This video does a pretty good job of explaining why colds are so more prevalent when it’s actually cold out. There’s really no way to get a cold simply by being cold, as this is an old wives’ tale and doesn’t hold a lot of scientific fact in it. There are however a few reasons why cold weather might promote colds more so than warmer months. The idea that just being cold could get you sick is something that has its roots in fact but still has been blown way out of proportion over the years. The reasons you get tend to get colds more often in colder weather are kind of simple.
For one the air is a lot dryer in the winter months than it is in the summer or spring. What this means is that any time you sneeze or touch something with unwashed hands the viruses that you might be carrying without any ill effects tend to break up into very fine particles and won’t just drop as they do in warmer months. They will instead hang about for a hours waiting to be inhaled or in some way transferred to another person. In this manner viruses can pass between people in short distances such as if a person sneezes when you walk by.
Another thing that happens is that since it is so dry in the colder months the mucous membranes in the nose that tend to filter out a lot of things can dry out and offer viruses a better chance of invading the body. This means that whatever you happen to inhale, as in if someone sneezes next to you, there’s a possibility that it will affect you to a greater extent. It’s also possible since a lot of people aren’t getting as much sunlight in the winter that the vitamin D in the body is lower, and thereby allows for more viruses to affect us.
Yet another habit that people tend to cling to in the winter is staying indoors, which is another cause since it means that if someone in your household is sick you stand a better chance of getting it if they’ve been touching things all over the house or are in the same vicinity. One very common thing to see is a family in which one person will get sick and needed to be tended to by another family member. This in turn will get that person sick, and so on and so forth until the virus has run its course. It’s not enough to just be cold to get a cold, but the cold certainly doesn’t help matters.
The best way to avoid this is to wash your hands with soap, avoid touching your face as much, and at least try to stay away from people you know are infected. Yes, I get the idea that in families this is kind of impossible, but it’s a start. Trying to stay away from your kids when they’re infected is not at all possible since if they are still young they look to you for care. Sometimes getting the cold and going through it is the only way to really get rid of it.
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