We worked out how to actually survive Freshers’ Flu

It's that dreaded time of year, everybody has been out having a fantastic freshers for near on 2 weeks but suddenly you've woken up feeling like a human night club. The pounding in your head, the blocked nose, the aching joints, it's really not fair. No one told you that a diet of kebabs and cheap vodka would make you feel this way! Fear not, this guide will help you survive the deadly Freshers' Flu.

Step 1: Acceptance

You've been out every night in a row for well over a week now and your body is going to be feeling it, its time to accept that maybe this weekend you won't be able to manage pre drinking a few litres of Old Rosy and another 5 jager bombs in Fruity.

Step 2: Sort your space

Shoes, jeans, underwear, and a traffic cone. These are just a few of the items you can seen littering your bedroom floor. If you are going to get healthy again its important to be in a clean space. Now no one is suggesting you power up the steam mop (well maybe your mum is…) but you should definitely make sure you bin anything perishable. Once you've got a tidy space, try swapping your bed sheets for clean ones, many people agree that not only will this be a vast improvement to the sheets covered in the remnants of Sticky Feet and Mission, but climbing in to nice freshly laundered sheets will also make you feel a lot more relaxed and can help you sleep better.

Step 3: Review you diet

Yes, you did order the veggie supreme last time you had Domino's, and asking for lettuce and onions on your kebab did seem like a healthy addition but take a reality check. You can't live like this forever. A diet of McDonalds, KFC, and pizza, is not sustainable for your body or your wallet. Whilst you're feeling really ill it's probably best to avoid trying to cook yourself a Sunday lunch, but things like a chicken pasta, jacket potatoes, and chilli, are relatively easy comfort meals that you can make in bulk, and reheat. Plus you can pack them out with frozen mixed veg for a vitamin boost. Just pop your extra portions into the fridge or freezer and microwave for easy dinners. Remember to keep hydrated, alcohol severally dehydrates your body and when your ill you require extra fluids, so mix the two together and you'll need to keep a big bottle of water near by at all times.

Step 4: Rest

Take a shower, put on clean bed clothes and snuggle down in that nice clean bedding. Grab yourself a big glass of water, pop on the Netflix, and prepare to relax. Resting is one of the most important parts of recovery. Don't use it as an excuse to miss the next 2 weeks of lectures, but if you are feeling seriously poorly its better to miss a day of uni and recover than to force yourself to go in and get worse. Your health matters.

Step 5: Know when its time to go to the GP

Don't go running (or zombie like shuffling) to your doctor at the first sign of a blocked nose, you'll be turned away with nothing but a prescription to get yourself together. If your symptoms worsen and you begin to suffer from fevers, vomiting, swollen tonsils, or any other unusually nasty things its probably time to get yourself to a professional. Most likely its easily sorted with some pain relief and at most a dose of antibiotics but on the off chance its something nastier its best to catch it out early- take it from someone who ended up in hospital because of the phrase "it's nothing, I'll be fine".

Step 6: Maintain

You are going to get ill again if you revert back to your old ways. Learn from your mistakes. Have fun, no one is perfect, you will drink too much and eat takeaways again (even if you swore not to when vomiting in the toilet), but just do everything with a sense of moderation. Going out a few times a week won't kill you, freshers is a learning point for your new uni life and if you don't make mistakes now, you will just make them later.

So to all those suffering the Freshers Flu, get better soon!

Photos by: Elouisa Georgiou