Natural Cold and Cough Remedies

There is a wide range of natural remedies to treat colds and coughs; most of them are easily available and not difficult to prepare and use.

Raspberry Tea can be made from fresh raspberries, dry raspberries or raspberry jelly / preserves. It has a pleasant fruity flavor; you can add some sugar as well if you prefer a sweeter taste.

Honey Tea is another good-tasting cold remedy. It is very easy to make, just add a teaspoon or two of honey into a cup of hot water, stir it in, and drink it. This one is in fact backed up by a clinical trial that “has found that honey is more effective at soothing a sore throat than a common active ingredient in children’s cough medicines.” (See Guardian.co.uk, article “Honey Beats Cough Medicine.”)

Another effective natural cold remedy is Basswood Blossom Tea. Basswood tree blossoms in late May – early June. You will need to you pick the blooms, dry them, and store them as you would store regular tea leaves. The tea is made by adding these dry blossoms into boiling hot water. You must drink this tea as hot as you can stand it before going to bed. You will sweat profusely during the night, and the infection goes out with the sweat. Basswood blossom tea is not much different from regular tea, both in color and taste. Adding some sugar will make it even more similar to regular tea.

The next one is not so tasty, but it is very effective. It is Hot Milk; for best results, add a touch of butter and baking soda . The nasty concoction is used for persistent cough, and it works very well. It immediately soothes and softens the throat, reducing that unbearable itching that makes you cough again and again. If you can’t sleep because of a bad cough, warm up a cup of milk, add a small piece of butter in it and 1/4 of a teaspoon of baking soda, mix it all well together and drink it. Minutes later, you would be peacefully asleep.

Another cough treatment is Homemade Inhalations. The procedure is the following: boil water in a pot, add some vegetable oil in it and half a teaspoon of baking soda. The moment soda is added, it starts a strong steaming reaction, and that’s what you are supposed to breathe in, deeply, with your mouth. The reaction does not last long, but some steam will be still coming for a while. These inhalations are to be done daily or as often as needed; they soothe the throat and help to get rid of the infection.