Healing Colds By Proper Diet by Paramhansa Yogananda
East-West, May 1932
When you catch cold, fast for two days. Remember that during a cold the extra poisons of your body are being thrown off. If you add more food to your system, you help to obstruct the poison-eliminating system of Nature by clogging up the circulation with extra food chemicals.
If you cannot bear up under a complete fast, eat apples or pears or grapes, but refrain from eating acid fruits. Do not eat anything at night. Do not drink hot or cold water. Drink only two glasses of tepid warm water daily. I do not believe that to drink too much water during a cold is good, for the extra water taken comes out constantly through the mucous membrane, making the nose run too much, and causing irritation and accumulation of pus there. Fasting during a cold is very good, for it helps Nature to affect her own cure without interruption from any source. It is very good to use some laxative suitable to your system at the beginning of a cold.
A good four-hour sun-bath with the rays of the sun falling directly on the epidermis of the body has been known to cure a cold in one day. Sensitive skinned people should protect their skins by smearing olive oil, or something similar, over their bodies before taking a sun-bath. The best hours for sun-baths are between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
(“HOW TO TAKE AWAY CHEST COLDS BY A DRUGLESS METHOD” will be discussed in the next issue of “East-West.”)
Yogi Drugless Method of Scientific Digest Curing Chest Colds
(Author uncertain, East-West, February 1933)
Take this treatment immediately before retiring: Wring a Turkish bath towel out of very hot water. With the Latest Scientific Discovery on Age of damp, hot towel, rub throat and chest Creation until the pores are open and the towel gets cold. Then wipe with a dry towel. Repeat this five times. Then, with the towel prepared as above, rub and wipe abdomen, back of chest, and hands and feet, four times. Put feet in hot water, as hot as you can stand. Then wipe your whole body with a dry Turkish towel. Get into bed and cover up with plenty of warm blankets. Repeat this every night until chest cold is gone.
Drink fruit juices (natural temperature, not cold) in the morning. Eat plenty of lettuce at your heaviest meal, which should be at noon. Eat fruit and ground nuts at night. Don’t drink or eat anything just before going to bed. Be very strict in observing the laws of continence.
Opening the pores of the body allows the unbalanced heat in it to pass through the skin surface. This extra heat, unless it is let out, passes through the mucous membrane of throat and lungs and causes ulcers and pus formations.
