#135 How to Manage Cold & Flu Season with Dr. Doni
22 Nov 2022 · 21 min
Dr. Doni Wilson, a naturopathic physician, explains how to prevent and treat colds, flu, COVID, and RSV. She recommends staying home when sick, cutting sugar and alcohol, and using supplements like zinc, vitamin C, quercetin, and medicinal mushrooms. Stress management and cortisol testing are foundational to immune resilience.
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The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions. Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists, and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.
Hi and welcome to how humans heal. I'm Dr. Donnie Wilson, naturopathic doctor. I've been practicing for over 22 years, and one of the most common situations that I help my patients with is to prevent upper respiratory infections and also to recover from respiratory infections faster and always with the goal of preventing other complications, preventing other infections, and whenever possible, to prevent the need for antibiotics and other medications. So I want to share those tips with all of you who are listening in so you can get a sense of what you can be doing to protect yourself and help yourself recover faster. Because that's the thing. When any of us catch a virus that causes a respiratory infection, it's one of those things it just then takes us out. We're not often able to work and we're not feeling good, and it might be for days or weeks, and you really want to be able to recover faster, and you want to be able to prevent.
Other infections from adding on and making you feel sick for longer. So here's the thing. When we say upper respiratory infection, what does that mean? That means symptoms that are in your respiratory tract, which would be maybe sneezing, congestion, sore throat, coughing, ears, feeling swollen and plugged, even having an ear inflammation or ear infection. Sometimes an upper respiratory infection will go into the lungs and you might get a cough or bronchitis. Um, it oftentimes starts as a viral infection, but once you have a viral infection, you become more susceptible to a bacterial infection. And so any of this in your sinuses, in your lungs, could become a bacterial infection. And so now you started with a virus and ended up with a bacterial infection. It's also possible to have more than one virus virus at the same time. The most common viruses we hear about and that we often are catching are going to be the viruses that cause the common cold. And there are several different viruses that cause the common cold. Everything from what's called a rhino virus to parainfluenza virus. Usually we don't even actually identify what the virus type is for a cold, but this might be where you have runny nose and.
Headache. Sometimes and sore throat and maybe a little bit feverish. All the viruses can cause some amount of a fever. Then if it. Now we've become more familiar with COVID virus, which is a SARS virus, which they can cause some of those same symptoms, respiratory symptoms along with fever, sometimes achiness, fatigue, sometimes it affects the digestive tract too. Sometimes you might get diarrhea, for example. With a infection is a different virus that involves a respiratory tract and sometimes symptoms outside the respiratory tract. And then there's something called respiratory syncytial virus. And our rsv. And RSV also causes cold type symptoms, upper respiratory symptoms. It's a little bit more likely that it can cause severe symptoms in infants and someone who's older, elderly. And in that situation you want to be more mindful that if the. And I think this is true for anyone with any kind of viral infection. If you're not feeling better or certainly if you have a baby who has a cold and it's more than a drippy nose, if they're having, if they're having trouble breathing, definitely or feeling experiencing too much fatigue, then the person needs to go in for more care, more into an urgent care or sometimes if an infant has rsv, they may need to even go into a hospital for some amount of days to help recover from that viral infection. It doesn't mean that every cold is going to become rsv, but it's important to just be aware. And I would say for anyone at any age, if you have, if it starts off like a upper respiratory infection with a fever and runny nose and a cough, and if it's just not getting better after several days, if it starts where you're having shortness of breath, if the fever is going high and staying high, if you start having yellow or green phlegm when you're blowing your nose or you're coughing, these are all signs that the infection is getting worse and you need more care to help you recover. So always, no matter what age, no matter what situation, just being aware of when you need more help. But there's a lot of times when we catch a cold virus or even a flu virus, which is influenza virus, which can also cause runny nose and fever and fatigue. And so you might