Chicken Soup For The Cold

As much as I like to enjoy myself over the festive season, I always end up feeling worse off during the first week or so in January. I would probably bet that over the last four or five years I've managed to run my body down into a cold every year; I never learn of course. Restless nights, then struggling to get up in the morning, and I always need to get up in order to either go to work, or get Uni work done. I wasn't surprised to see picture in the Guardian yesterday of empty streets and offices in London, a direct result of the first sick days of the year being taken, and Scilly was no different.


According to my Dad the town hall was nothing but a ghostly cavern, devoid of the electronic hum of computer monitors and clicking keyboards. I'm sure some of these absences, here and in the capital are absolutely genuine, but after having plenty of relaxing time off over Christmas and New Year, it can often be hard to drag oneself back into the working routine, especially when you only have January to look forward too. It's possibly my least favourite month of the year. It's always cold, it's long, and still too close to the winter equinox that there is no significantly obvious change to the length of the days, in fact the it doesn't stay light any later in the day, it just gets lighter earlier. Not much use when you're still sleeping - mind you I guess the farmers will be a bit happier for it.

My one consoling January fact? It's National Soup Month in America. Maybe if they eat more soup and less steroid pumped cows they might be able to lose some weight. Mind you I expect their soup probably has chips and jam in it.

Well I might join our American bosom buddies and have some chicken soup for lunch, after all if the Ancient Egyptians thought it could cure colds, then maybe they were onto something. The actual scientific proof of chicken soup helping colds is pretty thin on the ground; a study did suggest that the nutrients and vitamins often contained in chicken soup might help slow the activity of white blood cells, which would act as an anti-inflammatory, hypothetically leading to a temporary ease from illness. However, any likely benefit from soup in general probably comes from steam from the soup getting into the nasal passages and acting as a natural decongestant.

That's good enough for me though, I'm in danger of inhaling my keyboard at the rate that I'm sniffing. Stay healthy, eat soup.