The CDC reports that American adults catch the common cold approximately three times per year, with most of these colds taking place during the winter. This winter, you no longer have to be a slave to the tissue box. A combination of lifestyle changes and herbal remedies can help you to boost your immune system and survive cold season.

Drink Chicken Soup

Your grandma may have been right when she forced you to drink bowls and bowls of chicken soup whenever you felt sick. It’s a centuries-old home remedy, and scientists are now discovering that there may be merit to this practice. One study found that chicken soup worked as an anti-inflammatory agent, helping to reduce symptoms of the common cold in our respiratory tract. Another study, this one in the American Journal of Therapeutics, found a compound in chicken soup called carnosine that may also help reduce inflammation and halt the development of the common cold.

Get Steamy

During the winter, the cold, dry air can really wreak havoc on our health. Researchers have found that maintaining the proper level of humidity in a room can reduce a virus’ ability to survive. Dry air can also lower our defenses to the cold virus and exacerbate the symptoms of the common cold. Run a humidifier in your living space, or try sitting in a hot, steamy shower.

Juice Some Ginger Root

Whether in supplement form, in a soup, or juiced and added to your favorite green smoothie, this pungent root has been shown to fight the common cold effectively. A study in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology found that ginger didn’t just help fight the common cold, but it also helped block infections from many other viruses.

Spice Up Foods with Garlic

Garlic is high in various antioxidants and beneficial compounds, but here’s one more reason to mince it up and add it to your next meal. A double-blind, placebo-controlled study in the Advances in Therapy Journal found that garlic lowered the incidences of cold infections in study groups. That may be because garlic’s many compounds work as antiviral agents.

 How to Protect Yourself and Others

Once you are exposed to a cold or get a cold, the CDC recommends a few practical ways to limit your risks and reduce the risks of exposing your friends and loved ones to the virus:

• Wash your hands often with soap and water. Scrub them for 20 seconds, and help young children do the same. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Viruses live on your hands, and regular handwashing can help protect you from getting sick.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands. Viruses can enter your body this way and make you sick.
• Stay away from people who are sick. Sick people can spread viruses that cause the common cold through close contact with others.

If you have a cold, you should follow these tips to prevent viruses from spreading to other people:

• Stay at home while you are sick.
• Avoid close contact with others, such as hugging, kissing, or shaking hands.
• Move away from people before coughing or sneezing.
• Cough and sneeze into a tissue then throw it away, or cough and sneeze into your upper shirt sleeve, completely covering your mouth and nose.
• Wash your hands after coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose.
• Disinfect frequently touched surfaces, and objects such as toys and doorknobs.

There is no cure for a cold. To feel better, you should get lots of rest and drink plenty of fluids. Over-the-counter medicines may help ease symptoms but will not make your cold go away any faster. Always read the label and use medications as directed. Talk to your doctor before giving your child nonprescription cold medicines, since some medicines contain ingredients that are not recommended for children. Learn more about symptom relief.

You should call your doctor if you or your child has one or more of these conditions:

• a temperature higher than 100.4° F
• symptoms that last more than 10 days
• symptoms that are severe or unusual

If your child is younger than 3 months old and has a fever, you should always call your doctor right away. Your doctor can determine if you or your child has a cold and can recommend therapy to help with symptoms.

Now, I’m as much in favor of a good nap as the next guy, but a nap should be a break, not your default work mode.

On the other hand, working from home tends to blur the boundaries between work and personal life — if you work too hard, you will have no personal life left.

So how do we stay productive, and at the same time stay sane? As I recently quit my day job, I asked the readers for their advice. They came through, as always, and I’ve chosen a few of my favorites for others to use as a guide (well, I’m going to use it as a guide too).

A few caveats, before you dive into the list: Again, these are from the readers, so you guys deserve all the credit. Second, I edited them, so any typos are my fault. Third, this is a compilation list, meaning that some tips may seem contradictory — that’s because the best way to use this list is to find the ideas that work for you, and give them a try. If they don’t work, come back to the list and find a few more ideas. Don’t try to implement them all, and certainly not all at once.

Thank you, readers!

1. Define your spaces; separate work from home. Have a room dedicated to working. Don’t do it wherever you happen to be. Set aside some space, preferably a room (it doesn’t have to be big) to be your workspace. That way, when you enter it, you know consciously what you’re there to do: go to work. It changes the state of mind from “I’m at home” to “I’m at work”.

