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♪ ‘Tis the season to be merry, not to be sickly ♪ 

I still remember my 11th Christmas like it was yesterday. How else can I forget it when it’s the saddest holiday season that I have ever experienced? The day right after the start of our school’s Christmas vacation, my family and I went to our province in Pangasinan for a family reunion. The moment we got there, we just left some of our things in my grandparents’ house and right after, we headed straight to San Fabian Beach. Although the beach was pretty unsightly (there were lots of floating garbage), us kids still enjoyed our stay there and even bathed the whole day. And since we wanted to make the most out of our vacation, after the trip to the beach, we went to Baguio after a quick dinner by the shore. Oh boy how sick I was after that stint! On our second day in Baguio, my colds were getting worse than cold Baguio. I couldn’t even enjoy my first trip to Baguio because I was so busy looking for tissues when the sneezing bouts came. I also couldn’t enjoy the food because I couldn’t taste a thing! I was so sad that up to this day, I still regret not having to taste all the food that my other cousins enjoyed - they even ate my share of food! (Though in hindsight, I remember winning a 20-peso bet with my cousin. I simply had to finish a cup of ampalaya. It was really easy, with my taste buds not working). Come New Year, my sneezing was coupled with a bad bout of coughing. It was really bad. My colds were as bad as this child’s colds: 

It’s a good thing that I learned from this bad experience (and a good thing that we don’t have video cameras back then to document my poor state). I mean, who would want to experience a Christmas like that, right? This is why from then on, I changed my lifestyle and did my best to boost my body’s immune system. I’m sharing with you my five tips that I’ve always done to help me stay strong and healthy despite the holiday stress:  

The Five C’s To Boost Your Immunity

As the year is coming to an end, and as we welcome the new year to come, it’s just reasonable to forget and learn from all the hardships that we experienced. Instead of counting the losses, count the blessings! Now is not the time to be the Grinch (you had the whole month of November to mourn), but rather, be the source of joy for your own self! There’s so many things to be thankful about so always remember this: YOU ARE TOO BLESSED TO BE STRESSED! 

While it is perfectly normal to be stressed from time to time, prolonged or unrelenting stress can pose detrimental effects to our mental and physical health, and may also weaken our immune system. To avoid being stressed, try having a positive outlook at life. Surround yourself with people who support and encourage you. Quit being the paranoid who overthinks too much and for a change, instead of thinking of all the things that could go wrong, think of all the things that could go right. You can also check out this short guide I’ve made to help you overcome stress:

Thru exercise, our overall fitness improves, which then improves our immune system. Exercising helps our immune system to fight common infections such as colds and flu. But, the thing is, exercising during the holiday season can be pretty tricky. Longer and colder nights mean longer time of snoozing in bed and your schedule could get hectic because of all the Christmas parties you’ll be attending. But as tricky as it may sound, I have an even trickier and simpler way to stay fit this Christmas: contribute in the holiday preparations! 

I don’t know about other family’s holiday traditions but in my family, ‘tis the season to be clean! We clean the house like mad and overly-enthusiastic house-elves (learn about this Harry Potter reference here). This often lasts from 2 to 4 days. We start from dusting every nook and every appliance we have in our house, to throwing away all the accumulated junk over the year, to repainting what needs repainting, to washing ALL that needs washing and finally, to rearranging our furniture for a new look. Imagine just how much sweat you’ll sweat out while scrubbing the floors, wiping windows and carrying things around! This is a great way to welcome the New Year: a clean house minus the frequent sneezing and coughing from dusts and dirt. Cleaning your surroundings boosts your immune system in two ways: ridding of possible causes of allergy and cleaning as a form of exercise.

Participate in your friends’ or relatives’ Christmas caroling! Not only is this a great way of bonding (and showing to the world your hidden talent for singing and making/playing homemade musical instruments) but this is also a good way of burning those fats without you even noticing it! Walking and singing around your neighborhood for at least three hours during the caroling season will really do wonders to your body (and to your pocket)! Hey, maybe you could even add an interpretative dance to the traditional caroling, just for a change (and for some more coins from your friendly neighbor).

