I see people with colds, flus, sore throats, and sinus infection on a daily basis all year round.  People have all sorts of home remedies and trust certain over the counter medications to make them feel better.  However, some of these can actually make you sicker and impede your body’s ability to fight off infections.

Here is a list of some remedies you didn’t know could be making you sicker:

• Tea with lemon-  Lemon can be very acidic and exacerbate conditions such as acid reflux.  Many studies have shown that asthma-sufferers can actually see improvement if they adopt a low acid diet or take medications to reduce acid in their stomach.  The pH of lemon is low enough to even “burn” your throat if you consume too much and can even cause a sore throat or cough.  I recommend ginger tea with honey instead.  Honey can actually help your immune system.
• Apple cider vinegar- Just as with the lemon, vinegar is extremely acidic and can cause more trouble with digestion.
• Cold medications to help you “sleep”- There is one very popular brand that starts with an “N” and rhymes with “quill” which I find is the overwhelming choice among patients.  However, this medication contains an antihistamine (like benadryl), and cause fatigue, sleepiness and drowsiness the next morning.  So you may think these symptoms are due to the cold or flu virus, but you are actually experiencing a side effect of the cough suppressant!  If you must take this type of medication to fall asleep, I would recommend drinking something with caffeine the next morning to reverse the effect.
• Excessive Vitamin C-  This is one of the most common errors I see in my practice.  People take excess vitamin C in pills, lozenges, or packets that they mix with water and drink.  The are also sold as supplements that you take before you get on an airplane flight supposedly to prevent yourself from getting sick.  Sometimes the dosages can be 600% more than the recommended daily dosage!  Vitamin C is essentially Citric Acid.  Yet again, another acid!  It can easily cause reflux and sore throat.  Even worse, high doses can cause an attack of gout (a joint disease caused by excess uric acid) and formation of kidney stones!  Can you imagine taking vitamin C for a simple cold and ending up having to go to the ER for a kidney stone!  These medications may be sold over the counter, but they should still be used with caution.  Sadly, there has been no scientific study that shows Vitamin C has any benefit in preventing or mitigating cold or flu symptoms.
• Ginger Ale-  Many people think ginger ale is equivalent to ginger tea.  It is not.  Most commercially marketed “ginger ale” contains no or minimal ginger extract.  Ginger ale is often carbonated, which means there is carbonic acid, also not good for acid reflux sufferers and the gas can create uncomfortable bloating.  In addition, ginger ale contains excessive amounts of sugar with over 140 calories per can.  Sure you want to feel better, but if you have issues with high blood sugar this can certainly make you feel sicker.
• Decongestants- These are effective medications if you have sinus congestion.  They can cause your heart to race and blood pressure to increase.  Accordingly, people with heart conditions and/or high blood pressure should avoid decongestants.  In some people, they can even precipitate insomnia and panic attacks!
• “Starving a Cold”-  This is part of the old saying “Starve a cold, feed a fever.”  You should never starve when you are ill.  To fight off an infection, you need a healthy immune system.  Hydrating with liquids and eating a healthy diet rich in antioxidants and protein is a necessity!
• Don’t exercise when you’re sick-  This is partly true.  If you have a fever, chills, shortness of breath, or a pneumonia, exercising is not advisable.  However, after a few days of rest some light exercise can help you get better quicker.  Jumping up and down during exercise can jostle the phlegm or secretions in your nasal passages an airways so you can clear them out quicker.  Increased circulation to the body also improves your immune system.  I recommend going at a slower pace than you usually go (about 50% slower) and for half the usual duration.  It’s important to stay hydrated during the workout.
• “Toughing it out”- Many people feel the need to go to work even when they are very sick.  I think this is unwise for several reasons:  1. You will get your coworkers sick as you are likely to be highly infectious (you never want to be known as THAT person who spreads the cold to the whole office).  2. You will wear your immune system down when you need to be recuperating, 3. You will likely stress your body out and expose yourself to other potentially deadly bacteria (this is how colds turn into pneumonias) during your commute to work.  4. You will not likely be productive at work when you are not feeling well.  If you got better sooner, you could be back at work earlier and much more productive.  5. If you get sicker at work (due to being dehydrated or pass out), you will likely be taken to the hospital or unable to get home safely.  This could mean you have to lie in a chaotic emergency room for many hours.  Wouldn’t it be nicer to be at home in your own bed with chicken soup and your favorite Netflix movies?  Here are some movie suggestions!

At the Academy Awards this year, the wrong movie was announced as the Best Picture which created a very awkward situation.  After a full investigation, the cause of the embarrassment was a distracted staff member who was using social media while he should have been fully focused on his job.

I was not surprised that social media and cell phone use caused this debacle.  Many major train crashes and derailments in recent years have been attributed to conductors who were not paying attention because they were looking at their phones.  Don’t get me wrong, I think phones and social media are not inherently “evil”.  Heck, you may be reading this article on your phone right now!