have some similar symptoms from a different virus. And sometimes it's just a matter of getting yourself through for a few days so that your body can help you recover. So because the reason why a lot of times these viruses are differentiated is because there's different vaccines available for some of these viruses. Right? There's a COVID vaccine that works for preventing COVID virus, and there's a flu vaccine for preventing flu virus. And so also, when you start to get the symptoms of upper respiratory infection, you can go into a lab or there are some at home testing, of course, for you to test for certain viruses. So you could test for COVID virus, you could test for flu virus, you could even test for RSV virus. So certain situations, you might. You might feel the need to be tested so that you know for sure which virus you're dealing with. Also, I mean, and I think in general, if any of us starts to get these respiratory symptoms, it's better to stay home and rest and take care of yourself and not be spreading the virus to other people in your life. And sometimes it's tricky because if you might be traveling or you might be around other people, then you want to. You know, I think the more we can communicate about it and say, hey, I'm not feeling good. I have a virus, then other people can decide what they may want to do to lessen their exposure and to support their immune system to protect them from whatever virus it is that they might be exposed to. So I think one thing that has happened through the COVID pandemic is we've become more willing and aware about communicating with each other when we are sick and also to make decisions about, hey, I'm going to stay home and take care of myself and prevent spreading this to other people. But at the same time, viruses are all around. It's very common to catch one of these viruses or another at some point each year. Even if you had the vaccine for any of these viruses, you might still get the virus, you might still get the flu, or you might still get a cold, because the viruses can still happen even if you have a vaccine. So that's why I feel like it's important to also be prepared of ways that you can help yourself prevent and recover from viruses using diet, using nutrients, using herbs. Because there's a ton of research, and I've seen it clinically and I've seen it for myself, that there's so many things that we can do to help our bodies prevent and recover from viruses, even if it's alongside of any other treatment that you might be doing. Of course, I'm doing this as a general video, so. And I don't know your case. So it's really important that you know your own health. You know, if you might be taking any other medications or if you have any health concerns, then you definitely need to be communicating with your practitioner before taking anything that I might mention, because you need to be able to be sure that what you're taking is right for your body. But at the same time, I know many. You could walk into a health food store or a pharmacy for that matter, and they're going to have vitamins there, and certainly online vitamins that you might decide to take. So I want you to have the information so you can choose with more wisdom and knowledge than just guessing. Because if you're going to take a supplement or make a diet change, you want to be as effective as possible. And so the one thing that I think is amazing is that when it comes to approaching viruses from a naturopathic perspective, really, a lot of the treatment is the same for all of these viruses that I've just been mentioning. So no matter whether it's a cold virus, a COVID virus.
You name a flu virus, we're going to use some of the same diet and supplements to help your body recover. Because ultimately, in that situation, we can just be generally helping your immune system to fend off the virus. And your immune system knows how to make the antibodies for that specific virus. We just need to help your immune system do that. And another way that I like to think about it is, so we want to help your immune system to do a better job of protecting you from a virus and from a bacteria, for that matter. But at the same time, what we want to do is avoid the things that inhibit your immune system. Right. So I want to start there. What are the things you can avoid in order to help your body work better? Right. So in this case, I would put sugar as one of the top things on the list. We know that when we consume more, and I'm talking not about fruit necessarily, I'm talking about, like white sugar, like, you know, cane sugar, sugar that you might put in a dessert or in a. In your coffee. Those kind of sugars will lower immune function in general, including to viruses. So if you are wanting to prevent catching a virus, or definitely if you start to get the symptoms of a virus, then you're going to want to decrease your sugar intake. Also, alcohol of any kind, whether it's wine or whatever kind of alcohol. Alcohol also