Wellness
Apply Vicks Vapor Rub to your feet to clear a cough in an instant
It'll cure a lot more than just a cough! 🦶🤯
Jessica Adler
09.23.20

Summer is over, my friends, and as we transition into fall, sadly, we also transition into cold and flu season. Of course, there has perhaps never been a greater collective fear of this season than right now.

With the outbreak of the pandemic and its devilish persistence, many people are already stressing themselves out over the possibility of coming down with COVID-19.

Unfortunately, its the season for all sorts of common ailments, many of which mirror the symptoms of the dreaded infection.

And while we are still working on therapeutics and a vaccine for this ringer of a respiratory infection, thankfully, there are plenty of nifty home remedies out there for the more common variety id illnesses. Namely, the cold and flu.

Pixabay
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Pixabay

While many home remedies will have you digging through your pantry for onions, garlic, a mortar, and pestle, or even some fairy dust, there is another remedy floating about out there that’s already sitting well prepared in your cupboard.

Vick’s Vaporub is a trusty cure to a lot of what ails you, even if you don’t know it yet.

Flickr/Tatsuo Yamashita
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Flickr/Tatsuo Yamashita

According to Healthline this wonder-drug contains some pretty power-packed ingredients, such as camphor, menthol, and eucalyptus oil- which are its active ingredients.

Unlike many other ointments on the market today, though, Vick’s also comes jam-packed with other “inactive” ingredients that are actually quite, well, active. These include cedar leaf oil, nutmeg oil, thymol, petrolatum, and turpentine oil.

Flickr/nathanmac87
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Flickr/nathanmac87

Just the top three active ingredients alone can work wonders for your lungs, which is probably why you’re used to reaching for the ointment every time you start to feel congested.

None of this is really news, but people have begun figuring out a new (and better) way to use the good ol’ Vaporub.

As it turns out, the most effective place you can use the stuff is on your feet!

Flickr/Greg Pye
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Flickr/Greg Pye

Yes, you read that right. It’s not your chest, nose, or threat that benefits the most from this potent rub (though they do benefit some), but rather it’s those tired old dogs you’ve been abusing day in and day out.

If you do a deep dive on the claim you will soon find that, while it does seem to be an effective treatment, at least anecdotally, no one really knows why. Not to be outdone, of course, some experts have come up with a few working theories.

Dr. Lynne Jordan, for instance, believes that the effectiveness of such a treatment has to do with stress-relief:

“When stress decreases in a person who is coughing or wheezing, the discomfort may also reduce.”

Flickr/matt
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Flickr/matt

As it turns out, this isn’t the first remedy to be applied to the feet for colds.

Many people have relied on applying onions to the feet throughout the years to help pull toxins out from the feet. It’s believed that this treatment has been effective for so long due to the powerful sulfuric compounds found in the onion.

Whatever the case may be, there’s a reason people have continued to turn to it throughout the centuries– clearly, it does work!

Pinterest
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Pinterest

And if onions can do the trick, then why not the powerhouse medicine that is Vicks?!

Here’s how do it:

Slather on a generous amount of Vick’s Vaporub to each foot and cover it up with a sock before bed. According to millions of people, this simple, effective treatment work on the fly and in an instant, and is even safe to use on your children’s feet.

Of course, if you or your kid have a cough that’s not going away, has lots of phlegm, or is accompanied by pain in the chest, go see your doctor. But, if you know you’re dealing with a common cold and want to knock that cough out in an instant, give this home-remedy a try.

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