Nigerians in the diaspora contributed $77.06 billion (about N23.5 trillion) to the Nigerian economy.
The remittance was made over a five year period including 2005, 2007, 2008, 2012 and 2013, a report published by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reads.
“Nigeria is the largest recipient of remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa with receipts of approximately 65 per cent of officially recorded remittances into the region and two per cent of global flows.”
The report suggests that “ Strategies should be developed to encourage Nigerians in the diaspora to invest remittances through efficient formal channels at low transfer cost, as well as to encourage senders and recipients to invest part of their savings”.
Source: Guardian
Nigerians in the diaspora contributed $77.06 billion (about N23.5 trillion) to the Nigerian economy. The remittance was made over a five ye...
A few months after leaving Made Men Music Group, Iyanya joins Mavin Records.
Mavin Records’ CEO, Don Jazzy announced this on Twitter.
SMD is pleased to welcome @Iyanya to the Mavin Family. Pls join us to welcome him & let the world know that we #Up2Sumting. #MavinActivated http://pic.twitter.com/I2lnIeo8Sf
— DON JAZZY (@DONJAZZY) October 31, 2016
After Iyanya left MMMG one one would assume that he’ll start his own imprint since that’s the trend in this clime. A quick look at some of the most successful Nigerian artists show they later become label owners once they wrap up their obligation to whatever label signed them initially. Olamide, 9ice, Iceprince, Tuface, Wizkid, Burnaboy and the list goes on.
It’s just been the trend and it seems every upcoming artist’s aspiration is to get signed, achieve some success and eventually start a label.
Iyanya’s move upturns the trend. And Don Jazzy admits it.
Let's learn dat not all artist must own a label. 1 will suffer. D business or d music. Iyanya made a great decision and earns my respect.
— DON JAZZY (@DONJAZZY) October 31, 2016
While Iyanya initially planned to start his own imprint as he’s quoted as saying
“I’ll be launching my new label and new album soon,” he posted on Instagram.
But while Iyanya is a talented artist much can’t be said on his management skills. Since he wasn’t in charge of that part of the music business while signed to MMMG. Getting a capable management team just seemed the best move.
Mavin itself is a well oiled machine that has successfully stirred the careers of artists with pedigree, especially an A-list act like Tiwa Savage, who recently signed a management deal with JayZ’s Roc Nation.
Iyanya’s decision to join Mavin Records puts him in a position to leverage on the structure Mavin has on ground. While starting new a label would have seen him start from the ground up and hope for best.
How well will this work out? Only time will tell. But both Don Jazzy and Iyanya have a prior musical relationship which can be telling of what to expect from this synergy.
With the announcement of his signing came the release of Iyanya’s first single under the label, Up to Something. (Pun intended?)
A few months after leaving Made Men Music Group, Iyanya joins Mavin Records. Mavin Records’ CEO, Don Jazzy announced this on Twitter. SMD...
Femi Kuti says he didn’t campaign for President Buhari.
The afrobeat singer said this after another Twitter user blamed him (Femi) and his brother (Seun) for campaigning for the APC government.
Femi admitted that the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, came to seek his support.
“He came to ask for my support. I refused. And told him there was no way I could support a man who jailed my father,” Femi said.
Here’s how the conversation went:
@Femiakuti So you still have strength to sing with this recession you and your clueless brother helped to bring on hapless Nigerians.
— truth hurts (@thonynatz) October 27, 2016
@femikutimusic @Femiakuti You opened your doors to ''osibande'' and your broda tweeted his support for APC. It is why you can't talk now.
— truth hurts (@thonynatz) October 27, 2016
1-He came to ask for my support I refuse Told him there was no way I could support a man who jailed my father. https://t.co/0lITFschto
— Femi Anikulapo -Kuti (@Femiakuti) October 27, 2016
2- Never have I place my support for any political party or politician. https://t.co/0lITFschto
— Femi Anikulapo -Kuti (@Femiakuti) October 27, 2016
Thank God the VP is still there & can can confirm I vehemently said NO. Now where did I tell anyone to vote or support any political party? https://t.co/0lITFschto
— Femi Anikulapo -Kuti (@Femiakuti) October 27, 2016
In 1984, Fela was sentenced to five years in prison under Buhari’s military government.
“He was handed down a prison sentence of five years in November 1984. There were several indications that his arrest and imprisonment were politically motivated. Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, Chief of Staff, announced that the government would ensure Fela would be imprisoned for a long time, concluding: ‘and I hope he will rot in jail’, an Amnesty International report reads.
