This week I felt a cold coming on. I had the chills, was sneezing frequently, and I just didn’t feel good.

I could have got it through shaking hands on Sunday morning. Or, maybe I got it by being around my son – he is a carrier for colds you know. When he was young, he would start to get a cold, pass it on to the family and then never really get as sick as everyone else.

However, there were times when he had a stuffed nose and repeatedly wanted his mother to cut his nose off. Man, kids are creative!

I started to feel it early in the week, so I jumped into action with my sure-fire formula for warding off fledgling cold symptoms. It works some times, not all the time, but a good portion of the time. Basically it works enough for me to call it a sure-fire remedy.

The first thing I do is start drinking water … lots of it.  My theory is that the more you drink, the more you flush your system of all kinds of bad things, like viruses.

These foreign invaders of the body like to set up shop. I figure if I can keep downing water, they might slip into the stream and slide right out before they can settle in.

Next, you want to get into some sweats. I’ll even wear sweats to bed under extreme conditions. The purpose of sweats is not only to keep warm but to sweat those little viruses out your pores. It’s just another avenue for a virus to get pushed out of the body.

I’m even a firm believer in putting on a few extra layers under my hockey equipment and playing hockey. I have avoided many colds that way.

The third thing I do is stop eating sugar. Things like pop, candy, and ice cream, when you are trying to stop a cold, it’s especially important to stay away from these items. (This was not easy this time since we had loads of candy left over from halloween.)

Candy looks tempting, and you think a little sugar might cheer you up, but it’s not going to help you beat that cold down. I’m not sure why, it seems to weaken your fighting power.

The fourth thing I do is get more sleep than normal. Whatever time you go to bed, when you are battling a cold, hit the hay a little earlier. I’m a bit of a night hawk, so this can be tough for me, but sleep is a key ingredient to my heading off cold at the pass fighting technique.

Here are a couple more tips that I sometimes throw into my cold-fighting formula:

Pump vitamin C into you; it can’t hurt.

And get yourself a “gramma blanket” to help with that sweating action. My gramma made a blanket for me when I was a born. Now that it’s 57 years old, I can only bring it out when I am extremely sick. Soon it will need to be kept behind protective glass to preserve it. I’ll only break the glass in an emergency!

Here’s the thing: Like you need a plan or a system to defeat an oncoming cold from taking root, you need a system to deal with a persistent temptation. When you start to feel the temptation, jump into action with your system and cut off that temptation before it can set up shop and cause you to sin.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What system do you use for battling a cold or temptation? Leave your comment below.