immune
Health benefits of floral teas: 10 blends you can try
Tea is a versatile beverage that can be combined with diverse ingredients, like flower petals. Floral teas made of dried or fresh flower petals are refreshing, healthy, tasty, relaxing, and aromatic. Flower tea blends are delightfully flavorful. For centuries, tea enthusiasts have loved flower blends as medicinal beverages. Here are 10 best flower tea blends.
10 Refreshing Floral Tea Recipes for Healthy Mind and Body
Jasmine Tea
Ingredients
2 teaspoons of dried jasmine flowers (food-grade), 1 cup of hot water, and ½ teaspoon of sugar and milk (optional).
Instructions
First, boil water in a tea kettle. Pour the hot water into a mug and then put the jasmine flower tea in the mug. Use a lid to cover the mug and let it steep for 2-4 minutes. After 3-4 minutes keep away the flowers and enjoy.
Health Benefits
Beyond the calming and relaxing power, jasmine tea improves cognitive health, digestive system, and immunity of the body. This tea is rich in antioxidants and fights inflammation.
Read more: These are the 10 Most Expensive Teas in the World
Butterfly Pea Flower (Blue) Tea
Ingredients
8-10 butterfly pea flowers (fresh or dry), 2 cups of water, 2 teaspoons of honey, and 1/2 lemon.
Instructions
First, clean the butterfly pea flower. Then boil water in a pot with the flowers. Turn off the stove after boiling for 5-6 minutes. Cover the pot and keep it resting for 15 minutes. Now take a mug, put honey, and strain the tea. Mix well. Finally, add lemon juice, and stir. Now, enjoy the amazing healthy butterfly pea flower (blue) tea.
Health Benefits
Butterfly pea flower tea improves the health of skin and hair. This blue tea promotes weight loss. It also helps in blood sugar control.
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Hibiscus Tea
Ingredients
3-4 hibiscus flowers (fresh), 1 lemon, 1-2 Ice cubes, and 1 cup of water.
Instructions
First, wash the flowers, separate the petals, and clean them properly. Then take a pot and boil water for 2-3 minutes. Now put the washed and cleaned flowers in the hot water. Remove from the heat and keep resting, covering the pot for about 12 minutes. Finally, strain, add lemon juice, stir, and enjoy the heat. You can also enjoy the cold by adding ice cubes.
Health Benefits
This antioxidant enriched tea helps to reduce inflammation. This red tea helps to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. It aids in weight loss. It also checks bacteria contamination in the body. Moreover, Hibiscus tea is good for liver health.
Read more: How to Start a Tea Stall Business in Bangladesh?
Rose Tea
Ingredients
2 tablespoons of rose syrup, tea leaves (as required), milk (as required), and 2 cups of water.
Instructions
First, wash the flower petals. Then boil water with tea leaves for 5-6 minutes. Then strain and pour tea in a cup or mug. After that add milk, and rose syrup to the boiled tea. Now, enjoy fresh and soothing rose tea.
Health Benefits
Rose tea has antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. It can fight anxiety, and improve digestive power. Rose tea can also soothe cramps and inflammations in the body.
Read more: Matcha Green Tea Health Benefits
Concoction Tea
Ingredients
1 bottle of Sprite, 2 tbsp of dry hibiscus flower, 2 tbsp of sugar, 2-3 tbsp of butterfly pea flower, 2 tsp of lemon juice, 1 tbsp of sugar, 2 cups hot of water, and 4 to 5 mint leaves.
Instructions
First, wash the dried hibiscus flowers and butterfly Pea flowers in normal water. Then strain and freeze the flower petals in a plastic container. Freeze the sprite also. Now prepare the lemon juice.
Take out the frozen petals and Sprite. Mash the frozen flower petals and put it in a glass. Now, add lemon juice, and sugar to the crushed flower blend. Afterward, add the bottle of cool Sprite to the glass. Finally, garnish the floral tea with mint leaves. Now, drink!
Health Benefits
Consuming this tea, you can get the combined health benefits of hibiscus flowers and butterfly pea flowers.
Read more: Top 10 Most Expensive Coffees in the World
1 year ago
Cold Remedies: Best, worst drinks to boost immune, fight sickness
When you are sick or suffering from a cold, you must be conscious about the drinks you usually take. It is true that you need to take plenty of fluids as your body needs extra hydration when you are trying to get well. But what, exactly, should you drink? Some drinks are excellent to ease symptoms while others may make them worse. Keep these tips in mind when you are picking what to drink to combat colds and sickness.