decreases our immune function. So this is why I often find around holidays, is when we're more likely to get sick, is because with a holiday, we're more likely to consume sugar and alcohol. And then, of course, our immune system's down and we're more likely to be around a bunch of other people who might have a virus. And so it's like the perfect setup for catching a virus, which is why I really want you to have this information so that you're prepared. It's not to say that you shouldn't enjoy your holidays, but it is to say, hey, maybe you want to be more careful in your recipes to make recipes that have less sugar. Maybe you're going to choose some drinks that have less alcohol or no alcohol in them so that you're not decreasing your ability to fend off viruses. And then also, I usually think about food sensitivities. What this is is getting a little bit more specific with foods that might cause inflammation in your body because they're specifically inflammatory. Now, for all humans, dairy products. So anything made from cow milk is known to increase phlegm. And so if you already have a cold, I would say better to avoid dairy products. I'm talking about cheese and milk and yogurt because they're going to increase the amount of phlegm in your respiratory area. Right. And when you, or when you have a cold, the last thing you want is more phlegm. So you want to just choose not to have something with dairy products. We also do, through my office, we check for food sensitivities for patients. And what I find is when patients know their food sensitivities, let's say the most common are cow milk products and gluten products. If they're avoiding dairy and gluten, they're less likely to catch whatever virus is going around. And they're also much more likely to recover faster if they do catch a virus. So doing a food sensitivity panel and avoiding your food sensitivities, if you've already done the panel, will help you to recover faster from respiratory viruses. So that's a key piece with diet in general. Once you get sick, you want to be going for. And because sometimes your appetite's down and things don't taste the same, so you want to be going for. Even the classic chicken soup is perfect. Get some bone broth or have some already organic bone broth available in your refrigerator or in your kitchen. You can add chicken or turkey and have a nice soup that has protein in it as well as vegetables is perfect for when you have a cold because there's a lot of nutrients that come from soup and everything that we put in the soup that helps us fend off viruses. Right. Also you can do a protein shake because then you're getting a quick protein that's a non dairy source, hopefully. So you could do a Pea protein shake, for example, or colitain collagen as a protein source in your smoothie. Also, I would drink tea, herbal tea in particular. You can get herbal teas that are organic and that are specific for helping to soothe your throat and help with a cough. Herbs like licorice and marshmallow and mullein and that are very soothing. You can also use ginger. You could make your own fresh ginger tea. You could put honey in the tea. You know, especially if you're. This is not going to be. For. What I'm speaking about is not for infants, by the way. This, this is more for older children and adults. You can use. Yeah, like a ginger tea with honey is a classic for what to drink when you have a sore throat and a cold. Right. So stick to those, you know, being hydrated, even if it's with water. You can put electrolytes in your water. You can put sea salt. If you have like a Celtic or Himalayan salt, put a sprinkle, a pinch of sea salt in your water. Drink that so you're staying hydrated. And drink herbal tea so you stay hydrated. And. And then my other favorite, and this is. As soon as I feel like I might be catching a virus, one of my favorite things to do is head for like a hot shower or a hot bath. Again, this is for an adult with a relatively healthy system. When you go into a hot shower or a hot bath, you're stimulating your immune system to help fend off a virus. Heat kills a virus. So when you get in a hot bath or shower, you're going to help your immune system fend off that virus and then go take a nap. Because when we get more sleep, when we're sleeping, our immune system's working on the virus. So if you can just say, cancel your day, say, hey, everybody, I got a virus. I'm going to go take a hot bath and take a nap. And then I'm going to. And even before that, if you could get in some healthy soup and take your vitamins, take a hot bath, take a nap, and you're going to likely feel a lot better when you wake up. And you just put that on repeat, right. As soon as you wake up from your nap, take, you know, some more healthy food, some more supplements, which I'm going to talk about here in a second. Take another hot bath or shower and take another nap. That's what you're going to put on repeat until you start feeling better. And in terms of fever.
