Herbal Medicine During Cold & Flu Season

herbal tea for cold season

Back to school season has arrived, and likely along with it, the influx of cold and flu germs

Herbal medicine is an extremely effective way to help boost your body’s immune system and also help rid the body of pathogenic illness, if and when it does arrive.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of boosting or building up our immune systems.

Have you ever fallen ill and then been advised to load up on Vitamin C, Echinacea, ginseng etc.?

You can understand that those herbs, in theory, would be helping to build up the immune system, so that you get better faster and start to feel better… right?

Let me explain the theory from a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) perspective:

Your body’s immune system is on and in action 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

That’s its purpose, to protect you from bacteria and viruses, otherwise known as external invasions. If, for whatever reason, your immune system is compromised or weak, cold or flu viruses are able to invade into the body and cause illness.

The first step to getting better, would be to rid the body of that outside factor.

Imagine for a moment, a small village, swarmed by villains suddenly. Would you want to get those villains out of the village as soon as possible, or would you want to build up a surrounding wall to lock in the villains with the village people?

This is essentially what is happening when you take immune boosting herbs when you are sick with the cold and flu. You may, in fact, building up and tonifying the illness instead of your immune system, causing you to be sick for potentially worse and longer than you would have been otherwise.

What we want to do, is, first, get the illness out of the body and then, work on restoring our health.

For that same reason, it is always better to be supporting your health and your immune system pre-emptively and pro-actively so that your defense systems in place can the best job they can to protect you.

Herbal medicine offers effective, safe, and side effect free treatment of common ailments like cold, flu, strep throat, sinus infection, cough, and more.

One of my favorite herbal formulas coming into cold and flu season is Immune Defense by Dao Labs. This offers 2 immune boosting herbs, paired with a single herb that helps dispel any pathogens that do try and invade your body’s immune system.

*Herbs to be taken during illness should always be prescribed by a licensed herbalist.