about the flu.
We live toxic lives. Our environment is full of
new molecules that
gravitate toward carbon-based life forms (us!)
and, because they’re new
and don’t fit, become sand in our metabolic gears.
There’s two steps
involved in cleaning the body. First toxins must
be mobilized out of the
fat tissue where they’re stored into the bloodstream.
Next the toxins
must be flushed out of the bloodstream and out
of the body. If step one
happens faster than step two then our biologic
waste backs up in the
bloodstream. We get sick. The most thorough way
to clean the body and
get ahead of this process is to fast. Please
note that there’s a lot
more to a proper fast than simply stopping eating.
(Contact us if you’d
like our free fact sheet, Fasting—How & Why.)
There’s herbal detoxes and
some good nutritional ones too, but don’t go
too fast. By the time your
nose, sinus or lungs starts to dump your blood’s
toxic overload, it’s
too late. You’re already sick. Our bodies go
into detox all by
themselves when our natural toxic storage capacity
is full. Then any
shock to the system—stressful emotional changes,
working stress, the
changes of seasons with their winds—all dump
more bad molecules into the
system while squeezing the body’s maxed-out carrying
capacity. Curiously
enough, the body often does alright while the
stress is on. It’s only
afterwards that the body goes into detox. To
get well again,
Other helpful tactics: Fenugreek tea.
MASSAGE with Essential oils: mixture of 15 drops
Frankincense and
15 drops of Marjoram in one ounce of Jojoba oil,
applied externally to the
chest, for stubborn chest colds.
Sore throats: throat wrap: take a thick
cotton or wool sock,
place it corner-to-corner diagonally across a
cotton handkerchief, wrap it
up so the sock is flat inside the folded handkerchief,
and safety pin this
snugly around the neck at night when asleep.
Apply tiger balm or Eucalyptus
oil to the necK first to keep it warm. Or tie
a heating pad around it.
HIGH TECH THROAT WRAP Get a foot warmer,
the electrical mat, plastic,
with rubber cover over coils, and a flannel wrap.
tie around neck wi.
scarf. watch t.v. for an hour while you sit chewing
cloves of garlic!
Eucalyptus oil and camphor are two powerful natural
anti-virals and
antibiotics. There are oils like this at chinese
markets, pharmacies, in
china town where the oriental doctors hold forth.
WOOD LOCK is one. A
drop or two on the upper lip when exposed to
crowds protects from
airborne germs. A few drops in a spray bottle,
vigorously shaken and
then sprayed around the room works well too—especially
good for busy
clinics or child-care situations. Eucalyptus
can be put in humidifiers,
the air intake of a car. A dozen drops of Eucalyptus
oil in a steaming
pot of water makes a great head and chest-clearing
inhalation—cover your
head with a towel draped over the steaming pot
(make sure any flame or
hot element is turned off) allowing the vapors
to concentrate as you
breathe them in. Travelling children: every mother’s
nightmare is a
holiday travel schedule requiring small children
to sit in packed
airplanes full of coughing, hacking adults. Myrtle
oil is a very gentle
and strong anti-microbial well-tolerated by kids
and even infants. Apply
a drop or two every half hour to a child’s upper
lip when confined in
places where flu bugs hang out to help the wee
ones fight off the flu.
Of course, if one is getting frequent colds and
flu’s, it’s best to
understand this as the body asking to have its
oil changed. Most of us
keep the oil in our cars cleaner than the tissues
in our body. We’ll be
back with detox advice in the Spring. Here’s
hoping you have fantastic,
healthy flu season.
SINUS PIZZA. The way to attack a sinus
is to crush garlic on a plate.
Now, take a sliver of freshly cut onion, like
toothpick length, dampen
slightly in the garlic, very slightly. Stand
over big sink of boiling
hot water, lean over, put towel over head to
enclose team. stick onion
slice up nose and inhale suck suck inhale. the
juice goes into entire
sinus. you sneeze and sneeze, cleaning your sinuses.
for hours you feel
fine. then when cold or flu makes you feel ratty
again, repeat steam,
cut new fresh sliver off onion. If youre a wimp
do just the onion wi. no
garlic. THIS WILL CURE chronic sinus infections!
And this just in, FOR AVIAN
FLU, STAR
ANISE. Make tea out of it.
simmer lightly a few minutes, then let steep.