A simple trick used to ease nasal congestion may be able to reduce your cold by two days.
The days are shorter, the temperature's dropping and Christmas adverts are starting to filter onto your TV, which can only one thing – flu season is upon us.
It starts with a colleague sneezing at their desk, or maybe the person stood next to you on the train home has a hacking cough. Either way, it's only a matter of time before you wake up with that familiar scratchy feeling at the back of your throat.
And before you know it you too have been struck down by the dreaded cold.
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According to the NHS, symptoms of the common cold - also known as a upper respiratory tract infection - develop over two to three days and include symptoms such as a blocked nose, fever, body aches and coughing.
On average, most of us will fully recover in around one to two weeks, and in the meantime we dose ourselves up with painkillers in order to remain as comfortable as possible.
But what if I told you there was a simple trick which could shorten the length of your cold by as much as two days.
Enter nasal irrigation.
What is nasal irrigation – and how does it help with a cold?
Nasal irrigation is fairly self-explanatory and involves flushing your nasal passages with saline water to remove or loosen mucus buildups.
In order to do this, it is advised to have sterile, lukewarm or body temperature water inside a bottle or neti pot.
Insert the tip into one nostril, lean forwards over the sink and breathe out of your mouth while the solution (and hopefully whatever is clogging up your nose) flushes out.
Or you can watch this handy simulation below:
Of course, nothing feels better than being able to breathe through your nose after suffering with congestion, but how does it shorten the length of your cold?
According to research presented by the European Respiratory Society, saline nasal drops can reduce the length of a common cold by up to two days for young children.
"We found that children using salt-water nose drops had cold symptoms for an average of six days where those with usual care had symptoms for eight days," Professor Steve Cunningham from Child Life and Health from the University of Edinburgh said.
Explaining how saline helps colds, he added: "Salt is made up of sodium and chloride. Chloride is used by the cells lining the nose and windpipes to produce hypochlorous acid within cells, which they use to defend against virus infection."
"By giving extra chloride to the lining cells this helps the cells produce more hypochlorous acid, which helps suppress viral replication, reducing the length of the virus infection, and therefore the duration of symptoms."
Are there any dangers with using saline irrigation?
If you're going to make an at home saline irrigation rather than purchasing drops or sprays, make sure the water has been sterilised before squirting it up your nose to avoid infection.
Unsterilised water can carry the bacteria Naegleria fowleri which can lead to rare but fatal brain-eating amoeba infections.
Topics: Health
Brenna Cooper