Sometimes it's it with a virus, you're Going to get a fever, that's your immune system trying to protect you from the virus. Again, heat kills a virus. So if your fever is like 99 or 100, that's, that's a healthy response. You want your immune system to do that. If your immune, if your fever goes, I mean, what we always say for children under 2, if their fever goes over 102, you want to be definitely taking action. And even for adults, when the fever goes to 102, then we want to start taking action. First thing I think of is, are you hydrated? Because if you're not hydrated, your temperature is going to go higher. You can sometimes you just need to take off some layers of clothing or, you know, get hydrated and then your temperature comes down a little bit. But if your child has a fever over one ot too, definitely call the pediatrician. If you're an adult and you have a fever over 103, then, and you're already hydrated, then it's saying to me, okay, something else is going on here. We need to probably find out if there's a bacterial infection, because a bacterial infection will make that temperature go up higher. And we need to find out what else we needed to do do to help you recover. So it's when the temperature goes up higher that we start wanting to take more action. But if your temperature is like 99, 100, even 101, then I would say try to let it work. Yes, you can take medications to help, like a fever reducer to lower the fever, especially if you can't sleep, because sleep is so essential to your recovery. But if you can, what I try to do is try to avoid fever reducers, because if your fever is only like 99 or 100, you just try to get through it as best you can because that fever is actually likely helping you. And again, if the fever is going higher or you can't sleep, then you might need a fever reducer and you might need to talk to a practitioner who can help you figure out why that fever is so high. So it's about understanding the safe zone of your body's natural mechanisms. That's the reason also why our bodies make all that fluid, is it's trying to get the virus out. So to some degree, you know, you want to keep getting that. If I have a sinus full of fluid, I'm going to be blowing my nose, I want to get that liquid out. You want your cough to be able to be, if you're coughing, get it to be productive and get it out and look at what is, what color is the phlegm. If it's clear, that indicates more of a virus or allergy even potentially. And if it starts to get yellow or green. Now we know we're more likely dealing with some bacteria that have decided to join the party. So we want to then be more antibacterial if we start to see signs of bacteria. So again, I like to keep the fluid moving. Actually my favorite is to even take things that decrease all the phlegm and congestion because if you have a lot of fluid stuck in your sinuses, in your ears, that's where the bacteria love to hang out. They love it when all there's liquid sitting around. So what we want to do is try to get that fluid out or I'm going to start to show you some supplements that I use. This is a supplement called hesperidin. Anything that I mention here, of course you have to check with your practitioner about your doses and any interactions with anything else you're taking. These supplements are available through my website@drdani.com and so you know, we what my goal is to give you access to the supplements that I find work well clinically. But again, best to work, you know, make sure you're checking in with your practitioners.
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Hesperidin is a natural antihistamine. It can be used for allergies, but I also find it very effective for viruses because it decreases all the phlegm and congestion. So what I do is when I get congested, I start taking one or two capsules every four to six hours to help decrease all that phlegm. Not Only so that I'm more comfortable, but also because then the bacteria are less likely to be able to come in and start hanging out as well. Then what I also do is I use a combination immune support. Because when it comes to supporting our immune system, and there's so much research on all of this, this is me giving you tips based on clinical nutrition and clinical nutrients nutrition, my, my certification, the textbooks, the research. So just know that I'm not just saying this in general. This is based on a lot of clinical experience and science. But what I start thinking about is the vitamins, right? We have vitamin C, which we know helps our immune system protect us from all kinds of different infections. So we. The thing with vitamin C is that at a certain dose, vitamin C will cause the stools to be loose and our bodies can only really absorb and utilize about 500 milligrams, maybe 1,000 milligrams at one sitting. So it doesn't really help to swallow more than a thousand milligrams at once. I find really best in my case and for my patients, we are aiming for maybe 300 to 500 or 600 milligrams. And then we repeat that dose every four to six hours. If you see spread it out over the day, then your body can absorb it and it's less likely to cause diarrhea if you get loose stool. You got to back off on your dose of vitamin C because everybody's