Best Drinks to Fight Colds, Sickness
Decaf tea
Vitamins and Minerals
Unsweetened, decaffeinated, instant, tea contains iron, calcium, and potassium.
Health Benefits
This caffeine-free tea has health benefits including the prevention of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and free radical aging.
The heat of the decaffeinated tea can soothe sore throats, stuffy noses, chest congestion, and upset stomachs. Besides, a warm cup of tea can comfort you when you’re feeling rough. This tea has less caffeine than coffee. Therefore, you can get calm wakefulness and more health benefits.
Tea with herbs such as ginger can boost your immune system. If you want to get extra benefits, you can add a small dollop of honey to your cup to calm a cough and help you sleep.
Read How to strengthen your immune system to prevent COVID-19 infections?
Lemon water
Vitamins and Mineral
Lemon water contains vitamins and minerals such as potassium, folate, and some B vitamins.
Health Benefits
Lemon water is a great source of vitamin C that helps fight free radicals, reduce inflammation, and improve white blood cell counts. Warm lemon water works magically to heal a sore throat. It supplies a healthy dose of vitamin C that eases colds and coughs. It helps you stay hydrated. Most of us don't drink enough water during sickness. It has some other benefits, like:
- Aids in digestion. The acid helps break down food.
- Helps Weight-loss.
- Prevents oxidation.
- Provides a potassium boost.
- Helps prevent kidney stones.
Read 10 Healthy Bedtime Teas for Better Sleep, Relaxation
Bone Broth
Vitamins & Minerals
Bone marrow is enriched with Vitamins like A, B2, B12, and E, omega-3s, omega-6s, and minerals like calcium, iron, selenium, and zinc. It has connective tissue that provides glucosamine and chondroitin, a popular dietary supplement for arthritis and joint pain.
Health Benefits
Bone broth is related to collagen which is a structural protein found in skin, cartilage, and bone. Studies have shown that broth can help clear nasal passages and ease symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections. It May support immune function. The other benefits are as follows:
- The broth is good for digestion and gut health.
- May support joint health.
- May help promote sleep.
Read How to fight sugar cravings with healthy foods, drinks
Coconut water
Vitamins & Minerals
Coconut water naturally contains some nutrients like the B vitamins Riboflavin (B2), Niacin (B3), pantothenic acid, folic acid, biotin, as well as trace amounts of thiamin (B1), Vitamin C, potassium, and sodium.
Health Benefits
Coconut Water has antioxidant properties and helps lower blood sugar for those who live with diabetes. Besides, it is great to prevent kidney stones and support heart health. Besides, it helps to regulate fluid balance, prevent dehydration, and even ensure proper muscle function. Its vitamin C helps to fight coldness.
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Golden milk
Vitamins & Minerals
This healthy drink is rich in protein, Antioxidants, Curcumin, Magnesium, Calcium.
Health Benefits
Most importantly, it boosts your immune system. If you drink warm, it can ease a sore throat and minimize cold.
Golden milk has the potential to lower cholesterol, reduce blood sugar, relieve arthritis, reduce inflammation, improve mood, support liver function, and improve digestion. It is also great to prevent heart diseases and reduce the risk of cancer.
Read Upset Stomach Remedies: What to eat, drink and avoid
Orange, grapefruit, and other citrus
Vitamins & Minerals
You can get potassium, vitamin A, vitamin B-6, B- 9 (folate) vitamin C and Zinc from the oranges, vitamin A from grapefruit, and vitamin C from all the citrus fruits.
Health Benefits
Drinking this citrus explosion, you will find more than enough of your daily recommended intake of vitamin C which has antioxidant properties to protect your cells from substances that damage the body. Remember, deficiency of vitamin C can lead to delayed wound healing and the inability to fight infections like colds and sickness properly.
However, if you have a cold, you need high doses of vitamin C so that you can experience less severe symptoms and a quicker recovery.
Read Ways to Purify Water during Flood, Disaster, Emergency Situations
Tomato
Vitamins & Minerals
Tomatoes are packed with Magnesium, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin B-6, vitamin B-9 (folate), vitamin C and vitamin K.
Health Benefits
Vitamin C from tomatoes can help you relieve a cold and runny nose. Tomatoes are packed with vitamin B-9- folate that helps lower your risk of infections. Tomatoes also have modest amounts of magnesium which is an anti-inflammatory.
Moreover, Tomatoes have many health benefits such as the reduced risk of heart disease and cancer.
