by Jedd Ferris

It’s coming. The annual battle that your immune system fears is right around the corner. According to Web M.D., 62 million Americans get a cold each year, and everyone knows dreaded symptoms like a headache, fever, congestion, or scratchy throat can certainly put a damper on your mountain high. So what’s the best way to take up arms against the germs that will put you under the weather? Here’s a breakdown of the some of the best preventative measures to keep you healthy through the winter months.

Exercise Often: Regular cardiovascular exercise enhances your immune system, which will make your body better at fighting off illness. Some doctors say you don’t have to change your exercise regimen if you come down with a cold, but it’s important to cut back. “I run and bike quite often, and unless I’m getting a significant fever or cough I try not to alter my exercise,” says Dr. Jeff Graham, a sports medicine fellow at Mountain Area Health Education Center in Asheville, N.C. “You can generally run through a mild upper respiratory infection. I would back off a little, because your baseline energy requirement is going to be higher when you’re sick.”

It’s important to avoid exercise if you have a fever, because you can have an increased strain on your cardio-pulmonary system due to increased temperature. Increasing your body temperature even further will likely make the fever increase.

“A lot of it is common sense,” says Graham. “People can usually feel if they’re up to exercise, and they need to listen to their bodies.”

Pills and Herbs: Scoping out the vitamins and herbs at your local health food store can be head-spinning, but supplements are also an important part of staying healthy. If you feel like you’ve been exposed to an illness, pop some extra Vitamin C-even up to four grams in a day.

“Vitamin C is a safe water-soluble antioxidant, because your body is efficient at absorbing it and getting rid of the excess quickly,” says Graham.

Vitamin E is another immune booster, but it should be taken in moderate doses-just one 400 international unit tablet a day. Zinc has also been shown to shorten the symptoms of a cold.

If you just can’t bring yourself to regularly swallow a pill, a new trend that has been storming the health-nut world is Emer’gen-C packets. Containing a fizzling powder that mixes in water, the packets pack 1,000 mg of Vitamin C, a variety of additional mineral electrolytes, and additional supplements, including eight times as much potassium as Gatorade. It’s basically like a multi-vitamin Kool-Aid, but with minimal or no sweeteners, so it doesn’t always taste great.

Rich More of Waynesboro, Va., swears by them. “When I’m feeling slightly under the weather, it usually only takes a couple of packets to knock it out,” he says.

For stuffiness, Dr. George Guess of Classical Homeopathic Medicine in Charlottesville, Va., recommends Fenu-Thyme, a supplement that combines the seed Fenugreek and the leaf Thyme, as well as some other immune-enhancing herbs such as Cat’s Claw and Olive Leaf Extract. If mucus is infected and turns green, he also says it’s a good idea to add the herb goldenseal, which has immune-stimulating and antibacterial properties. Some of these herbs come in teas, which can also have a soothing effect on symptoms.

The Echinacea Debate: Despite its popularity, echinachea has not been scientifically proven to have a significant effect on strengthening the immune system, argue many docs.

“I think it has a good placebo effect for a lot of people,” Graham continues. “But I can say confidently that it doesn’t do enough enhancing to fight off a virus.”

Guess disagrees. He says echinacea can be useful, especially in larger doses. In Germany over 1.3 million echinacea prescriptions are written for minor respiratory infections each year.

“People often don’t take enough,” says Guess. “I’ve had patients abruptly terminate infection with a whopping high dose of echinacea. I see it enough to make me a believer.”

He also says an option is to switch to Echinacea Purpurea, as opposed to the more commonly used Augustifolia, as the different plant species might hold a higher efficacy for different people.

Germ Squirm: It never fails in the winter months. The guy at the next desk is sneezing and snotty, and you’ve got a big date this weekend. What to do? “Wash your hands!” says Graham. “I can’t stress this enough. That’s going to do the most to prevent the spread of disease, especially when it’s cold outside, and we all move indoors to get on the treadmill.”

Commoncold.org also recommends keeping fingers out of the eyes and nose and, obviously, trying to avoid having cold sufferers cough and sneeze on you or in your direction.

Weather does not have a direct effect on catching a cold, as it is a virus that you need to be exposed to. However, during the winter, people tend to spend more time indoors, where viruses spread more easily.

Colorful Diet: To stay healthy it’s also important to step it up nutritionally. A good rule of thumb is to eat colorfully. The more colorful foods-like fruits and vegetables-are rich in antioxidants and could spare you from a bug. Any kind of citrus fruit will be beneficial as well as the reds like tomatoes and peppers and greens such as spinach and broccoli. If you can’t shake your meat and potato habits, at least include some orange or pineapple juice. Extra fluids are also important during sniffles season. Your body increases its metabolic rate when fighting a virus, so you’re losing water constantly.