5 Ways to Avoid the “Wook Flu”
If you’re anything like myself a piece of a festival stays with you days after it ended. After 3-4 days of camping, unpredictable weather, little sleep, community bags of wine and loud music, many attendees return home with the dreaded “wook flu.”
Symptoms vary from loss of voice, deep coughs, low levels of serotonin, headaches, over all sense of drowsiness and lack of desire to return to your day job.
In search for the cure, I found that about 90 percent of our serotonin is produced in our bowel system. Think about that … and you wonder why you feel so low after feeling so high at a festival. The answer is in your gut. With festival season stepping into gear, here is a list of homeopathic tricks to keep your immunity and mood lifted before, during and after a festival.
Maybe this year, a t-shirt and great memories will be the only thing you take home.
Water
WATER! WATER! WATER! And I’m not just saying when you wake up hungover, but leading up to the festival and after. It’s easy to forget that water can not only cure but also prevent illness. Try to consciously increase your water intake leading up to the festival. Water is the cure to basically any element, wookery involved or not. Thirst, headaches, extremely yellow pee, constipation, exhaustion and muscle cramps are all signs of needing more water. Please remember that all first aid tents offer free bottled water as well.
Hot Tea and Honey
I could list many different reasons on why tea is good for you. But, I’m not going to go into the physical properties of tea. The comforting warmness goes from your hands down your arms and from your lips to the very pit of your belly when you drink tea. A hot cup of tea with a glob of honey at the end of a long day of being on your feet and screaming your heart out is good for your soul. Period.
Fresh Turmeric
This root plant is of the gods. It can be ingested as well as used topically on cuts and burns. There’s many benefits of turmeric but, it has been included for it’s anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, sleep enhancing and liver detoxifying properties. Just be wary that the orange color lingers. Try it in tea, instant mash potatoes, sandwiches, pasta and whatever else you can think of. Just get it in your system.
Oregano Oil
This is something I have not experimented with yet. But, I’ve noticed a buzz rising around it’s uses. It can be used topically or ingested and is anti-everything. Anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-oxidant, anti-allergenic , anti-parasitic, anti-inflammatory and aids in digestion…WHEW. I ordered a bottle from my DoTerra girl yesterday. I’ll probably start by putting a drop in my water or on some honey. Follow her Facebook page, Grateful Oils Collective, if this stuff sparks your interest. She’s got the hook up.
Amino Acids
These bad boys help your body break down proteins and distribute them in your body. Go ahead, you now have a reason to buy those avocados and accept that up charge for the guacamole. Sunflower seeds, quinoa, celery and nuts are a few other items that are loaded in amino acids as well as easy to eat while camping. Quinoa takes much less time than rice and beans to cook, but it doesn’t keep well for very long. I also suggest using Bragg’s Liquid Aminos. It tastes exactly like soy sauce, is gluten free and non-GMO.
Reminder, the best way to see the benefits of these methods is using them regularly over an extended period of time. Camping festivals can take a toll on your physical health. Take some time to show your body some love. It’s easy.
As for my campsite and I, we will be drinking oregano, turmeric and honey tea. Come find our group camp “YAS QUEEN”, weekend 1 of Electric Forest.
Come have tea with the queens.
Photo by Angel Kimmel at Tipper’s 4321 in 2017.