2. Set regular hours, and stick to the schedule.

3. Don’t stay unshaved in pajamas. Instead, have breakfast, have a shower, get dressed. Then make a list of sensible tasks for the day and get started.

4. Close the door. It’ll be very easy to leave the door to whatever room or space you set apart to be your workplace open. Don’t do it. If the door is open, that represents something to you, and to your family. To you, it represents the idea that if it’s a bit tough, or you don’t feel like working today, you don’t have to. To your family, it represents the idea that Dad is around, and I can go and talk to him.

5. Keep your desk and general work area tidy. A tidy workspace helps keep a tidy mind, which helps make your day more productive.

6. Turn off the telephone when you need to work without distraction. Turn off IM and email notifications too. In fact, if possible, shut off the Internet.

7. Don’t stop working if it’s a hard day. There’ll be times when you haven’t got any ideas, or just don’t feel productive. Train yourself to do some work anyway. It’s a short fall from “It’s just not happening at the moment” to “It’s a bit tough, I’ll stop for the day”. Next thing you know, you never seem to get anything done.

8. Keep three lists of three. The first list has three things you will do today. The second is three things you’d like to get done, but aren’t essential. The third is three things that need to be done at some point. That way, when you’ve trogged through your days work, you don’t end up sitting twiddling your thumbs.

9. Start the day properly. Have a good breakfast, spend some time alone to just sit and do whatever. Relax, let your mind wander. Pray. Just make sure that your mind isn’t in the “I hate working” frame of mind.

10. Have a good chair. Mesh backed ones, or good comfy leather perhaps. It’s worth spending some money on.

11. Keep a notepad and pencil nearby. Jot down ideas for blog posts, projects, anything that springs to mind. Then have a pinboard to stick them on. Look at it twice a week to refresh your mind of things that could be done sometime. Some of the best work you’ll ever do will come from random bits of inspiration.

12. Give yourself breaks. Don’t be locked in the room all the time. For every hour you work, have a 15-30 minute break. Give your mind time to digest what it’s just done, then come back. You’ll improve the quality of what you produce a hundredfold.

13. Don’t go back to work when you’ve finished. Had a great idea for a post? Fantastic, write down the basics on a note, and pin it up. Don’t go back to work when you’ve finished.

14. Schedule, if possible, around your natural schedule. Some people peak in the morning, others in the afternoon, still others at the witching hour.

15. Have a pint of water by your desk all the time. Try and work up to drinking a few pints a day, if you don’t already.

16. Be careful what music you listen to while you work. Music, TV, the weather… Just about everything will influence your mood. Some you can’t change, some you can. Make sure that you surround yourself with things that will give you the best frame of mind for whatever you’re about to do.

17. No turning on the computer for a quick email check or to do 1 little thing until you’ve gotten “ready for work” as mentioned above. The nuance is if you have nowhere to be, that 1 little thing leads to showering at 2 in the afternoon with a splitting headache because you’ve forgotten to eat etc.

18. Know when to stop. Don’t work late into the night. Set defined times when you’re going to work, and then when it passes, stop. You can have a bit of leeway here, but make sure that you don’t end up letting work run your life.

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” - Ovid

19. Don’t work an eight hour day. One reader works about 5 hours, in four blocks of an hour, with a 20 minute gap between each. If you do more than that, your attention might start to wander, you’ll be restless and your work won’t have it’s normal level of quality.

20. Designate certain days for certain work. For example: file everything on Friday afternoon, no later than Saturday morning. This allows you to walk out of your office for your “weekend” without feeling like you left work unfinished.

21. Set boundaries for those around you as well. Schedule your work time and make sure the kids and spouse know that you are unavailable for playing, chores, etc. during this time.

22. Sound Canceling Headphones. Seriously useful if you have a 3-year-old.

23. Pay attention and crunch numbers with your accounts regularly. You are less inclined to watch television when you realise how much it can cost you to mess around. Put a reminder that “work NOT done = no money”.

24. Have a good lunch. One readers suggested that something with good carb content works best. Puts you in the mood for the second half of the day.

25. Track your time. One reader suggested a simple program called gtimelog (http://mg.pov.lt/gtimelog/). You enter what you’ve done when you’ve completed it. It’s very simple and stays out of your way. At the end of the day, week, you can see a summary. It also allows you to break out work time vs. fun time in a simple manner.

26. Set online times. You don’t always need to be accessible for chit chat. This may be more applicable to telecommuters than the self-employed.

27. Don’t allow work to consume your life. Easier said than done when working from home. Make sure you set limits for the amount of time you will work.

