It doesn’t look good as professional salespeople, to turn up at a client (or potential client) meeting, coughing and sneezing.

As well as counter-productive to activity levels, a cough can be super irritating to colleagues, family and friends. Blaming the chilli weather is one excuse, but most people know it’s either down to smoking or a breakdown in health. Fortunately, there is a way to avoid coughs, colds and runny noses forever…

We are made of trillions of tiny cells – 60 trillion according to Dr Paul Clayton (Clayton, P., 2004. Healthy Defence, 2nd Edition).  Each of them like a little factory with a Goods-In department, a Processing Plant and a Goods-Out department:

Goods-In – responsible for receiving raw materials needed to stay alive: Oxygen, Water and Nutrients – there are only three!

Processing Plant – responsible for turning these raw materials into Adenosine triphosphate (ATP for short), which is basically our ENERGY!

Goods-out – responsible to passing on waste, called lymph, created during production of energy, which is carried away by our lymphatic system – a network of conduits and nodes around the body, which deliver the waste to our exit points: skin, lungs, urinary tract and bottom!  Unlike blood, which has a pump (our heart), it relies on muscle contractions created by our diaphragm when we breathe.

source - BUPA

Like any factory, it’s really important to get both quality and quantity of raw materials right – especially the nutrients!  Given that our brains are easily influenced, we often deliver low quality materials to the Goods-in departments (crisps, chocolate, cakes, biscuits, fried and processed food etc.); we also insist on getting all the factory workers high on sugar and caffeine, or completely intoxicated with alcohol.

Our lymphatic system struggles to work efficiently under these conditions, especially in the cold weather, when it needs to produce more ATP. Eventually, there’s too much waste inside us, so our extra defence systems kick-in and the body starts to eliminate it via any means possible including: COUGHING, SNEEZING and RUNNY NOSE!

Conclusion, if you don’t want to be coughing and spluttering at client appointments, or annoying family and friends spreading germs, it’s best to keep the factory workers in good shape, by supplying quality ingredients and letting them work in peace (at least most of the time:) For some great tips on how to do this, download our free Healthy Habits Guide.