How To Stop a Cold When You Feel It Coming On

No matter how hard you work to stay healthy, you can't always avoid getting sick. This is especially true for the common cold, an illness caused by one of more than 200 different types of respiratory viruses.

Considering how contagious most respiratory viruses are, you'll unlikely be able to make it through cold and flu season without catching something. However, you may be able to prevent some illnesses—or at least reduce their effects—with proven strategies.

Stay Hydrated

Healthcare providers often recommend that people with viral illnesses drink plenty of fluids. While there is little scientific evidence that fluids help people fight infections, the immune system—like all other body systems—needs water to function.

Staying hydrated offers many benefits, including that it:

• Helps replace fluids lost during a fever
• Thins out mucus secretions so it's easier to clear congestion
• Keeps the lining of your nose and throat moist, which allows them to work better as germ barriers

Get Plenty of Sleep

The other most common expert recommendation for fighting illness is getting extra rest, which research supports.

Two studies found that people who slept more in the weeks before viral exposure had a better chance of staying healthy. In both studies, the magic number was more than seven hours of sleep.

Experts think this is because the immune system and sleep cycles are closely related. While you sleep, your body produces important anti-inflammatory hormones and chemicals.

Focus On Fruits and Vegetables

Eating a balanced diet can help prevent colds and other illnesses. The nutrients in whole foods support healthy immune cell function and help your body fight infection. 

Some foods, like fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats, are more beneficial to the immune system. These plant-based foods contain high amounts of micronutrients that increase immune function and decrease inflammation, helping to prevent symptoms.

Foods like citrus fruits, berries, spinach, carrots, sweet potatoes, and broccoli contain immune-boosting vitamins and minerals such as beta-carotene, vitamin C, antioxidants, zinc, selenium, and magnesium. 

Manage Stress 

Long-term stress can damage your immune system, throwing it off-balance and causing chronic (long-term) inflammation. Experts have known for years that stress makes you more vulnerable to infectious illnesses like the common cold.

While you can't always reduce stressful aspects of your life, you can shift how you respond to stress and learn to manage it in ways that work for you. Recent studies suggest stress-relieving activities like yoga and meditation can improve your immune response to viral infections and vaccines.

Get More Vitamin D

Vitamin D plays an essential role in a healthy immune system, but there's still debate over whether vitamin D supplements can prevent or reduce viral illness.

Some studies have found that people deficient in vitamin D are more likely to get respiratory infections. However, there isn't much evidence that supplementing with vitamin D can lower your risk of getting sick. 

More and more people are deficient in vitamin D, and it's more challenging to get the daily recommended amount of this vitamin during the winter months (in the northern hemisphere). If you think you may be deficient in vitamin D, your immune system might appreciate the boost from a supplement.

Use a Humidifier 

The benefits of using a humidifier to ease cold symptoms are similar to drinking lots of fluids. There's no evidence that humidifiers improve immune function or change the outcome of a cold, but they keep the air in your environment from drying out—and that keeps the mucosal linings in your nose and throat from drying out.

Humidifiers can also soothe stuffy noses and irritated throats, helping you eliminate congestion and recover from a cold more quickly with fewer lingering symptoms.

Try Probiotics 

Your gut health has a surprisingly high influence on your immune health. The more healthy bacteria you have in your gut, the better primed your immune system is to fight infection. Does that mean taking probiotics decreases your risk of illness? 

While some studies show no connection between probiotics and fewer respiratory infections, others have found that consistent probiotic use may shorten the duration and reduce the severity of cold symptoms.

In other words, it's not as simple as popping a few probiotics at the first sign of a cold, but there's a good chance that probiotics can contribute to a healthier immune system overall. 

Sip Herbal Tea

There is some truth to traditional remedies like honey, ginger, and garlic. Some studies suggest all three have anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and antiviral properties that can be used to fight infection.

Adding these ingredients to a cup of green or black tea—both of which contain plant compounds with antiviral properties—can offer powerful immune support.

There is no definitive research on how effective these ingredients are against the common cold, but steeping a cup of tea with ginger and honey or adding an extra handful of garlic to your soup when you feel sick is also unlikely to harm you. 

Start Taking Zinc

Unlike the other supplements on this list, zinc has more scientific evidence to support its use.

While vitamin C and probiotics work best against colds when taken consistently (i.e., even when you're healthy), some experts recommend taking zinc at the start of a cold or within the first 24 hours to possibly reduce the length and severity of your symptoms.

Other studies support using zinc to decrease the number of colds you catch yearly or to help you recover more quickly from an ongoing cold. However you choose to use it, zinc appears to offer some benefits in reducing cold symptoms.

Use Saline Rinses

Rinsing your nasal passages with saline, also called nasal irrigation, can be a powerful tool for reducing cold symptoms. It flushes out germs and allergens, thins mucus, and moisturizes nasal passages, relieving symptoms and potentially preventing illness.

One study of children showed that nasal irrigation improved cold symptoms and reduced the number of subsequent colds—meaning it offered some preventative benefits. Another study found that nasal irrigation shortened the length of a cold by almost two days, in addition to relieving symptoms. 

Nasal irrigation—for example, using a neti pot—must be done correctly, or it poses a danger. Never use plain tap water to rinse your sinuses because it could contain harmful pathogens. Only use distilled or sterile water boiled for 3-5 minutes and fully cooled or a premade saline solution labeled for nasal irrigation devices.

Take Vitamin C Daily

Your immune system needs vitamin C to function effectively, so increasing your intake of vitamin C supplements is often recommended as a treatment for the common cold.

Most of the evidence shows that taking high amounts of vitamin C after you start feeling sick doesn't change anything about the course of your illness. That doesn't mean vitamin C is useless. Studies show that consistent use of vitamin C as a preventative strategy can shorten a cold and make it less severe.

Treatment Tips

Despite your best efforts to stop a cold in its tracks, you might still end up with one. Many treatment strategies are the same as those used to prevent colds. For example:

• Stay home and prioritize rest
• Drink plenty of fluids
• Soothe your symptoms with a humidifier
• Take a warm bath or shower to reduce congestion and coughing
• Use over-the-counter (OTC) remedies like pain relievers, decongestants, and cough medications to reduce symptoms
• Use saline sprays or drops to loosen mucus

When To See a Healthcare Provider

Most colds resolve without medical treatment, but a cold can develop into a bacterial infection or a secondary illness. This is especially true if you have a chronic medical condition like asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). 

Contact your healthcare provider or go to an urgent care facility if you have any of the following symptoms along with your cold:

• Dehydration symptoms (e.g., fatigue, dry skin, headache, muscle cramps)
• Difficulty breathing or wheezing
  
• A fever for more than four days
• Symptoms for more than 10 days with little to no improvement
• Symptom improvement followed by suddenly feeling very ill
• Difficulty managing your other chronic medical conditions

A Quick Review

There's often nothing you can do to prevent exposure to the many cold viruses circulating.

You may still be able to strengthen your immune system and decrease your symptoms with a few basic at-home strategies like getting extra sleep, drinking plenty of fluids, and taking certain vitamin supplements.

If your efforts don't work and you get sick anyway, you can use many of these same tips to treat your cold at home and possibly recover more quickly. Reach out to your healthcare provider if your symptoms don't improve after about 10 days or if you develop severe symptoms like difficulty breathing.