I know pseudo remedies won’t cure my winter cold. But they make me feel special

This week I’ve been fighting a cold. And when I say fighting, I mean it. I’ve gone to war against the rhinoviruses, armed with a medicine cupboard of cure-alls. Along the way I’ve choked back vitamins, slathered myself in vapour rubs, simmered tinctures, steamed internal canals and nearly waterboarded myself with a neti pot.

I’m clearly not alone. According to health experts, we’re amid a virus soup of COVID, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus that is sweeping Victoria and NSW.

For some people, supplements are taking the place of tried and true health treatments like rest and hydration. Credit: iStock

I’ve done (almost) everything I can think of to support my mucus-leaking body. But for all the semi, pseudo and legitimate science I’ve digested, there is one very logical piece of advice I can’t seem to stomach: drinking water.

No matter how much fluid I lose out of my ears, eyes and sweat glands, the thought of downing a few cool glasses of H2O just never really occurs to me. This resistance to the cheapest, easiest and most proven self-care technique isn’t a new aversion, either. For most of my life, I’ve been willing to do pretty much anything in the quest for good health, except follow the most obvious and commonly recommended treatments.

Why eat an orange and increase my vitamin C levels when I could shotgun a sachet of lab-derived vitamin goo? Who has time for spinach when I could be spending 10 times that on sea moss? What’s so great about eight hours of sleep when I could melt in an infrared sauna then throw myself into an ice bath? Where’s the logic in taking a deep breath when I could pay $30 for a yoga class to decompress after a 13-hour workday? Why walk to work when I could invest in a state-of-the-art fitness watch that will belligerently ping me throughout the day and alert me of my failure to move?

I should pause to point out that despite my pathological ability to spend money like a child cheating at Monopoly, I’m not rich. I also don’t think I’m a moron – although I concede that the sea moss might suggest otherwise. In most areas of my life, I’m a logical, responsible adult. But there is something embedded deep in my brain that tells me it’s OK to drink a whole pot of black coffee by yourself if you stir in some MCT oil.

I’m hardly alone in my taste for well-branded snake oil. A lot of brilliant people and brands have spent a lot of time and money to convince me (and others) that we can buy our way into a healthier body and mind. Entire wellness economies have been constructed on the promise that we can offset our unbalanced lifestyles and toxic habits with a few organic supplements.

Somewhere along the path towards adulthood, I chose to be led away from the logical because there’s an element in the complicated messages of Silicon Valley sylphs and raw milk mums who peddle these products (while telling me to drink water, albeit of the alkaline variety) appeal to me.

I resist good, simple, straightforward advice because deep down I don’t want to be good, simple and straightforward.

There’s something seductive in viewing yourself as halfway between a cyborg and a woodland elf. Imagining your body as being so delicate and special that to consume anything more pedestrian than bio-fermented coconut water and yeast extracts would be a catastrophe. The truth is, beyond my recklessly expensive coffees, there’s nothing mysterious about me. I know why I’m always tired, why my skin is dull, and my sleep is disjointed. And it doesn’t have anything to do with vitamin goo, sea moss or saunas.

My body occasionally aches, rebels and disappoints me because it is a product made of flesh and bone; a thing both ordinary and extraordinary. I don’t require a secret combination of herbs and chemicals to activate it. I need to relax, stop fussing, accept that I will get sick sometimes, hope I get better, and understand that despite what the vitamin goo promises, I am growing older. There is little I can do about any of that beyond taking a deep breath and drinking a glass of water. If not for my health, at least for my bank account.

Wendy Syfret is a freelance writer and author of The Sunny Nihilist: How a meaningless life can make you truly happy.

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