28. Make time for people. When people ask, give them what you can. Respond in some way to every email. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get around to it. You don’t have to reply that day. Just make sure you do. It matters.

29. Say thank you a lot. Figure out who the people who have helped you and your blog (or your business) the most. If you’re a blogger, that’s the readers, not the people who gave you mentions on their big blogs. The people who have given their time and energy to helping you get where you are. You owe your life from this point on to them. Make sure they know you’re greatful.

30. Be grateful you’re working from home and not in some cubicle! That gratitude will motivate you to work harder, so you can continue to work from home.

Enjoy the sun (and your beach friends) responsibly.

It’s only the first week of spring, and much of the nation is already swathed in dangerous levels of ultraviolet sunlight. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s UV index, the majority of U.S. states are experiencing UV levels of 6 to 9 on its 1 to 11 scale, interpreted as “high” to “very high.”

And it will only get worse as we move into the dog days of summer.

The repercussions of exposure to such intense periods of UV light include sunburns, premature aging and skin cancer. While many of us think we’re invincible, we need only look at Grandma Jane — who loved her teen days of vacationing in Miami — to see how years of sun exposure at a young age lead to very visible signs of cumulative skin aging.

Like many of the fun things in life, it’s important to wear protection when you’re enjoying the sun. In this case, the best protection is sunscreen. But not all sunscreens are made alike, and some may actually be downright dangerous. Are you jumping from the kettle into the fire? Know what to look for, and what to avoid, the next time you’re shopping for sunscreen.

1. Consider a mineral sunscreen, such as one made with titanium dioxide, over a chemical-based sunscreen. Some of the most common chemicals used in sunscreen may disrupt your hormones and cause allergic reactions, warns the Environmental Working Group.

2. Choose a cream or liquid instead of a powder or spray. Spray or powder sunscreens may increase your risk of inhaling tiny sunscreen particles — consequences currently unknown — and many people who use spray-on or powder sunscreens may not know how to properly apply it for sufficient protection.

3. Verify that it has a minimum SPF of 30. But don’t go overboard. Some researchers say that once you pass the SPF 50 mark, the benefits of increased SPF are minimal.

4. Make sure it’s labeled as “broad spectrum.” Otherwise, the sunscreen may only be blocking out one kind of UV light, such as UVB, while the alternating UVA rays get through and wreck havoc on your skin.

5. Pair the sunscreen to the appropriate activity. If you’re just taking the dog for a walk, you don’t need a sweat- or water-resistant sunscreen. However, if you’re running a marathon, the lightweight, daily sunscreen-enhanced moisturizers on the market may not be enough.

6. Avoid vitamin A additives. While vitamin A may help improve the health of your skin when used alone, its addition to sunscreen might actually raise your risk of skin cancer, warns the Environmental Working Group.

Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography, Creative Commons

The next time a friend says, “Dahhhling, you look positively radiant!” — well, she may be telling more truth than not.

This week, the Ecology Center released the results of its tests of dozens of low-cost jewelry from stores like Forever 21 and H&M. The Michigan nonprofit found that more than half of all such jewelry contained high levels of toxic substances, such as lead, chlorine and brominated flame retardants.

More than half (57 percent) of the products tested had a “high” level of concern due to the presence of one or more hazardous chemicals detected at high levels. Four products contained over 10 percent cadmium, a known carcinogen. Fifty percent contained lead, with over half of these containing more than 100 ppm of lead in one or more components, exceeding the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) limit of lead in children’s products.

“There is no excuse for jewelry, especially children’s jewelry, to be made with some of the most well-studied and dangerous substances on the planet,” said Jeff Gearhart, research director at the Ecology Center and founder of HealthyStuff.org. “We urge manufacturers to start replacing these chemicals with non-toxic substances immediately.”

That flashy bracelet from Hot Topic may be “hot” in more ways than one.

Every Monday, our resident gurus identify groundbreaking, trendy, hip products that elevate your life from bourgeois to brilliant.

Most dryer sheet products contain numerous fabric softeners and chemical fragrances, such as linalool and ethyl acetate, that may have potentially toxic effects on your health. Instead of tossing a traditional dryer sheet into your laundry, consider tossing it out in favor of a more natural alternative.

Enter Caldrea‘s basil blue sage dryer sheets. These sheets have all the positive benefits of a traditional dryer sheet, such as the ability to soften your clothes and reduce static, but without the harmful side effects. A glance at the ingredients label reveals six simple substances, including a plant-based softening agent and essential oils from rosemary, sage and basil.