Don’t be the typical shopper who only visits the mall when it’s already brimming with a multitude of people! Didn’t you know that joining in on the holiday rush makes you more vulnerable to getting all those disease-causing germs? No matter how good you are at avoiding people (your inaanak included), you’ll surely be squeezed, touched and coughed at by all the other last-minute shoppers. 

Planning ahead for Christmas shopping is your ticket to a stress-free holiday season. Early shoppers get to enjoy discounts while late shoppers are exhausted from endlessly using their tawaran skills. Early shoppers make a list of all the friends and relatives that they should give a gift to while late shoppers often forget to buy a gift for someone once they’re already home from shopping. Early shoppers have more time to wrap their gifts while late shoppers barely even have time to buy gift wrappers. More so, early shoppers shop like they have all the time in the world - they have time to check the quality of the product, to ask about the product, and to look for better options aside from the first product they see. On the other hand, late shoppers shop like it’s the end of the world, they run and push and fight over the cheapest product available (imagine just how much stressed and tired you’ll be!) So, to avoid the armageddon of shoppers, shop early! I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be in the middle of this:

Don’t be the ninong or ninang who is constantly out of reach every December and January but is fast as Flash when invited to a handaan that falls on the months of February to November. If you shop early, not only do you get to avoid the huge crowd of Christmas shoppers (and the huge crowd of germs that you can get) but you also get to buy more affordable gifts for your inaanak! Now, you don’t have to stress over the price and you don’t have to feel guilty over not having something to give to your inaanak again!

Filipinos love food! We love food served alive, food served raw, food served burnt, food served fresh, even food that was fresh months ago (think of bagoong and all the other food na pwedeng iburo). We love American food, Italian food, Spanish food, Mexican food, etc. Heck I’m even pretty sure that we’ll love Martian food if there is one! 

So it’s no wonder that every holiday season, it seems to me that the rules are (1) to be galante and extravagant in preparing holiday dishes and (2) in every handaan, one must stuff himself/herself until way past their tummy’s spilling level to show how great of a cook is your relative or friend.

With our love for food (and love for our relative’s feelings), it is almost nearly impossible to stay healthy and fit during the holiday season, much less so to just maintain your current weight, right? But follow these simple tips and you’re surely on your way to a healthy and stress-free holiday eating! 

Instead of hanging around in the kitchen, while eating the treats you’ve got from your balikbayan friends / relatives, and instead of assigning yourself as the official food taster, why not sweat it out and help in the kitchen for a change? This is a simple trick I employ because I’ve found out that whenever I cook, I don’t have that much appetite to eat the food I’ve cooked. I guess it’s because of the “hiya” factor. I’d want other guests to try my recipe, and not the other way around where I eat what I’ve cooked (it only shows how poor I am at cooking, where it is only I who can appreciate whatever food I’ve concocted). And besides, you’ll be busy answering your guests’ questions (“Wow, sino nagluto nito?”, “Paano ‘to lutuin”, etc) to even have the minute to get your spoon. 

While it’s gonna be so tempting to just order from restaurants and avoid the hassles of buying ingredients and cooking, still, please do not think of those numerous jingles that have forced you to memorize the restaurants’ delivery numbers. Instead, make use of having your relatives around! Make your own healthy recipe (who knows, this may be your ticket to being a restaurant-owner someday), or ask around for your ancestors’ secret recipes! This is a great opportunity for bonding, plus you get to blast away some fats – what with you rushing to the store again and again (I guess we Filipinos can never get all the things we need when in a supermarket, thank goodness we have sari-sari stores). Also, you’ll be sweating out a lot with you looking for that antigo and giant kawali or kaserola that only gets used during big occasions such as Christmas. 

There are only three species under the animal kingdom that can’t produce their own Vitamin C: guinea pigs, monkeys and humans. Sad, isn’t it? Of all the vitamins out there that we can’t produce and store, vitamin C pa talaga.

So isn’t it just amazing that somebody (in the persona of FERN Inc.) thought of making high-quality supplements to make up for our inability to produce Vitamin C? Our answer for our Vitamin C dilemma, and the last C that will complete the 5 tips to boost our immunity is no other than FERN-C! 

