Improve your persistent cough

First, all health articles say persistent coughs should not be taken casually but got properly checked up as it can be a symptom of something more serious, for e.g. tuberculosis or even cancer (as we very recently found to our great sorrow). So do get it checked up. Please.

In my mother’s case it was due to the fact that, with increasing age and other problems, she spent almost the entire time lying down, getting up only for her meals. This caused the phlegm to accumulate and no amount of cough syrups or other medication helped on a sustained basis. This had been going on for a few years, and she used to cough and cough and cough.

I gave her tulsi (holy basil) in her morning and evening tea. I got a small pot for my window sill and would pluck a few leaves each day, then wash them well and boil them for a few (say 5) minutes in water. Then made tea, in the usual manner with this water – the leaves would be strained out alongwith the tea leaves. An improvement was visible in a few days and with regular use the cough reduced to next to negligible.

(The above photographs of tulsi have been downloaded by me from the Net, if I have violated any copyright, please let me know and I shall remove them immediately)

Do you have painful menstrual periods?

I know I used to. And I would take the first day off college or work since I dislike taking painkillers. But once I started working in a predominantly male office, the monthly leave made it too obvious, besides exhausting my leave quota. I found a very effective solution.

Start drinking warm water, as hot as can be taken at the first signs of the onset of the period. And continue to do so throughout the day. I not only found the pain became bearable, the intensity of pain reduced over the months.

Feel a stye in the eye coming on, dont panic

Styes in the eye have troubled me for a long long tme.
Then a friend of my father told me to try this:  tie a black thread 7 times around the base of the big toe on the opposite side of the concerned eye, not very loosely, just fitting the toe. It seems that it presses on some nerve. The minute you feel a stye coming on, do this, it stops the emergence of the stye, and the eye is fine again. I've done it for a long time now, and it always works.

vibha