Plus, the sheets are biodegradable.

Every Monday, our resident gurus identify groundbreaking, trendy, hip products that elevate your life from bourgeois to brilliant.

Humidifiers and air purifiers have a lot of benefits. For example, they can help keep your skin from drying out in the winter, and may even reduce the symptoms of your nasty cold. But there’s usually one big problem: these contraptions are often quite fugly.

Thankfully, designers at Cloud and Co. created a sleek, ultra-modern humidifier. Its matte, white shell is pure beauty, even when the device isn’t running. The designers summarize it as thus: “Functional product and art object.”

When you can leave your humidifier out in public next to your Modernica V-leg series table, yes, yes please.

Discover more at Cloud and Co.

Don’t get duped. Survey some examples of potential greenwashing below, then keep reading to discover five common ways that marketers often use to trick you.

• Snacks: Sunchips look natural, with their “All-Natural” label and marketing language like “Healthier for you. Healthier for the earth.” In fact, their bag claims to be 100 percent compostable in 14 weeks. Yet Consumer Reports magazine tested these composting claims and concluded that after 14 weeks, “the bag barely changed in the compost pile.” Meanwhile, Frito-Lay, the manufacturer of Sunchips, is getting sued over its all-natural ingredient claims because the lawsuit says the chips contain genetically modified ingredients.

• Meats: Hormel’s “Natural Choice” product line boasts that it’s 100% natural with no preservatives. Additionally, it wraps its interior plastic packaging in a recycled, brown paper box that feels earthy-good. While such packaging is very commendable for reducing the overall amount of plastic used (cue the applause), all is not rosy. “Natural meat” doesn’t mean much because the animal can still be legally fed substances such as antibiotics and genetically modified food. Meanwhile, the production of meat in factory farms contributes up to 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

• Cleaning Products: You’ve probably seen ads for Green Works’ cleaning products everywhere, from TV to the walls of subway stations. The ads often revolve around images of the cleaning product nestled in a flower field or in the dappled sunlight of a forest understory. But all that imagery looks good…and means nothing. Some argue that “99% naturally derived” is not the same as truly natural, and that some of its products (e.g., disposable cleaning wipes) are still encouraging a throwaway culture. To say nothing of the plastic packaging.

• Diapers: Glance at the Huggies Pure & Natural diaper box, and you’ll see leaves (lots and lots of green, green leaves!) and big words declaring benefits like “ORGANIC COTTON” and “ALOE & VITAMIN E.” While these are all pluses to an extent, they’re still disposable diapers. And no matter how many green leaves and natural-ish marketing words a company uses, disposable diapers still create problems for the environment. The University of Minnesota reports that such diapers create 7,000 percent more municipal solid waste than cloth diapers, and that while some disposable diaper manufacturers claim their products are biodegradable, “there are no established standards.”

While greenwashed products may be better than other products, they’re still not necessarily truly green. And sometimes, their greenness is outright unverifiable. When surveying an ad or product label, watch for the following tricks:

1. Imagery. Just because a Clorox ad puts a bottle of bathroom cleaner in  the middle of a forest doesn’t mean it’s green. Other similar tricks include using earth- or green-toned colors (e.g., browns, greens, blues) or the use of traditionally eco-friendly design elements, such as leaves added to a logo.

2.Broad, poorly defined claims. For example, a label that blatantly says “earth-friendly” means nothing. The same goes for the ubiquitous “all-natural” label. Formaldehyde is natural…and poisonous.

3. No third-party certification, or certification by an agency or organization that’s owned by the product’s manufacturer. Even worse: seals, medals, awards or certifications by nonexistent organizations.

4. Unnecessary “ingredient-free” claims. For example, some products sport labels today that say “CFC-free,” although CFCs have been legally banned for years. Also watch for “chemical-free.” That means nothing, as everything is a chemical. Instead, it should be more specific, such as “free of synthetic chemicals.”

5. Fake organic terms. Some manufacturers boast the use of organic ingredients on the front of the label, while the back of the label reveals that the organic ingredients are few and far between many synthetic chemicals.

Bonus tip: Fair trade labels are popping up everywhere due to increased consumer awareness of manufacturing and farming practices abroad. But did you know that Transfair, a fair trade licensing organizatin, allows companies to label their product as fair trade so long as the product has as little as 2 percent fair trade content?

Photo credit: Stop the Water While Using Me!