What does FERN-C do?

FERN-C is an immune-booster. With it, our body resistance increases and it is more able to fight against infectious diseases like colds and flu. It also helps in hastening wound healing and in keeping our teeth, gums and bones healthy. FERN-C is also a potent antioxidant. As an antioxidant, it fights and neutralizes free radicals which then helps in preventing or delaying free radicals from causing damage to our cells.

I guess you would have noticed by now that FERN-C is sodium ascorbate, and not ascorbic acid which some people are more familiar with. So, why switch to sodium ascorbate?

Sodium ascorbate (FERN-C) is a type of vitamin C that is less acidic than ascorbic acid. This is good news for people with gastrointestinal problems like heart burn (which I unfortunately have) because we can take sodium ascorbate without fear of having stomach upsets. 

Also, sodium ascorbate stays in our body longer (approximately 12 to 14 hours) than ascorbic acid does. Clearly, because of this, sodium ascorbate does more benefits to our body than ascorbic acid does. In addition to this, about 95 percent of sodium ascorbate is absorbed in our blood stream, while only 25 percent of ascorbic acid is absorbed. This obviously makes sodium ascorbate (FERN-C) the more economical choice.

Still skeptic about FERN-C? Well, don’t be! Even if it is the first non-acidic vitamin C in the Philippines (thank you for considering acidic people like me who also needs Vitamin C like all the other people), it has already been in the market for 10 years. It has been tried and tested by the many users and the many award-giving bodies. Take a look for yourself:

With a background like this, I’m pretty sure that you’ll be wanting to have your own supply of FERN-C capsules! Luckily, this is available in leading drugstores, convenience stores and groceries nationwide. You could also visit FERN-C Store Finder to find the nearest store where you can buy FERN-C. For more details, please visit their website at fern-c.com and don’t forget to follow them also on their social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Christmas is perhaps one of the most celebrated holidays. It may be festive, fancy, and colorful but it can also be stressful, especially if you’re an adult. Haha I went to the mall today and boy, I was dead tired after. There were a lot of people! I prefer to do my holiday shopping early. For an OC like me, it can be pretty stressful when and if I have to cram.

When you’re stressed, your immunity can go down and you can be at a high risk for infection. We don’t want to be sick during the holiday, do we? So here are five tips to boost your immunity!

This is very important. This is probably the most basic thing when it comes to boosting our immunity. We need the right amount of nutrients to sustain our daily activities. It’s okay to eat at buffets every once in awhile but always remember to eat healthy food in between. More fruits, vegetables, and white meat, less red meat. Eating too much and too little is not okay. I don’t really approve of those so-called “diets” (trivia: diet is what you eat on a normal basis regardless whether it’s too much or too little. To say you’re “dieting”, well, you’re actually doing that every day haha). Some diets omit or lessen x100000 carbohydrates, protein, or fat. If you don’t get your average daily requirement in one of those three, that’s not really healthy.

Sleeping lets our body do its work of repairing damaged tissues and making us grow, at least for children. (Our body’s growth hormone is more active when we are sleeping. That’s why kids should sleep more :D). We were told in the past that one must get at least 8 hours of sleep per day. However, new studies show that a 6-hour sleep is enough. We need all the energy we can get! We don’t want to be like the walkers roaming around, do we?

Water is life. It can’t be helped that we lose water through urine and sweat, especially in this November-December heat. If we lose too much water, we can get dehydrated. Severe dehydration can lead to shock and then death. :( So try to bring a bottle of water everywhere. Plus points if you use your own bottle! :)

I’m a firm believer of this. Exercising not only keeps our body healthy but also our minds. The benefits of exercise have been told over and over again. It may decrease the risk for coronary artery diseases! It also increases our tolerance to work (and I don’t really mean your job).

Fern-C can help you have a stress-free Christmas! Vitamin C is needed for normal growth and development. It helps prevent diseases such as scurvy. It is also a potent anti-oxidant. This means that it scavenges the free radicals in our body. Okay, nerdy moment right here but I’m not going to dwell on the specifics. You can get these free radicals from eating too much at buffets. :( So, drinking Fern-C can help boost our immune system by fighting these free radicals. But Fern-C isn’t your average ascorbic acid. It’s sodium ascorbate. What does this mean? This means that persons who are hyperacidic and have problems with ascorbic acid can drink this because it is not acidic.