body responds differently. But it's. When you take can take vitamin C in incremental doses like that through the day, you're going to have. My goal is to just have vitamin C at a steady, steady dose all day and all night if possible. Although I want you to sleep so you don't need to wake up and take it, but take it before you go to bed and take it when you wake up again in the morning. So you could take vitamin C separately by itself. I have a vitamin C actually. It has in there with it some other quercetin and some other bioflavonoids. But vitamin C you can take like this in a capsule by itself. Another thing that I'll often do is use a combination formula, though. This is an immune support that has vitamins C along with other ingredients. So it has some vitamin A, it has some zinc, and it has also herbs that are antiviral and immune supportive. So it has astragalus, elderberry, andrographis, echinacea and lysine. All of these work as either directly antiviral or helping your immune system Fend off viruses. And so you can do. When you take a combination formula, it's nice because then I can just reach for this and take one or two of them every four to six hours along with the hesperidin. And so this is a very common combination for me when I start to, or when I catch a virus. Now, if you're taking a combination, you don't necessarily need an extra C, right? You want to make sure. And look in your combination, if you're already getting like 3-600mg of C, you don't need to necessarily take more at that moment in time. Same with zinc. If you're taking between 20 and 50 milligrams of zinc per day, per day. So if there's some zinc in here, there's already 4 milligrams of zinc in two of these. So by the time you take two four times a day, you're getting to 12 milligrams. That's a pretty good dose of zinc already. Just from taking this, you can get a separate zinc. I have a zinc separately, that's 50 milligrams. But you want to be mindful, you don't want to overdo it either. Right. And then I have this formula that. It's called Immune Support Plus. So look for the plus. And this is a formula that was specifically made to have vitamin C, zinc. It has 25 milligrams of zinc in two capsules. So it's six in each two capsules. It has 600 of zinc, 25 of zinc. It also has vitamin D, which you might be taking vitamin D separately. It is also known to help the immune system. But this one has vitamin D, 25,000 IUs in two capsules, as well as NAC or N acetylcysteine, which classically, for decades we've been using NAC for helping to thin the phlegm. Like if the phlegm is thick and you're trying to get it to move out, you would use nac. But NAC is also an antioxidant, a precursor to glutathione. It does a lot of other good things to help the immune system. And this contains 250 milligrams of quercetin. So amazingly, it has all that good stuff in one. And what I've found recently is when I started to catch a virus, I took one of these and within four hours my virus symptoms were gone and they didn't come back again. So this is really a powerful combination with the C, zinc D also Nac and quercetin all in one. You could take two capsules and that's going to get you a long way. So I might do this two of these in a day and then take these at different times of day. You see what I mean? So you spread out your protocol so that you got coverage through the whole day. So many people will say to me, oh, I took my supplement once in the morning. It's not going to help very much. We need you to get these doses morning, midday, evening, bedtime. It takes repetition. When you're using things like vitamin C and even the zinc, it's better if you can spread it out over the day. Let's see. I also love to use silver. A lot of times this is called colloidal silver. Let's see if I can get it out of the package here. Or these are really nanoparticles of silver. So you're not. It doesn't stay in the body. A lot of people when they hear silver, they're like, wait a minute, I'm going to put silver in my body. But you can use these nanoparticles. This is a pharmaceutical grade silver that doesn't stay in your body. It just is very good at being antimicrobial. So silver is antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal. So I like to use this one that's a nasal spray because I can squirt it up my nose. Now I'm going to being antimicrobial to prevent a sinus infection or address a virus in the sinuses. You can squirt it in your throat. Now you're addressing any antiviral down your throat. And I also use the same silver spray. If you have a wound on your skin, it can be used on the skin. It can even be used in the eyes safely for infections. So silver is one of my favorites to always have on hand. And this formula in particular from Sovereign Silver is very high quality formula, just like all of these that I'm showing you. These are from companies that I've used for decades and trust and I'm very familiar with them. And I, you know, usually I have to even show that I'm a licensed practitioner to be able to order from these companies. So that's how you know the difference between any old. You could get vitamin C at any store, but it might not be that the best form of vitamin C that's going to be highest quality without other ingredients