Every Monday, our resident gurus identify groundbreaking, trendy, hip products that elevate your life from bourgeois to brilliant.

According to the United States’ Natural Resources Defense Council, more than 30 percent of counties in the lower 48 states will face extremely serious water shortages within the next 40 years. There are a lot of things you can do to conserve water (and also reduce your utility bills). For example, cutting your showering time back by just 60 seconds can save you just under 2,000 gallons of water annually. Hot damn.

But sometimes, it can just be so hard to remember to turn off the water when shampooing or scrubbing down your bod. Thankfully, we now have Stop the Water While Using Me!, marketed as the world’s first cosmetics line built around reminding you to turn off the water (also, arguably one of the longest brand names ever chosen for a cosmetics line).

It’s a full range of bath products for your skin and scalp, including shampoo, soap, shower gel and body lotion, and each is made with purely natural ingredients like honey and grapefruit. Other perks include a complete absence of chemicals and synthetic dyes and perfumes. Plus, none of its products were tested on bunnies, hamsters, ogopogos or anything else with a mother and father.

Oh yeah, and its all-caps label reminds you to shut off the water when you’re washing. If only for 60 seconds. It’s not that hard, right? Discover more at STWWUM’s website, which has an equally long URL address.

Source: TranquilTuesdays.com

Every Monday, our resident gurus identify groundbreaking, trendy, hip products that elevate your life from bourgeois to brilliant.

Tranquil Tuesdays, a Beijing-based tea company, is shaking up the sleepy tea world with its non-tranquil approach to commerce. Each of its six tea varieties — white tea, black tea, green tea, Pu’Er tea and two kinds of oolong tea — are handpicked at tiny family-run tea estates throughout China.

In China, women generally pick the tea while men control the business side of things, but Tranquil Tuesdays works directly with many female supplies and is commited to improving the skills of underprivileged women in China’s rural communities.

But for many people, it all comes down to the flavor. Tranquil Tuesday’s teas are unblended, unflavored and unscented, so what you’re tasting is the distinct flavor of an individual estate in a specific region.

Discover more at TranquilTuesdays.com.

Homemade green cleaners can leave your home smelling and looking fresh.

In its most recent national survey, the American Cleaning Institute found that 60 percent of Americans regularly engage in the annual ritual of spring cleaning. But before you run out there with your bottle of cleaner and a squeegee — which, by the way, is sometimes known by the far more awesome-sounding term ” squimjim” — take a quick pause and glance at your cleaning solution’s ingredient label. Some of the most popular cleaning products out there contain harsh toxins and chemicals that can do damage to  both your health and the health of the planet.

For example, take a glance at these ingredients that can be found in many commercial cleaning solutions:

• Ammonia: a powerful irritant that can cause kidney damage.
• Butyl cellusolve: a skin-penetrating neurotoxin.
• Ortho phenylphenol: a severe eye irritant.

Alas, the next  best thing on the store shelves may not actually be planet-friendly, either. Label terms like “eco-friendly” and “non-toxic” don’t really mean anything, aren’t regulated by the government and are often forms of greenwashing that marketers use to draw your attention.

Save yourself time and money, and save the planet, by mixing up a few homemade green household cleaners. These can  leave your home sparkling and smelling fresh, often just as good as the commercial stuff.

Multipurpose cleaner: Pour a cup of hot water into a spray bottle and add 1/2 teaspoon of borax, a tablespoon of white vinegar, 1/4 teaspoon of washing soda and a teaspoon of liquid castile soap. Shake the bottle to mix its contents, then va-va-voom!

Drain cleaner: Clear out the hair and other nasties hiding in your bathtub or kitchen drain by mixing a cup of baking soda with 1/4 cup of table salt. Pour it down the drain and let it sit for a few hours, then pour a cup of boiling white vinegar down the drain. After the fizzing has died down, rinse your now cleared pipes with lots of fres water to get rid of the acidic solution.

Air freshener: Got a lot of junk in your trunk, like sweaty gym equipment or a forgotten lunch? Deodorize your room, car or any other smelly spot with a cotton ball spritzed with essential oil.

Bathroom cleaner/disinfectant: Mix a cup of hydrogen peroxide with two cups of water and spray it on the surfaces you need to disinfect. It can even zap mold!

Window cleaner: Get rid of the grime that can accumulate over the winter and say hello to clearer, shinier windows. Combine a quart of water with two ounces of white vinegar. Spritz, shine, smize.

What are your own eco-friendly cleaning ideas? Send us a tweet and share your tips.