My concern is that we are no longer living in the moment and experiencing life now.  Humans can not “multitask”.  We are not designed to deal with more than one task at once.  Meanwhile, while I’m writing this blog, I am drinking my morning cup of coffee and listening to music.  Isn’t that multitasking?  Yes, an observer may think that I am doing three things at once but I’m actually not.  I’m typing for a few seconds, then my attention goes to reach for the coffee mug, then it goes back to typing on the keyboard.  I am actually “toggling” between activities, albeit at a very fast pace.  I am not truly doing these three things at once.

If a task requires more concentration or I am doing more tasks at once, the “toggling” becomes more cumbersome and reaction/response time will increase.  My chance for error will also increase.  Hence, this is the root of the Oscar incident and many accidents.

While it is not entirely feasible to “disconnect” from our phones entirely in this digital age, I would recommend that we try to avoid the temptation to be staring at screens all the time.

Here are some tips to learn how to “live in the moment”.

• Create a dedicated “time out” from electronic devices each day.  I recommend putting the phone away when you are eating and at least one hour before bedtime.  Why?  Distracted eating can cause you to overeat.  Think about the last time you went to the movies and how much popcorn or candy you ate.  Looking at the news (especially nowadays!) and social media before bedtime can also lead to disrupted sleep.  Oftentimes when we sleep, we replay events or thoughts in our mind particularly things that occupied our minds just before falling asleep.
• Remove or hide “addictive” apps from the phone/tablet.  Games and shopping are great distractions and are not all bad.  They can sometimes give your mind a mini “mental coffee break”.  However, if you are finding they are taking up too much of your time, they can negatively impact your health.  That 20 minutes playing a “Candy” game could be better spent getting some fresh air outdoors or calling a friend you haven’t spoken to in a long time.
• Talk to people.  It’s amazing how little we talk to people even with our closest friends.  We text, instant message, snapchat, tweet, but we don’t talk to real people in real time as much as we should.  Pick up the phone and call someone today.
• Practice mindful eating or any other activity.  We need to experience things more completely.  Try this little experiment.  The next time you start to eat something, take one small bite of the food and close your eyes.  Take 2 full minutes to eat that piece of food.  Allow your taste buds and your mouth to fully sense the full texture, taste, and even sound produced.  You would be surprised how wildly complex and exciting one bite of food can be, but we don’t often realize it because we are eating too quickly and eating with distractions.  This often leads to overeating.  You can adapt this to any life experience.  I love to do this when I’m enjoying a beautiful sunset.
• Try an “Electronic Device Fast”.  Just like people stop eating food for certain religious holidays, I recommend a period of time where we live as we did 15 years ago.  Put away your tablets and/or phones for just one day or two.  Right now, most of us continue to check our electronic devices even while on vacation!  I am just as guilty of this myself.  However, on a recent trip to Cuba, where internet access is difficult, I was forced to disconnect for 3 days and it felt great.  When you first try the “fast”, you will notice that smartphones are like drugs, you will notice a sense of withdrawal.  However, after a while you will be much more mindful and focused on “real life” experiences rather than “screen” life.
• Meditate.  I can’t overemphasize how meditation is the best solution to counter the negative effects of information overload.  I think meditation is like the “reset” button for our brains, similar to pushing and holding the power button on the smartphone when you’ve opened too many apps and the phone freezes.

Per my gastroenterologist friends, “you can tell a lot about a person’s health by how they poop”.  I couldn’t agree more, but I often find patients are reluctant to discuss their bathroom habits or even to bring up issues such as hemorrhoids (enlarged veins in the anal area that often bleed or cause itching).  Our bowel movements are dictated by many different factors:  how much fiber we eat, how much water we drink, how much we exercise, and how long we sit on the toilet.  Here are some tips on how to improve your visits to the bathroom.

• Eat fiber and lots of it!  Fiber acts like a scrubber and removes cholesterol along your intestinal walls and pushes food forward.  It also causes the stool to clump up and come out in one piece.  Your bowel movement should look like a banana-  tapered at the front and back.  I recommend shooting for a goal of 25-35 grams per day.  Here is how to get there.
• Take probiotics found in foods.  Billions of bacteria live in our colon.  They serve to help us digest properly.  Yes, they sometimes do contribute to embarrassing gas, but overall they are the “good guys” and keep us healthy.
• Drink water.  Hard stools which lead to constipation, are often caused by inadequate hydration.
• Do not sit more than 2 minutes on the toilet.  There should be no email writing, reading of magazines, newspapers, or even novels on the toilet.  You should be practically running to the toilet to have a bowel movement.  If you sit for more than 2 minutes and nothing is happening, go do something.  Drink some water, or exercise to get your bowels moving.  Don’t worry, you WILL move your bowels at some point.
• Try a new way of sitting on the toilet.  A new product called Squatty Potty (which debuted on the TV show, Shark Tank) has been shown to improve hemorrhoids, straining, and reduce time on the toilet.  I have one and I absolutely swear by it!
• Exercise.  Yes, yet another reason to exercise.  Each time your body bounces up and down on a treadmill, exercise bike, or jumping rope your intestines also move food along.  Ultimately, this leads to the need to eliminate.
• Avoid or reduce medications which can cause constipation.  Narcotics (such as oxycodone, Percocet, codeine), antihistamines, and even calcium supplements or TUMS are well known culprits for causing constipation.  If you do take one of these, you may even want to take a laxative or increase your dietary fiber to avoid the resulting constipation which can sometimes be severe enough to require hospitalization!
• Keep track of your bowel movements.  We should all ideally be going to the toilet at least once every day or every two days.  If it gets more than that or your habits change suddenly, it may be time to check in with your primary care provider.  Colon cancer can manifest with sudden constipation.