Read Coronavirus Tips: Immunity Booster Herbal Teas to Prevent Infection
Watermelon Mint
Vitamins & Minerals
This drink can supply your body with arginine, citrulline, magnesium, vitamin A, vitamin C
Health Benefits
As watermelon is riched with vitamin C and arginine, they are great to bolster your immune system. Besides, watermelon helps relieve muscle soreness which is a common symptom of the flu. Muscle soreness happens especially in older adults.
Read Healthy, Delicious Mango Recipes to Try this Summer
Worst Drinks to Fight Colds, Sickness
Coffee
Caffeine can have a diuretic effect that can cause you to tinkle more frequently. If you don’t balance with plenty of water, this caffeine can lead to dehydration. Therefore, it would be wise to avoid beverages with added sugar or caffeine when you are sick
Alcohol
You should not drink Alcohol when you are sick.
However, certain alcoholic beverages like hot toddies may work as immune-boosters. Hot toddies contain lemon, honey, and anti-inflammatory spices.
Read Rainy Day Homemade Snacks Ideas, Recipes to Enjoy with Family
Sports drinks
You can take electrolyte drinks if you are very dehydrated. But during colds and sickness, these drinks may not help you feel better. Usually, sports drinks contain a lot of sugar whereas other drinks will help you hydrate without the extra sweet stuff.
Fruit juices
Fruit juice is great but like sports drinks, fruit juice is also filled with added sugar. The adults can avoid sweetened fruit juices during colds. But it is good for children.
Read Healthy Salad Ideas with Recipes to Try at Home
2 years ago
How to strengthen your immune system to prevent COVID-19 infections?
With the recent surge of coronavirus infections, conscious people are seeking all the possible ways to boost immunity. Although vaccines are available, the whole world wouldn't be vaccinated overnight. It will take years to vaccinate the seven billion people. And for third-world countries, vaccination could be a rare thing. Hence, defending COVID-19 with our body's immune system will be the only way to survive. Strengthening your immune to prevent COVID-19 is collective and long-term work. One cannot simply gain the immune right away. However, you can gradually achieve the proper immune system through a healthy lifestyle and physical activity.
Read Vitamin C: Where to Found and How Much to Consume
Boost your Immune through Practicing Healthy Lifestyle
Having a proper sleep, taking nutritious meals, and leading a stress-free lifestyle can definitively raise the functionality of your immune system.
Getting quality sleep is a significant health behavior to function the immune system properly, which also works on boosting physical and mental health as well as the quality of life. According to the experts and doctors getting more than seven hours of sleep is essential to make your adult body's metabolism work suitably. However, 11-14 hours of sleep for infants or toddlers, 10-13 hours for preschoolers, 9-12 hours for school-going kids, and 8-10 hours for the teens are necessary.
Also read: Covid-19: Bangladesh breaks records with 7,213 daily cases, 66 deaths
With the surge of COVID-19, our stress level is also getting high accordingly. It is normal to get stress during this global pandemic. But, staying stress-free is highly essential to keep your body fit. For a stress-free lifestyle, you can take healthy meals, practice regular exercise, take self-care and maintain COVID-19 health protocols. Each of these behaviors is connected to our stress-free lifestyle.
Increase Immune System with physical activity and exercise
A mild, intense physical activity is connected with a better immune function. Hence you should continue regular physical activity to increase your immune system. However, physical activity can be in many forms, which you can practice for the wellbeing of your health.
The first thing you can do is keep your body moving. It can be any kind of intense aerobic physical activity. Experts recommend having moderate exercise at least 150-300 minutes per week. This can keep your body's metabolism on track.
Read Easy Homemade Summer Drinks to Beat the Heat and Increase Immunity
If you are unable to do aerobics activity, you can try indoor activities. It can be walking briskly in the house or even up and down the stairs every day for 10-15 minutes for 2 or 3 times. Besides, you may also dance with your favorite music, or exercise on home cardio machines, or even you can try jump rope.
If you can go outside of your home, you can also walk or run on the f roads. Though you cannot go outside of your house, working out at home should be okay. Outdoor activities are way more useful than indoor activities. Nevertheless, if you are going out, you should keep in mind that you will need to stay at least 6 feet away from others.
Read Coronavirus Tips: Immunity Booster Herbal Teas to Prevent Infection
Furthermore, regular physical exercise at home will also work. You can download a workout app on your smartphone and follow that to start your physical exercise at home.
Yoga is another way to keep your body moving. Deep breathing, along with mindfulness, works as a catalyst to reduce anxiety. Therefore, your stress level will definitely reduce through yoga. You try watching a yoga video with instructions to start yoga at home.
