School is going great, the work load is at a moderate pace, and your grades are in a good spot. Then one morning you wake up with a throbbing head, runny nose, and a sore throat; how did this happen? Well, with flu season coming around the corner it’s time for prevention techniques to begin.

1. Class is Sooo Boring

You are in your Language Arts class listening to a lecture on how to annotate the Odyssey. Slowly, your hand drifts up to meet your face in an attempt to not fall asleep. We all know not to touch our face before washing our hands to avoid germs; however, rubbing your eyes, covering your mouth to yawn, and chewing on your finger nails are an easy way to contract an illness. Here are few recommendations. First, rub your eyes with a sleeve of a shirt or your arm. Second, keep your finger nails short, dirt and grime can accumulate under long finger nails making them a great place for bacteria to thrive. Finally, cover your yawn with a book or paper. Remember its better to be tired than sick and tired, sleep can made up with a simple half hour nap, makeup work can’t.

2. Where is the Tissue Box?

After being sick for the entire weekend you are now beginning to get over your illness. Suddenly, in the middle of study hall you feel an itch in your nose and tickle in your throat. The itch spreads to your entire face, oh no, you’re going to sneeze! You frantically look around for a tissue box, but your teacher doesn’t have any! Your eyes are now watering from the horrible nose burn, its coming, what do you do? Your right arm and sleeve come to the rescue right as your face wrinkles up to explode an army of germs.

The CDC states that a sneeze can move at nearly 100 mph and go as far as thirty feet. That means if you are sitting in the back of the classroom and sneeze without covering, the front of the room will be hit in less than a second. If the room is drafty, the microbes will swirl around the room until they are expelled outside or inhaled by your classmates.

Now what about that tickle in your throat? Well coughing is just about as bad as sneezing. The CDC stated, “People with influenza can spread it to others up to about 6 feet away. Most experts think that flu viruses are spread mainly by droplets made when people with flu cough, sneeze or talk. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs.” Therefore, covering your cough is just as critical as covering your sneeze.

Photo via Wikipedia under the Creative Commons license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_prevention

3. I’m Afraid of Shots

Here is the deal with flu shots. Scientists researched what appears to be the most common strains of influenza viruses. The viruses in a vaccine are normally dead, this is so that your immune system recognizes the unknown form in your body and begins to create antibodies to fight against it. That means if a living virus entered your body and was of that strain, the antibodies will kill it very quickly. However, a flu shot doesn’t provide a 100% guarantee that you won”t get sick; there are other strains of the virus that are unknown or rare. This means it is possible for you to still catch the flu.

Now if you are deathly afraid of shots, there is a simple, painless solution. Nasal vaccinations are quick and painless, just a snort of mist in each nostril and you are finished. These are just as reliable and safe as getting a shot, but hurry to get yours, doctors offices normally run out of these quick.

4.I Have to Go to School

The worst part about being sick is getting behind in school. It may take two weeks to get fully caught up from missing two days of school. However, the worst thing you can do is actually go to school while you’re sick.

First, going to school while you are sick puts others at risk of catching it; we all know that when one person gets sick, it’s a school wide epidemic. This may not benefit your self interest, but here’s something that will. You need rest, lots of rest, in order to get better faster. Going to school requires a large amount of energy to pay attention or focus on a test. Therefore, this will prolong your illness making you prone to infections which could make it even worse.

So next time you wake up Wednesday morning with aches, a stuffy nose, and a dizzy head, go back to sleep or put up your feet and watch a couple movies. Try to email your teachers to see if you can make up any work so you don’t get to far behind. Remember, it is very hard to makeup school work while getting over a sickness. Setting aside 20 seconds to wash your hands could mean the difference.