I recently changed my exercise routine from five days a week to seven days a week.  Why the change?  I had a realization that doing things intermittently have a higher chance of failure (not likely to complete the full course) than every day.

How did I reach this epiphany?  I learned it by observing patients in my practice.  Typhoid is a an illness that is often acquired when traveling to underdeveloped countries and eating food or water contaminated with sewage.  There are two types of Typhoid vaccine which are recommended for travelers.  One is an inactivated vaccine in a injection “shot” form that is a one time deal and provides two years protection.  The other way to get immunity is to take a series of four capsules separated by 1 day in between.  So a person would swallow a capsule on day one, skip day two, take a capsule on day the, skip day four, etc.  I generally prefer the capsules since they provide five years of immunity and most people would prefer one less needle in the arm anyways!  Over the years, I have seen many people, including myself, mix up this routine with pills missing, misplaced, or just forgetting to take them on time. Why does such a simple task have a high failure rate?

It’s extremely difficult to keep on a schedule when it has an intermittent nature.  Imagine you have an exercise schedule or goal to go to the gym five times per week.  Your best friend calls and says she wants to go the movies since a great movie just opened, but that movie just happens to play when you were going to workout at the gym.  Wouldn’t it be easy to think you could move that workout to the Saturday?  But will you follow through when the weekend comes?  Possibly, but the chances are much less likely.

As I’ve said in my blog before, our bodies crave routine.  It does not like shifting bedtimes, eating habits, and alcohol habits.  Jet lag is one such example of how changing our lives too much can result in poor mental functioning.  Another example is being “Hangry”, which is a nickname for that short-tempered feeling when one is extremely hungry.

So what have I done with exercise?  I have been doing it daily for at least thirty minutes.  Sure, I may not always have time for a full gym workout, simple exercises such as the Seven Minute Workout could be just as good (if you have the luxury of more than seven minutes, you can do it twice or three times).  If I have more time on certain days, then I can indulge in a longer workout.  I consider even short intermittent bursts of exercise to be “placeholders” so at least I am consistent with my routine.  Be creative, even the stairs in your apartment building can be your personal “stair master”.  The most important thing is that you incorporate exercise into your life.  Need more convincing?  Read this blog.

I love going to the movies.  They can be a great way to escape reality for two or more hours, but I love movies where the main subject is about illness, disease or health and wellness.  There are plenty of movies in this genre.  Here is a list of some of my favorites that I recommend.  Not only are they very entertaining, they can help you understand certain illnesses from a more personal perspective and the impact these illnesses can have on the lives of individuals and the people around them.  The next time its rainy or snowy outside, saddle up to your couch and watch one of them!

1. A Beautiful Mind– A moving story based on mathematician, John Nash, and his struggle with schizophrenia.  This was one of the best depictions of schizophrenia I have ever seen.  You really understand how the illness creates an altered perception of reality.
2. Inside Out– Extremely well done children’s movie about depression that is a great metaphor for how the brain’s neurotransmitters control our emotions and feelings, which sometimes don’t gel with our environment.
3. Iris– Very touching story about Alzheimer’s disease from its early beginning and its impact on the caregiver.
4. Supersize Me– Think that hamburger and fries are not affecting your mood and liver function?  Think again!  This was an amazing experiment which nearly cost the writer his life.
5. Sicko– There is no doubt the US healthcare system is on life support.  Many of the policies do not make sense and the cost of healthcare is skyrocketing.
6. Awakenings– This movie is based on a true story of a rare form of Parkinson’s disease and a doctor who finds a way to cure his patients.
7. The Doctor– A must-see for anyone in the healthcare profession or currently in school.  A surgeon learns about compassion when he becomes the patient.
8. Dying Young– Depicts a battle with leukemia and drug addiction and the toll they take on a relationship.
9. Forks Over Knives– Want to eat healthier?  This will convince you that eating right can reverse many diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
10. Outbreak– I love suspenseful thrillers!  This one is a fictional account of how a single disease can spread rapidly given our current age of extensive air travel.
11. Silver Linings Playbook– Bipolar disorder is depicted realistically, and breaks the stereotype that the disease is just about “mood swings”.
12. The Normal Heart– Very touching movie about the AIDS epidemic and how one group faced discrimination but through unity and civil disobedience were able to help millions.
13. Flight– Depicts an airline pilot and his personal struggle with alcoholism.
14. Steel Magnolias– Though not central to the story, a very realistic depiction of diabetes and it’s effect on the body.