Its that time of year again! Catching a cold can make you feel quite unwell for a few days, but isn't as serious an illness as it can seem to be to you while you are in the midst of it. The old saying "It takes three days to develop a cold, three days to have it, and three days for it to go away," is pretty accurate, so if your cold has lasted longer than around nine days its time to ask your medical advisor for help as it may not be a cold at all.

Flu, on the other hand, can be a serious illness, especially if you are very young, in old age or suffer from respiratory complaints already. There are quite a few different flu viruses, and each behaves differently, so what do you do to avoid catching a cold or flu, and what can you do to relieve the symptoms if you are unlucky enough to get it?

Did you know that your personality affects the way you cope with stressors in your life? Some people cope fine with levels of stress that others would find crippling. Our reactions to stress are partly inborn and partly learned throughout our lifetime. Everyone reacts to stress, it just depends on the level of stress you can handle before symptoms arise. Some people are really quite 'bomb proof' and seem to cope fine with a multitude of stressful situations, but even they will eventually react once the pressure becomes too much for them.