Eucalyptus oil contains eucalyptol, which helps the body to easily break down mucus and phlegm, making it an excellent remedy for a variety of respiratory problems. These include asthma, cough, cold, nasal and chest congestion, runny nose, sore throat, bronchitis, and sinusitis.
Consider the following steps to help eliminate excess mucus and phlegm:
Self-care steps
Peppermint oil is used as a natural decongestant and fever-reducer. It contains menthol, an ingredient found in topical rubs that helps relieve congestion. A 2003 in vitro study demonstrated the viral activity of peppermint oil. Menthol is also used in many cough drops to help soothe sore throats and quiet coughs.
12 natural cough remedies
Drinking enough liquids, especially warm ones can help with mucus flow. Water and other liquids can loosen your congestion by helping your mucus move. Try sipping liquids, like juice, clear broths, and soup. Other good liquid choices include decaffeinated tea, warm fruit juice, and lemon water.
How to Calm Daytime Coughing
If you'd like to get rid of your phlegm, a nice cup of mint, thyme, chamomile or echinacea tea is a good option. Our Echinaforce Hot Drink, with echinacea and elderberry, works wonders against persistent mucus. Just add one teaspoon to a cup of hot water and enjoy!
How to Calm That Cough
Stay hydrated and warm Drinking enough liquids, especially warm ones can help with mucus flow. Water and other liquids can loosen your congestion by helping your mucus move. Try sipping liquids, like juice, clear broths, and soup. Other good liquid choices include decaffeinated tea, warm fruit juice, and lemon water.
What You Can Do at Home
Notably, the flu often produces a dry cough (one that isn't accompanied by mucus), while the common cold tends to produce a wet cough. Achiness – Many people experience slight aches and pains when they have a cold. However, the achiness associated with the flu tends to be much more severe.
How to get rid of excess mucus and phlegm
A cough that produces mucus can sometimes occur in response to irritation from an allergen or irritant. Common culprits include smoke, air pollution, and pollen. Sometimes, however, a cough that produces mucus can signal an acute health condition, such as an upper or lower respiratory infection.
The inhalation of essential oil vapors is not generally dangerous, but very intensive inhalation for more than about 20 minutes may lead to respiratory distress and/or neurological symptoms, such as headache, nausea, burning of eyes and throat, cough, shortness of breath, or slowed breathing in young children.
Eucalyptus essential oil possesses natural anti-microbial agents that kill harmful micro-organisms. The oil has properties such as camphor, germicide properties, scent, making it ideal for fighting germs, infections, and bacteria. To use the oil, you have to inhale with a diffuser and add the oil to warm bathwater.
12 natural cough remedies
How to Help a Cough at Night: Try These Tips
Drinking enough liquids, especially warm ones can help with mucus flow. Water and other liquids can loosen your congestion by helping your mucus move. Try sipping liquids, like juice, clear broths, and soup. Other good liquid choices include decaffeinated tea, warm fruit juice, and lemon water.
Use your stomach muscles to forcefully expel the air. Avoid a hacking cough or merely clearing the throat. A deep cough is less tiring and more effective in clearing mucus out of the lungs. Huff Coughing: Huff coughing, or huffing, is an alternative to deep coughing if you have trouble clearing your mucus.
If you'd like to get rid of your phlegm, a nice cup of mint, thyme, chamomile or echinacea tea is a good option. Our Echinaforce Hot Drink, with echinacea and elderberry, works wonders against persistent mucus. Just add one teaspoon to a cup of hot water and enjoy!
What Foods Can Increase Mucus?
Your doctor may also suggest some self-care steps you can take to help reduce mucus, such as:
Use your stomach muscles to forcefully expel the air. Avoid a hacking cough or merely clearing the throat. A deep cough is less tiring and more effective in clearing mucus out of the lungs. Huff Coughing: Huff coughing, or huffing, is an alternative to deep coughing if you have trouble clearing your mucus.
Ginger can be used as a natural decongestant and antihistamine. Antiviral and antibacterial properties of ginger can help in easing congestion in the chest by drying out excess mucus and stimulating removal of its buildup. Drinking ginger tea for a few times in a day can help in eliminating excess mucus.
Drinking enough liquids, especially warm ones can help with mucus flow. Water and other liquids can loosen your congestion by helping your mucus move. Try sipping liquids, like juice, clear broths, and soup. Other good liquid choices include decaffeinated tea, warm fruit juice, and lemon water.
Toxicologist Ron Kirschner, MD, also warns of their danger. "Ingesting essential oils like camphor, eucalyptus oil, tea tree oil or pine oil has been associated with changes in mental states and seizures. Ingesting lavender oil can cause severe allergic reactions and pennyroyal oil can give you toxic liver damage."
Essential Oils for Respiratory Health
Essential Oils for Respiratory Health
Lemongrass oil is another essential oil shown to have antibacterial properties. In one study , researchers found that can be lemongrass extract was effective against Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus cereus, and it could be used to create antimicrobial drugs for treating bacterial infections.
While there's no instant fix for coughing up mucus at night, you can take steps to improve your symptoms.
A humidifier can add some much-needed moisture back into the air, helping you breathe more easily during the night. The moist air can also help loosen any nasal or chest congestion, which will also ease coughing at night. If you haven't got a humidifier, try having a hot shower before bed and breathing in the steam.
Gravity The number one factor that makes your cough worse at night is simple: gravity. Mitchell Blass, MD, a physician with Georgia Infectious Diseases, says, “When we lie down, mucus automatically begins to pool.” The best way to counteract this gravitational pull is elevation.
Natural Cough Remedies
Expectorants, such as guaifenesin (Mucinex, Robitussin) can thin and loosen mucus so it will clear out of your throat and chest. Prescription medications. Mucolytics, such as hypertonic saline (Nebusal) and dornase alfa (Pulmozyme) are mucus thinners that you inhale through a nebulizer.
The airways of the throat and lungs also produce mucus. And the body makes even more mucus when we're reacting to an allergy or have a cold or infection. If you're coughing up mucus, it's an indication that you have an irritation or possible infection in your respiratory tract.
Use your stomach muscles to forcefully expel the air. Avoid a hacking cough or merely clearing the throat. A deep cough is less tiring and more effective in clearing mucus out of the lungs. Huff Coughing: Huff coughing, or huffing, is an alternative to deep coughing if you have trouble clearing your mucus.
Drinking enough liquids, especially warm ones can help with mucus flow. Water and other liquids can loosen your congestion by helping your mucus move. Try sipping liquids, like juice, clear broths, and soup. Other good liquid choices include decaffeinated tea, warm fruit juice, and lemon water.
An infection can make mucus thicker and stickier. Infections also lead to inflammation in the mucous membranes that line the nose and the rest of your airway. This can cause certain airway glands to make more mucus. That mucus can get thick with bacteria and cells that arrive to fight the infection.
Drinking enough liquids, especially warm ones can help with mucus flow. Water and other liquids can loosen your congestion by helping your mucus move. Try sipping liquids, like juice, clear broths, and soup. Other good liquid choices include decaffeinated tea, warm fruit juice, and lemon water.
In the meantime, if you've just started hacking, you can try to soothe your throat with these remedies.
Consider the following steps to help eliminate excess mucus and phlegm:
Clear or white mucus often indicates a viral infection, while yellow or green mucus may suggest a bacterial infection. The biggest difference between viral and bacterial bronchitis is treatment, as antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections don't kill viruses.
Blending essential oils by fragrance