3 Habits To Start Now For A Healthier Cold & Flu Season

Tissues bundled up by the bed, sleeping with your mouth wide open, and a mild headache that never really goes away… Yep, we're talking about cold and flu season. If you're familiar with any of the aforementioned scenarios, you know it's no fun.

You should prioritize a good snooze all year long—for the sake of overall health and immunity—but especially if you're feeling icky. Have you ever gotten sick after a weekend of late nights? That's not a coincidence.

Beyond anecdotal evidence, research demonstrates why you should put sleep first, too.

This study1, for example, worked with 153 male and female participants and found that those with shorter sleep duration in the weeks leading up to exposure to a rhinovirus (a fancy word for a cold) were less likely to be resistant to the illness.

Translation: The less you sleep (especially if it's less than seven hours a night, the study reads), the more likely you are to catch a common cold (and increase your risk for cardiovascular illness, we might add). 

What's more, vitamin C also helps neutrophils3, another type of white blood cell, "eat" and destroy bad microbes.

To sum it all up: Vitamin C performs essential and unique functions in the body, especially for immune health. And you don't want to wait until you're sick to start prioritizing your intake.

Whether your primary source of stress comes from work, relationships, finances, or another factor—it's not easy to just "stop" stressing. However, there are a few research-backed activities that can help relieve some of it, which is actually essential to a healthy immune system ready to fight off colds.

In fact, chronic stress actually suppresses4 your immune response by releasing the hormone cortisol, Heather Moday, M.D., previously told mbg. "Cortisol itself interferes with the ability of specific white blood cells called T-cells to proliferate and get signals from the body," she says. "In addition, cortisol also lowers an important antibody called secretory IgA, which lines the respiratory tract and gut and is our first line of defense against invading pathogens," Moday continues.