that you don't want. Another of my favorites is vitamin A. So I have a vitamin A That's this One is a 25,000 IU. Now, this is not for children. This is not for someone who might be pregnant. This is not for someone who is pregnant or breastfeeding. The dose is too high for those cases. But if you're an adult who's not pregnant or breastfeeding, then vitamin A can be very, very helpful for an infection. It's very good at helping increase the immune system in the sinuses and the respiratory tract. I also use vitamin A for bladder infections, for that matter. And so you can use what's more of a clinical dose, say one per day or two per day more than that. I would want you to be checking in with me or your other naturopathic practitioner. But sometimes vitamin A is a key factor with turning around an infection, especially if you are getting chronic recurrent sinus infections. Vitamin A can be key. And then I wanted to show you a couple others. If you do start to get signs of a bacteria, then you want to add in something antibacterial then. One of my favorites is to use berberine. This is a Berberine at 500 milligrams per pill. And berberine is known, well studied to be antibacterial. So you can use this as an alternative to an antibiotic. In many cases, of course, you got to check with your practitioners, but berberine can be used 500 milligrams or a thousand milligrams twice a day over, let's say five days to a week to help you fend off a bacteria. Again, if you're not improving, you gotta get into a practitioner to help diagnose and help you to recover faster. I don't want you to be going too long with any sort of infection, but I, I'm just giving you some ideas of what you could do to help address using herbs. Berberine is from plants. It's from, it's an herbal basis. Berberine comes from either hydrastus or organ grape root. And it's a yellow substance that's antibacterial. So you can use berberine either by itself or sometimes you'll see it in a combination of things. There's other antibacterials also, but that's one that I find works really well when I need it as an antibacterial. You can also then use probiotics, by the way, I don't have one to show you here, but I have probiotics in my, on my website. Probiotics and having healthy balance of bacteria is well known to help you fend off infections. So if you think you have imbalanced gut bacteria, let's get them addressed to help you prevent infections. And if you know you had to be on antibiotics, which would disrupt your bacteria, then we need to use probiotics to get your gut bacteria back on track again. So that's an important thing as well, is to help manage your gut bacteria because they actually help you fend off viruses and other infections. So it's really important. Also, I love to use, especially if you're finding you're catching every virus and you're like, oh my gosh, I just got over one and now I got another one. Then I love to use mushroom extracts as a way to boost your immune system. Not everybody needs this, but especially if you're like, hey, I need some extra immune help. I'm catching too many infections. Then you can use, for example, this Stamets Daily immune that has a combination of mushroom extracts in it that helps support the immune system. Mushrooms of various kinds, including reishi mushrooms, maitake and so on, have been well established as helping the immune system in many ways, including preventing infections. Another one that I often will use is this immune glyceride, which is an immune system, a combination of herbs and a glycerite base instead of alcohol base. I love this for sore throat and cough because these are herbs, actually a combination of herbs including herbasanta, wild black cherry, alicompain and mullen and more. Those herbs help your body to move the phlegm up, so they help make the cough more productive, and they also help heal when your throat is also swollen and irritated. So I. You. Could you also use this for. For children? I wouldn't use it for infants, but. And definitely check with your pediatrician. But herbs like this can be used sometimes for children, and it helps because it's a liquid, so they. Because they can't swallow the pills. But we can use sometimes these herbs to help soothe the throat and help the heal the cough. And so that's different than just a regular cough suppressant. We're actually helping heal the cough. And so we use this maybe five or ten drops at least two or three times a day. Or if you have a lot of irritation in your throat, you might even be using five or ten drops every time you cough to help calm down, because what happens is there's usually a drip from your sinuses into your throat, gives a tickle cough, and you end up coughing. So if we can help to heal that and stop the drip, then you actually stop coughing. One more thing to show you which is these peptides. Maybe some of you have heard of peptides. There's different peptides that are produced in the United States. These are peptides produced in Russia where we can. These are the researcher who originally researched peptides. Peptides are a specific protein that was identified to help reset different systems and tissues of the body. This in particular, these are peptides that reset immune function. So