Coming from a food science and medical background, I think I know what I’m talking about. Haha Anyway, these are just tips on how to boost your immunity. I’m sure there are a lot more. It’s just that these worked for me. I hope they work for you, too. :)

For more information, you can visit the Fern-C website here. :) You can also check and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

5 Tips To Boost Your Immunity During The Holidays

Being a law school student, getting sick is one of my biggest worries in life. So much precious time meant for studying and attending class is wasted due to terrible health conditions. People think that it’s okay to push theirselves but they shouldn’t sacrifice their well-being.

They say that health is wealth. This is why I do my best to take good care of my health. Being healthy doesn’t immediately equate to a healthy body. We mustn’t forget to care for our mind and spirit.

Since the holiday season is upon us, Filipinos are more pressured than ever to get things done. Students are frantically fretting over deadlines while the adults are working more diligently to supply their families’ needs for Christmas. These are a few of the reasons why some people tend to overwork and get ill during the holidays.

Although Philippines is a tropical country, the holiday weather can still be unpredictable. The sun’s unforgiving heat could easily change to a chilly breeze at night. Due to the drastic changes of the temperature in addition to the challenges our body has to face in an environment such as the Philippines, it’s easy to be struck with an illness especially when your immune system is low. 

Coming from a family of doctors, I’m taught in a young age that prevention is better than a cure. Keeping your immune system in great condition is important. Pathogens are increasingly resisting the effects of modern medicine so it’s better to build up your immune system than risk getting sick.

Here are 5 tips to boost your immunity during the holidays:

The Villain/s: Excessive consumption of alcohol, sugar, and fat. The Stage: Those three components are hard to remove in a typical Filipino Christmas feast. Filipinos enjoy chugging beer, chowing down on a roasted pig, and feasting on a glorious, mouth-watering dessert. It’s practically a tradition to have at least one of those three things during a Noche Buena. The Superhero: Good news is you can still consume those three, you’ll just have to lower your intake of alcohol, sugar, fat. Moreover, balance your meals properly by eating the right amount of nutrients for your body.

The Villain/s: Inadequate sleep. The Stage: Sleeping is highly important for human beings. Due to the daily difficulties we face in life, whether in work or school, we often face losing time for sleep. Since the holidays are almost around the corner, people often work overtime to provide extra. The Superhero: It’s advisable for young adults (18-25) and adults (26-64) to sleep at least 7 to 9 hours.

The Villain/s: Germs. The Stage: When we don’t wash our hands properly, germs stick on them easily. We use our hands for daily purposes so it’s unavoidable that we get germs at some point in the day. The Superhero: Wash your hands often and use an effective soap that could eliminate germs. Furthermore, bring a hand sanitizer when you leave the house. Upon going out, people risk having a higher chance of encountering germs.

The Villain/s: Stress. The Stage: Stress is inevitable. People get stressed out in a normal basis, but due to the pressure to provide more during the holidays more stress is added.  The Superhero: It’s easy to say to someone to take a chill pill, but is there such thing? No. In order to destress, take time to unwind and relax. Free yourself for a while from stressful thoughts that can possibly add to your pressure. Unwind and do something for yourself.

The Villain/s: Low immune system to begin with. The Stage: Does supplement work? Are herbal remedies effective? Is it safe to take extra precaution like pills? The Superhero: Yes! Supplements like Fern-C are effective. Have a Fern-C in your home. For a healthier version of yourself, try Fern-C. It’s a highly trusted immunity booster that’s bound to show results. Moreover, it also a potent anti-oxidant that increases your body’s resistance to diseases that could harm your body or someone else’s. Fern-C is a sodium ascorbate so it’s better than other ascorbic acid because not only it boosts your immunity, but also it acts as an anti-oxidant and acidity regulator.

Visit Fern-C’s social media accounts to know more!

Fern-C Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fernconline/ Fern-C Twitter: https://twitter.com/FERNCOnline Fern-C Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ferncofficial/