Cold free!

Have you ever wondered how to stop a cold from developing? I’m still pinching myself about this, but I managed to go through last two winters without getting a cold. In my case, this is a bit of a miracle. I used to catch colds even in the middle of summer, but autumn and winter especially had always been the dreaded seasons for me.

Almost every time I’d take part in a social gathering, have a night out, go to work not rested enough, or, rested enough but meeting someone with a cold, I’d end up with a sore throat, weak muscles, headache, cough, all these symptoms accompanied with overall lethargy and tiredness.

My mood would just plummet at the first tingle in my throat, since I knew I’d be sentenced to at least a week of misery. And since I can never stay in bed a whole week, I’d have to go about my daily business ill. Commuting to work would turn into a nightmare, especially the joys of the rush hour, when standing with week legs in a hot, packed train, squeezed by the mass of anonymous bodies, longing for an empty seat on which I could just collapse and preferably evaporate.

The turning point

When I discovered the legendary healer Donna Eden, the founder of Eden Energy Medicine, (more in my article Incorporating Energy Medicine Into Everyday Life)  the first thing I learnt was the Daily Energy Routine, which is a set of exercises which you can perform in less than 10 minutes but which have a dramatic impact on your health. And very soon I realised that this was one of the best, most useful things I’ve ever learnt in my life.

Because when you start practicing this short, simple routine daily, you’ll soon notice considerable improvement in the way you feel and operate. You’ll start ‘collaborating’ with your own body in terms of correcting its energy flows, which will have an noticeable impact on your overall health and state of mind.

What really caught my attention when reading about this set of exercises, was Donna’s story about reversing a coming flu. She was about to give a major talk in London in front of a large audience, when she started feeling unwell. At that time there was a flu virus getting around and she felt she caught it, feeling increasingly weak and nauseous.

So she decided to resort to her tried an tested ‘first aid’ – i.e. thumping her spleen neurolymphatic reflex points, which lie on the ribcage beneath the breasts.

So there she was, standing in front of an audience, not saying a word, just banging her ribcage. The audience must have considered it rather odd!

When, after a while, Donna started feeling well again, she explained to the puzzled audience what she was doing: She was tapping at her spleen neurolymphatic reflex points, which helped her lift her energy levels and boost her immune system instantly, and this deceptively simple exercise helped her prevent a potentially nasty cold.

You can nip a cold in a bud, too!

If you start practicing the Daily Energy Routine (explained further down) on a daily basis, your body will become much more resistant to viruses. I really cannot praise it enough, and I can’t stop talking about the verging-on-miraculous technique which so clearly rescued me from a beginning cold, on multiple occasions.

One instance of this was in October, when after a string of very hectic days I woke up in the middle of the night with the dreaded dryness in my throat, accompanied by a feeling of increased temperature in my body, clogged sinus, and a headache. There we go, a week of hell has started! I thought.

However, I decided to take some action in a form of giving this newly discovered energy medicine a try.

Better in about three minutes!

After the essential sinus clearing, (described further down) which relieved the worst of my ill sensations, I went on to do the ’emergency four thumps’.

As you will see in her video, Donna’s Daily Energy Routine starts with ‘The Four Thumps’, which can do wonders for your body when you feel drained and about to succumb to a cold.

And that’s exactly what I did then, in the middle of the night. It took me only about 3 minutes, but I felt so much better afterwards! Clearheaded, less achy, feeling this healing flow of energy throughout my whole body. Then I returned back to bed, fell asleep, and lo and behold – when I woke up, I was fine!

This is the reason I keep talking about this technique everywhere and with such enthusiasm. I credit The Four Thumps and the rest of the Daily Energy Routine with banishing my cold several times already since last autumn!

The Four Thumps in detail

By thumping those four points, you will activate a sequence of responses that will impact your energy field by sending electrochemical impulses to your brain and releasing neurotransmitters, which will make you feel as if you are ‘recharging your batteries’.

You will be releasing toxins from clogged areas and allowing all the subtle energies, which support the vital organs in your body, to flow freely, and thus supporting your natural ability to heal.

The Four Thumps consist of the following:

• The Stomach meridian thump
• Kidney meridian (K 27) thump
• The Thymus Thump
• Spleen neurolymphatic reflex points thump

Important: For all the following exercises, breathe deeply, in through your nose and out through your mouth.

(You can remember it this way: First ‘smell a rose’, then ‘blow out a candle’.)

This form of breathing, practiced widely in yoga, connects the central meridian with the governing meridian, (which impact all the other 12 meridians) and moves vital energy through the chakras.

I personally devote about three to four deep breaths to each exercise.

On average, about 15 – 20 seconds is sufficient for each exercise.

Don’t forget to thump firmly and vigorously!

The Stomach meridian thump

Using the pads your fingers, tap on the edge of the cheekbones under your eyes. There are important acupressure points, and tapping them will help you ground yourself and receive healing energy from the earth. You will notice that you are feeling less stressed or tense, and more ‘in your body’, or more present. It’s a great little exercise to do just before meeting someone, as it promotes clear thinking, as you’ll also be grounded, you’ll feel more confident.

(I tell myself: ‘Before you knock on someone’s door, knock on your cheekbones’!)

With regards to preventing a cold, this technique helps to drain sinuses and clear the lymph glands in your neck, so it’s indeed a first-aider worth remembering.

Kidney meridian (K 27) thump

This exercise is the queen of energizers, as it literally jump-starts all your meridians. It lies at the junction of all the other meridians, so it is very powerful. If you are exhausted, physically or emotionally, your meridian energies are flowing backwards.

Stimulating the kidney meridian points can reverse the energies, so they start flowing forwards. Often you’ll notice a sudden change in your energy right after performing this exercise.