when we're talking about preventing or helping you recover from a virus or bacteria, we want to use the peptides that help the immune system. And there's these are. You could do one or the other or both. The Gladonyx is a animal based peptide. Christogen is non animal based peptide. Both of them work and they're coming capsules. You could take one per day with food or one twice per day with food during an infection or to prevent an infection. So we use these for various kinds of immune related issues, even autoimmunity. Because this is one of the common questions I get say from someone who might have autoimmunity. There's been, you know, controversy out there. How can you help your immune system if you have an autoimmune condition? And what I would say is, and again, I work with all the time with patients with autoimmunity and that is that there are ways to help your immune system fend off an infection like a virus or bacteria without aggravating the autoimmunity. So I want to clarify that, that you can often use these things that I've just been mentioning to help your immune system protect you from a viral infection without making the autoimmunity flare. And definitely, always, of course, check with your practitioner, as I keep saying. But just from my clinical experience and my perspective, there's. I help all the time, my patients with autoimmunity to be able to prevent infections, fend off infections with using natural substances like herbs and nutrients and peptides. And in that way we're actually preventing the autoimmunity. Not only are we not causing a flare, but we're actually helping them prevent the autoimmunity. Because to me, the autoimmunity really probably stems from.
Being susceptible to infections. Why are we susceptible to infections in the first place? Why are we susceptible to autoimmunity in the first place? Well, this is coming back to the effects of stress. And most of you are used to hearing me talking about stress. But I want to bring it back to this at the as we wrap up this video, which is to say one of the main reasons that our immune system is down is when we're under a lot of stress because when we're stressed and our cortisol and adrenaline, which are our stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline are either too high or too low. And when cortisol and adrenaline are too high or too low, it turns off our immune function, it disrupts our immune function, we become more susceptible to autoimmunity, we become more susceptible to all kinds of infections. Of course, it's also disrupting our digestion, our gut bacteria, which makes us susceptible to infections. It disrupts our hormones, our blood sugar levels, our neurotransmitters. And so when we're under chronic stress, of course we become more susceptible to infections, including upper respiratory infections. And so what I would encourage all of you is to when you catch a virus, think to yourself, oh my gosh, have I been under more stress? What do I need to do to help myself recover from stress in order to prevent this infections from happening over and over again? And what I would suggest is that you measure your stress type, which you can do with my stress type quiz. I'll put a link so you can do the stress type quiz right away and you can find out about it in my book, the Measure of Stress Book. And you can also order a cortisol and adrenaline and neurotransmitter panel, which you do at home, a urine and saliva panel so that you can actually know is your cortisol and adrenaline too high or too low, and so that you can do the right herbs and nutrients to get your cortisol and adrenaline to optimal. When you have more optimal cortisol and adrenaline, you're less likely to catch respiratory infections and all different kinds of infections, right? And that's be so much better. You know that it's so hard when you're under stress and you're run down and then of course you catch another virus and you're more run down and you feel like, how am I finally going to get ahead of this? So what I encourage you to do is to say, okay, I'm going to take steps to help myself recover from this infection quickly as possible, and then I'm going to find out my stress type, my cortisol and adrenaline levels, so that I can help my cortisol and adrenaline get back to optimal so that I'm not going to be so likely to catch the next virus that comes along. So I want all of that for all of you. I've seen it for my patients. I've helped people who were getting chronic sinus infections and chronic bronchitis. And autoimmunity and so on. I've helped them to be able to break those patterns, prevent those infections, and get to feeling healthy in their life and doing the things they love without constantly managing infections. So I hope this was helpful for all of you. I'd love to know your questions if it was helpful and you'd like to make sure and receive the next video from me. Be sure to like and subscribe. And please, please send in your comments and feedback. I'd love to hear it, and I look forward to talking again with you very soon.
Thanks for listening to How Humans Heal. If you liked this episode, leave a rating and a review and for more resources, visit drdani.com.
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