The first port of call that university students are likely to take when starting to feel the wrath of the common cold is to mope around the flat. This can involve eating your body weight of comfort food or getting hugs from anyone brave enough to be within in a 2 metre radius of you. However staying in bed for the majority of the day (only to resurface for extra paracetamol, food or the much needed shower) can only do so much good.
"This can involve eating your body weight of comfort food or getting hugs from anyone brave enough to be within in a 2 metre radius of you"
It is recommended that you drink plenty of water, as well as getting yourself out of bed to do some light exercise or stretches. But as I’m sure you’ve already realised, there is a middle ground that most students choose to abide by. This tends to be the sweet middle ground between eating nothing but chocolate, and getting all the vitamins and antioxidants your body desperately needs. It tends to be made up of the occasional smoothie, copious amounts of tea, an assortment of biscuits as well as comfort food and as much ibroprofen the back of the packet allows you to have.
One tactic that can be quite successful (depending on the willpower of the person) tends to be good old fashioned stubbornness. It can get to a point of being ill where you become absolutely sick of it, and the best thing to do in this situation can just be to adopt complete denial of your symptoms. This is where you essentially aggressively ignore each of your symptoms and return to your normal healthy life. Admittedly if you try this too early you can make yourself 10x worse so use this method with caution.
"It can get to a point of being ill where you become absolutely sick of it, and the best thing to do in this situation can just be to adopt complete denial of your symptoms. This is where you essentially aggressively ignore each of your symptoms and return to your normal healthy life"
But being ill isn’t the end of the world, it can actually just give you some time to yourself. It can be so easy at university to get caught up with everything going on between your course, friends, societies and hobbies that sometimes you don’t get any time to actually sit back and truly relax. Sat in bed with a cold can seem like a recipe for a bad day, however it all depends on how you use your time. There is no reason that you can’t indulge in something you love, or something you feel like you’ve neglected due to your busy day to day life. So sit up, binge watch that show everyone has been on about, or read that book you always said you would. Make the best out of a bad situation and enjoy yourself! You have been handed the perfect excuse to play on your games console for hours on end or spend a whole day watching movies.