It will also focus your mind.

To locate these points (K 27 = 27th point on the kidney meridian), first place your fingers on your collarbone, and then move them towards the U-shaped notch (where your neck starts).

Move your fingers to the bottom of the U-shaped notch, and then about an inch to the left and right – those two soft points right under the bone are the K 27s.

You can thump those points, but you can also massage them instead. This should be done vigorously and with firm pressure.

The Thymus thump

This is excellent for your immune system, as it turns it on. Have you ever seen a gorilla banging her chest? This exercise might well make you want to climb a few trees.

Place your fingers on the centre of your sternum, at your thymus gland, and thump firmly for about 15 – 20 seconds.

This exercise is especially great when you need to persist with something and you are aware you are starting to lose energy. You’ll see that suddenly you’ll be able to go on for much longer.

(Donna used to teach this to swimmers, for example)

The Spleen meridian neurolymphatic points

The spleen neurolymphatic reflex points are part of the lymph system. Since the spleen is crucial to the functioning of the immune system, stimulating these points by tapping / thumping is a great way to:

• Lift your energy level
• Synchronize your body’s rhythms
• Boost your immune system
• Remove toxins
• Fight infection
• Help to cope with stress
• Lessen dizziness
• Help with metabolizing food, toxins, and stress
• Balance your blood chemistry (incl. blood sugar)

Tap (with three-finger notch) the spleen meridian neurolymphatic points beneath the breasts on the ribcage. These points also govern your pancreas, so it’s good for blood sugar regulation.

This will help you metabolise anything that is not good for you, which can range from food and toxins to your or someone else’s negative thoughts.

You can also tap the spleen acupuncture points, located on the side of the body about four inches down from the arm pits.

Donna in action

The Four Thumps are a part of The Daily Energy Routine, which includes several more exercises. In this article I have focused on The Four Thumps only, as a tried-and-tested first aider when you start feeling ill, but I strongly recommend learning the whole Energy Routine and incorporating it into your daily life. It takes only a few minutes, but it can have a long lasting positive effect on your health.

If you’re consistent with it, your immunity will strengthen, so you might not even need to experience those ‘first aider’ moments when you find yourself on a bug battlefield. You will become much more resilient to virus attacks and those seasonal colds will become history.

So go on and check out the whole Daily Energy Routine, which Donna demonstrates so charmingly in this video; it might become your own ‘energy vaccine’!

Here’s how Donna does it:

Donna Eden demonstrates The Daily Energy Routine

In addition to these techniques, here some more cold-easing tricks which have always worked for me:

Black Pepper Tea

This is a super-easy Ayurvedic recipe I’ve learned from my meditation teacher Emily Fletcher (check my article on how meditation can improve your life), and I have noted very good results – both in my own case and with people I’ve recommended this to. So when you’re feeling that a cold is coming, make this healing drink:

– Grind a pinch or two of organic black pepper into a mug

– Slowly pour boiling water into it and let the pepper settle to the bottom of the mug.

– Sip the ‘pepper tea’, which will help you sweat out the cold and eliminate the bugs in your throat.

– Do this every two to three hours .

– If you want to make the drink more interensting, add some more spice, such as cardamom, cinnamon and turmeric. Turmeric is especially great because of its anti-imlammatory properties. A teaspoon of it will add a nice golden colour to your peppery drink.

– While sipping this healing drink, visualise yourself getting better, and thank your body in your mind for healing you. Try to feel the emotion of gratitude, imagining how liberated you will feel once you are healthy again, while fully accepting that this is a time of healing rest for your body.

A ‘sinus rinse’ – a great addition to the four thumps

When you feel the cold is beginning to get you, especially through the annoying signs of a blocked or runny nose, a sore throat, a headache and a feeling of general malaise, a highly effective addition to the Four Thumps and a hot drink is a so-called ‘sinus rinse’.

It’s a sinus-relieving and cleansing technique I learnt in India, and however unusual or even uncomfortable it may initially appear, I swear by it!

I much prefer experimenting with these ‘earthly’ methods, if they make me feel clearly better; I find this natural method so much better than using chemical decongestant nasal drops or all those anti-cough sweets.

(Well, perhaps with the exception of the Ricola Herbal Sweets – I personally think the Mountain Mint and the Glacier Peppermint Mint are the Manna from Swiss heaven in a pastille form. 😉

So, if you’re not afraid of getting some salty water into your sinus, you’ll be rewarded by an instant, considerable relief from both sore throat and a headache.

How to do a sinus rinse:

Fill a glass with a bit of warm water, sprinkle a small amount of finely ground sea salt in it, then block one of your nostrils with your finger, and ‘drink’ the water with your other nostril.

Then you blow it out, and/or and spit it out with your mouth. Do both nostrils, and then gurgle (Or vice versa, that’s up to you)

Make sure the salt goes into both your nostrils and your throat.

This really is a brilliant way of getting rid of a headache caused by blocked sinus – do try it out and you’ll see what I mean.

Learn more about Energy Medicine

Would you like to learn more about Energy Medicine? For example, the science behind Daily Energy Routine is fully explained on pg. 72 – 99 in Donna Eden’s book ‘Energy Medicine – Balancing Your Body’s Energies for Optimal Health, Joy, and Vitality’, which has become a classic in the field of Energy Medicine, and contains everything you want to know about the essentials of this groundbreaking discipline.

You can get a copy of ‘Energy Medicine’ on my Resources page, full of other great books and items related to Energy Medicine and general health and wellbeing.

I hope you’ve found this article useful. If you’ll ever feel that familiar tingle in your throat, or start to feel under the weather in general, do try some of these tips listed here and let me know how it went! I’d be happy to hear from you.