Sneezing, sniffling, watery eyes, a chronic cold is no fun. If you have a chronic cold, it can have a lot of impact on your life, because it is simply difficult to function with the symptoms that come with a chronic cold.
Chronic cold symptoms
Like a normal cold, a chronic cold also involves sneezing and having a runny nose.
In addition, you may suffer from:
- A stuffy nose
- A sore throat
- Many coughs
- Snot sliding down your throat (so more of an internal runny nose)
- Crowed/watery eyes
- Fever
Generally, a cold goes away within two weeks, but if you suffer from it for a longer period of time you often speak of a chronic cold. This does not mean that the cold will bother you forever, but rather that it will last a little longer.
A chronic illness is often also an illness that lasts longer than three to six months, but so a chronic illness can sometimes pass.
See a doctor if symptoms persist for too long[1].
Indeed, a prolonged cold can be a problem, especially if you suffer from respiratory conditions such as COPD[2].
Also, you may not suffer from a chronic cold, but more of a chronic cough after you have already healed from your cold[3]. In that case, you may sometimes need antiviral medication to get rid of the coughing[4]. This is because your immune system then reacts very strongly to the virus causing your cold.
What to do for chronic colds
One of the first things you can do with a chronic cold is to see your doctor to check if there may be more to it and if you need medication to stop the virus.
There are also steps you can take yourself. For example, did you know that prolonged stress often causes a cold? This is more often the cause than a stressful event. This can include being unemployed, having a job that doesn't suit you and long-term problems with family and friends[5].
Along with this, there is also evidence that chronic stress causes your immune system to not respond properly, which can cause you to suffer from certain symptoms for a long time[6].
This also gives clues right away about what to do if your cold doesn't go over well.
Take plenty of rest
It is important to get enough sleep to keep your immune system functioning optimally. Therefore, try to get at least seven hours of sleep per night. Ideally, simply sleep eight hours a night.
Hydrate Yourself
For example, drink extra water, eat soup or prepare a pot of tea for yourself. Especially if you have (had) a sore throat or have (had) a fever, you may suffer from dehydration. It is then important to get your fluid levels back to normal.
Stop exercising for a while
Playing sports is very healthy when you are in good health, but when you are sick your body needs the energy to fight the illness. In that case, stop exercising for a while. Do you still feel the need for exercise? Then go for a walk for half an hour a day.
As long as you don't exercise intensively for a while.
The exercise you can have during a cold can be done in your normal clothes and you don't have to shower afterwards.
Tackle your stress
Prolonged stress is one of the main factors for a long-term cold. Therefore, it is important to do something about that prolonged stress.
The annoying thing with long-term stress, however, is that if you could have done something about it, you probably would have done it already. So there is often something blocking you from doing something about it.
For example, you may find it difficult to indicate at work that you can no longer work overtime, or you may find it difficult to resolve your family problems.
In cases like these, hypnosis can help you look at your problems and deal with them in a different way. In fact, that often already helps you to get a sense of relief and to be able to stand up for yourself better, for example, or to talk out the problems with your family.
For example, research shows that one hypnotherapy session can already reduce stress levels[7].
Stress, in fact, is your reaction to certain events. Something happens and you have certain thoughts about it. If those thoughts or feelings indicate that something is not right or is even dangerous, you may experience stress.
During hypnotherapy, for example, you can talk about things that stress you out. Then, together with the hypnotherapist, you can find out why you get stressed about those things. This often involves looking at the beliefs you have that make you think that something is not right or is scary which causes you to get stressed.
Next, you can think in terms of solutions. Is it simply a matter of changing your behavior? Or is there a deeper problem?
In the case of a simple issue where changing your behavior would be a solution, a hypnotherapist can often do a lot for you with visualizations.
That visualization by itself can also be used to achieve greater relaxation and deeper hypnosis, but that often does not solve the problem.
You can also visualize how you will deal with certain events in the future. For example, how you say "no" to extra work. How to discuss problems directly with your family instead of not expressing them and bottling them up inside you, keeping the problem.
Are you not succeeding? Or that the idea that you can change your behavior makes you feel less stressed? Then there may be more to it.
In that case, regression can be applied. With regression, you look at the emotion you are currently suffering from. The thing that stresses you is causing you to feel a certain way. Then you then go back in your mind to the moments in your life when you had that feeling before. Eventually you come to a moment when you first had that feeling.
You will "fix" this moment in your mind. In fact, often these are moments from your childhood, but then you didn't know what you have now. But in that moment you did think of something about how life works, and that thought - or belief - has been in your subconscious ever since. Usually then that's just what it is and you don't consciously look back at it any further.
With regression, you do and you start to fix that thought - or belief. For example, you can empathize with other people who were there at the time and get whole different explanations of why they do what they do. This can change your idea of how the world works again, making your blockage to say "no" to working overtime or talking things out with your family, for example, go away.
Sometimes more than this is needed because, for example, you have had a traumatic childhood. In that case, a conversation with your inner child can help you see the world as less hostile and therefore reduce stress.
All this - in addition to taking adequate rest and hydration - can ensure that that chronic cold finally passes.
Hypnosis against stress and thus to normalize your immune system again can therefore help you with relaxation, behavioral change and changing beliefs that cause stress.
Want to know how hypnosis does it? Then come to the free online master class on hypnosis.
Or register for one of our seminars or trainings. The trainings are conducted online from a professional studio and with enough assistance for one-on-one attention, allowing you to thoroughly absorb the material.
During a seminar, yes also get to work already on techniques to help people relax and spread good feelings.
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