The 30 Day #BeatTheFlu challenge with A.Vogel

As many of you may know, I have been participating in A.Vogel’s 30 Day #BeatTheFlu Challenge along with several other Canadian bloggers this past month. The challenge involved taking the Echinaforce tincture and hot drink daily as recommended on the bottle. I have just wrapped up the challenge and wanted to fill you all in on how it went!

Due to my work, I am in contact with germs on a daily basis. Combine that with two children in school and daycare it is incredibly hard to avoid germs during the winter months!

When we were little, we had a little dropper of Echinacea and we would place several drops under our tongue to help fight off colds and the flu during the winter months. So many people I knew swore by it. I had stopped using the drops by the time I was in high school (the good ole days of being invincible, right?!).

So I was ready to start building up my immune system along with my own personal goal of eating healthier and increasing my physical activity. The A.Vogel challenge could not have come at a better time for me. February to March are definitely harder hit months at work where the majority of people are off sick. Last year I was off several times during that time period due to frequent colds and chest infections.

I liked how easy it was to take the Echinaforce drops. I could add it to my water before I headed out the door and would drink it on my way to work. I never really like the taste of adding it under my tongue as a child (nor could I find the time to take the amount of required drops) so it was perfect for our on the go lifestyle to take it with me. It added only the slightest taste difference to the water (at times I could not even notice it) but it wasn’t unpleasant.

The hot drink tasted really good – hard to describe the actual taste but was quite pleasant. I had no trouble having my drink at night! It felt like I was having a normal cup of warm tea at night to relax before bed.

So the final results?

I did have a mild chest cold during the month (along with the dreaded gastro bug!) but I also found that it was not as bad (no sleeping upright because I could not breathe from coughing or nose running so badly that I have tissues stuck in my nose all night!). Echinacea has been widely used for the treatment and relief of cold symptoms, sore throats and coughs. While it did not stop my cold nor prevent it definitely lessened the typical severity of my colds and the symptoms that accompany the typical cold. I was also eating healthier and exercising more as well which has definitely helped my overall health and immunity!

Do you have any great tips and tricks to help #BeatTheFlu? Any home remedies?

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned product for free in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own. As always before starting any natural remedies check with your family doctor especially if you are on daily medications!