I’m 3/4 through a year long experiment to eliminate colds from my life.

Currently experiencing a setback with my first cold since 10/30/16.

The year, since I started tracking in April, has looked like this:

4/9 – 3 day fever
5/16 – 2 day mild cold
6/1 – 12 Day severe cold
7/18 – 16 Day combo of fever and severe cold
10/25 – 6 Day mild cold
12/20 – 3 Day mild cold

Intervention #1:
Post my 3 day fever in April I did two things:
1. Started tracking when I am sick
2. Started taking a multivitamin. My hypothesis being that I was vitamin d deficient due to lack of being outside.

Verdict: Progress, the next cold was very mild but then no lasting success given my 12 day cold on 6/1. I didn’t add any new techniques at the time.

Intervention #2:
In my 7/18 incident of a cold I attempted to overpower it. I medicated by taking sudafed to mask the symptoms.

It worked great in masking symptoms but meant that I over-did exercise. I continued running every day and 6 days in did a long bike + run.

The next day I had a fever and didn’t recover for another week.

Verdict: Fail

Intervention #3:
Post that failure I increased my supplement regimen to include daily vitamin c. Vitamin c doesn’t help with colds once they’ve started but does help to boost the immune system. I hoped that it would keep the sickness at bay.

When I did get another cold on 10/25 I also removed exercise from my routine and prioritized getting over 8 hours of sleep a night.

Verdict: Success. It was the weakest cold I had all year with minimal discomfort and no serious congestion.

Which brings us up to today. Even with my multivitamin + vitamin c regimen, no exercise as soon as symptoms happen and extra sleep, I’m going through a mild cold. It is manageable with no serious congestion or headaches so I credit my interventions with success. But, what could I do to eliminate even such a mild cold?

My current hypothesis is that it was brought on by the drop in temperature which weakened my immune system.

So, options to deal with that:
1. Dress warmer when temperature drops below 40. (especially including a hat)
2. Add immune boosters to supplement regimen during season changes.

To recap interventions that have helped reduce severity of colds:
1. Daily multivitamin + vitamin c.
2. Stop exercise when symptoms appear.
3. Increase sleep when symptoms appear.

How do you prevent yourself from being sick?

^Day 156/90 453 words