Take Food to Enhance the Immunity
All your exercise will not work if you don't take proper nutrition. Even though you don't exercise, you need nutrients to strengthen the body's immunity during the COVID-19. You can take the nutrients from natural resources such as fruits and vegetables.
Read Where to Buy Grocery Online in Dhaka during Quarantine?
Vitamin C is the ultimate shield against the coronavirus and any bacteria. You can get Vitamin C on green fruits and vegetables such as grapefruit, lemon, broccoli, bell peppers, green peppers, etc.
Vitamin D is also essential to fight off any infections. Besides, it can work on building strong bones. You can find Vitamin D on mushrooms, cereals, bread, and fortified milk. However, if you want to take Vitamin D via a natural source, you can stay under the sunlight for 5-10 minutes every day.
Vitamin A keeps your skin and tissue healthy which also works against infections and boosts the immune system. Sweet potatoes, spinach, carrots are the common sources of Vitamin A.
Also read: Safe Lifestyle in COVID-19 Lockdown: Do's, Don'ts, and Precautions
Vitamin E is another vital element for your body's immune system. It is an essential antioxidant that works in fighting against cell damages. Plant-based foods are a great source of Vitamin E. Commonly, nuts and peanut butter are usual sources to get Vitamin E.
Finally, Zinc is one of the essential antioxidants for COVID-19 patients as well as healthy persons. It increases the metabolism that also boosts the healing process. You can find Zinc on shellfish, beans, meat, and seeds/nuts.
Apart from these natural sources, you can also take supplements as we may not buy these foods always. Vitamin supplements are available over the counter, so you don't need prescriptions to buy those. But it is recommended to take advice from medical practitioners or doctors.
Read Honey Benefits: What Happens to Your Body When You Consume Honey
Limitations of Immune System Against COVID-19
It is essential to keep in mind that the strong immune system will not work to prevent you from getting COVID-19. It can just help you to recover quickly if you ever contract coronavirus. So, if you have a strong immune system, coronavirus may not damage your body parts.
Final Words
It is always good to maintain COVID-19 health safety protocols such as wearing a mask, keeping social distance, washing your hands frequently, maintaining good hygiene, and cough etiquette.
There is a saying that "prevention is better than cure," which everyone should follow during this coronavirus global pandemic. New variations of COVID-19 do not have a significantly proven cure yet. But we can prevent it or even fight it by strengthening our immune system.
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3 years ago
Mexican governor says poor are 'immune' to coronavirus
The governor of a state in central Mexico is arguing that the poor are "immune" to the new coronavirus, even as the federal government suspends all nonessential government activities beginning Thursday in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus.
4 years ago
NCC cleaners ‘immune’ to health hazards
They clean wastes and garbage to keep the city clean and hygienic without using any protective gears, exposing themselves to various contagious diseases.
Some of the cleaners claim they are “immune to any health hazards associated with the job” but experts say they are at risk of contracting diseases such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and even AIDS.
There are 912 cleaners working under the Narayanganj City Corporation (NCC). Besides, more than 100 cleaners are employed through 12 NGOs to collect wastes from houses.
Besides, several hundred day-labourers clean the sewerage system of the city during Eid and work on daily-wage basis at different times.
These workers under the NCC collect garbage from different places and dump them at designated spots. But no-one of them use any protective gear provided by NCC.
“They collect wastes and garbage without wearing gloves, boots, or masks. The garbage includes rotten vegetables, dead animals, and even entrails of chicken, cattle and goats,” a municipality official said.
The scenario in two hospitals is also serious. The hospital staff openly clean medical wastes, which is dangerous to human health, without using masks and dump them at designated sites.
Medical wastes include syringes, needles, blood, cotton with pus, tumours, bandage-gauze, hand gloves, medicines and medicine bottles, saline and other chemicals.
“Garbage is always risky. It’s extremely risky if the garbage is removed without any protective measure,” said NCC Medical Officer Sheikh Mustafa Ali.
“But the cleaners aren’t aware that they’re at severe risk and they’re not taking it seriously,” he added.
The cleaners refused to talk to the UNB correspondent.
One of them, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “We’ve been doing this work for years. We always work barefoot, collect wastes with our bare-hands and without masks. Nothing happens to us. We don’t need protective gears.”
Alamgir Hossain Hiron, Conservancy Officer of NCC, said they provide the cleaners with gloves, masks, shoes and even raincoats. “They sell those instead of using them,” he said.
“We repeatedly tell them (about health hazards at work) but our words are ignored. The situation has improved. Nowadays many staff are aware of the dangers and use protective gears,” Hiron said.
5 years ago