Things turned in Fela’s favour a year after Buhari’s administration was kicked out of office in a palace coup.
Femi Kuti says he didn’t campaign for President Buhari. The afrobeat singer said this after another Twitter user blamed him (Femi) and his ...
Nigerian’s from all walks of life have been debating the arrest of High court judges over allegations of corruption.
Nigerian poet, Prof Niyi Osundare also joined in. The poet believes the African poet should be politically inclined.
“You cannot keep quiet about the situation in the kind of countries we find ourselves in, in Africa,” he once said.
And in a reaction to the arrest to alleged corrupt Judges, he published the poem, “My Lord, Where do I keep your Bribe?”
The Poem is reproduced below:
My Lord
Please tell me where to keep your bribe?
Do I drop it in your venerable chambers
Or carry the heavy booty to your immaculate mansion
Shall I bury it in the capacious water tank
In your well laundered backyard
Or will it breathe better in the septic tank
Since money can deodorize the smelliest crime
Shall I haul it up the attic
Between the ceiling and your lofty roof
Or shall I conjure the walls to open up
And swallow this sudden bounty from your honest labour
Shall I give a billion to each of your paramours
The black, the light, the Fanta-yellow
They will surely know how to keep the loot
In places too remote for the sniffing dog
Or shall I use the particulars
Of your anonymous maidservants and manservants
With their names on overflowing bank accounts
While they famish like ownerless dogs
Shall I haul it all to your village
In the valley behind seven mountains
Where potholes swallow up the hugest jeep
And Penury leaves a scar on every house
My Lord
It will take the fastest machine
Many, many days to count this booty; and lucky bank bosses
May help themselves to a fraction of the loot
My Lord
Tell me where to keep your bribe?
My Lord
Tell me where to keep your bribe?
The “last hope of the common man”
Has become the last bastion of the criminally rich
A terrible plague bestrides the land
Besieged by rapacious judges and venal lawyers
Behind the antiquated wig
And the slavish glove
The penguin gown and the obfuscating jargon
Is a rot and riot whose stench is choking the land
Behind the rituals and roted rigmaroles
Old antics connive with new tricks
Behind the prim-and-proper costumes of masquerades
Corruption stands, naked, in its insolent impunity
For sale to the highest bidder
Interlocutory and perpetual injunctions
Opulent criminals shop for pliant judges
Protect the criminal, enshrine the crime
And Election Petition Tribunals
Ah, bless those goldmines and bottomless booties!
Scoundrel vote-riggers romp to electoral victory
All hail our buyable Bench and conniving Bar
A million dollars in Their Lordship’s bedroom
A million euros in the parlor closet
Countless naira beneath the kitchen sink
Our courts are fast running out of Ghana-must-go’s*
The “Temple of Justice”
Is broken in every brick
The roof is roundly perforated
By termites of graft
My Lord
Tell me where to keep your bribe?
Judges doze in the courtroom
Having spent all night, counting money and various “gifts”
And the Chief Justice looks on with tired eyes
As Corruption usurps his gavel.
Crime pays in this country
Corruption has its handsome rewards
Just one judgement sold to the richest bidder
Will catapult Judge & Lawyer to the Billionaires’ Club
The Law, they say, is an ass
Sometimes fast, sometimes slow
But the Law in Nigeria is a vulture
Fat on the cash-and-carry carrion of murdered Conscience
Won gb’ebi f’alare
Won gb’are f’elebi**
They kill our trust in the common good
These Monsters of Mammon in their garish gowns
Unhappy the land
Where jobbers are judges
Where Impunity walks the streets
Like a large, invincible Demon
Come Sunday, they troop to the church
Friday, they mouth their mantra in pious mosques
But they pervert Justice all week long
And dig us deeper into the hellish hole
Nigeria is a huge corpse
With milling maggots on its wretched hulk
They prey every day, they prey every night
For the endless decomposition of our common soul
My Most Honourable Lord
Just tell me where to keep your bribe.
* Large, extremely tough bags used for carrying heavy cash in Nigeria
** They declare the innocent guilty
They pronounce the guilty innocent
*The poem was first published by Sahara reporters
Nigerian’s from all walks of life have been debating the arrest of High court judges over allegations of corruption. Nigerian poet, Prof Ni...
First Lady of Nigeria, Aisha Buhari, distributed relief materials to over 300 hundred resettled families in Kaga Local government area in Borno State.
The materials distributed are from proceeds of the First Lady’s “GetInvolved” initiative launched in August.
Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, and his wife, Nana Shettima, joined the First Lady in distributing the materials.
“Food items and other essential commodities were distributed to the displaced victims of insurgency who have now resettled back in their community, Kaga Local government area in Borno State,” the first Lady Twitted.
Here are some pictures from the event:
Photo Credit: @aishambuhari
First Lady of Nigeria, Aisha Buhari, distributed relief materials to over 300 hundred resettled families in Kaga Local government area in Bo...
President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr. Ayuba Wabba, says the Federal government should increase the minimum wage.
“This is the logic used by United State to address recession,” he says in an interview with Vanguard.
“The state of the country’s economy requires that we increase minimum wage. We need to empower the people to buy and sell. If the economy is at standstill and people cannot buy, the economy will not grow,” he adds.
Source: Vanguard
President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr. Ayuba Wabba, says the Federal government should increase the minimum wage. “This is the logic...
One of UK’s finest rappers Tinie Tempah took to his Instagram page to share a photo of him and football star Neymar as they met in a London restaurant for a promotional campaign by sports wear giants Nike. Writing on his Instagram page, Tinie thanked Nike for arranging the meet, saying: ‘Met up with the don @neymarjr in London today. Big up @nike for the link up.’
One of UK’s finest rappers Tinie Tempah took to his Instagram page to share a photo of him and football star Neymar as they met in a London ...
Ogun State Police Command, yesterday, paraded a female banker, Oluchi Tochukwu, and two suspected hired assassins over a botched plot to kill her husband, identified as Onyebuchi Tochukwu.
The state Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu, while parading the suspects at the command’s headquarters in Eleweran, Abeokuta, explained that the 32-year-old banker, who is a staff of a new generation bank, allegedly masterminded the failed assassination of her estranged husband by arranging and keeping the weapons used in the attack in the husband’s compound in Ajah. The couple had been married for three years and had a daughter, before the union crashed. Iliyasu said the two suspected assassins, 32-year-old Chigozie Smart, and 36-year-old Kingsley Ikechukwu, were intercepted at Ijebu-Ode area of Ogun State, while attempting to escape to Onitsha, Anambra State, with the would-be victim’s Range Rover.
The attack The police boss explained that the two suspects had attacked their victim in his compound at Agungi area of Ajah in Lagos State, last Wednesday. He was allegedly attacked with iron rods and machete before the suspects poured acid on him. But he survived the attack. According to Iliyasu,”it was the smoke and the offensive odour that came out from the suit worn by the victim, when the acid touched it, that made the suspects to quickly abandon him and went away with his Range Rover SUV, which the wife instructed them to deliver to her brother in Anambra State. “The estranged couple had been separated for a while, with the wife living with her father somewhere in Ayobo area of Lagos State. “The husband had a date with a court today (yesterday) over the custody of their only daughter. Luck, however, ran against the suspected assassins when a Police Highway Patrol team flagged the Range Rover SUV down at the Ijebu-Ode axis of Lagos-Benin expressway for a stop-and-search operation, which led to their arrest.” Fielding questions from newsmen during their parade, Oluchi denied contracting the duo of Chigozie and Kingsley and one other, who is at large, to assassinate her estranged husband. Though she acknowledged that the three year-old marriage had crashed, Oluchi told newsmen that she had no reason to kill her husband. Meanwhile, during the interrogation, Chigozie maintained that it was Oluchi that contracted them to kill Tochukwu, with a promise of purchasing tokunbo cars for each of them after a successful operation.
Ogun State Police Command, yesterday, paraded a female banker, Oluchi Tochukwu, and two suspected hired assassins over a botched plot to kil...
Abuja – The ongoing anti-corruption agenda of the Federal Government is yielding positive results, the Danish Ambassador to Nigeria, Amb. Torben Gettermann, has said. Gettermann said in Abuja that the anti-corruption crusade was vital to attracting foreign investment into the country.
“The government has started out on a very high profile anti-corruption drive and it seems to be yielding results. It is something Nigerians needed for a long time. “Fighting corruption is something that the world outside Nigeria wanted to happen. “The more you can do to reduce or eliminate corruption in Nigeria, if possible, the better it will be for prospects to be able to invest in Nigeria.” “Of course, they (Danish investors) have to look at this and they look closely at it. The results we can see from the anti-corruption drive are promising,” he said. Gettermann regretted the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast, but commended the resolve of the government and military, which he said, had weakened the insurgency. “The fight against Boko Haram and insecurity in the Northeast, from what I can see, is yielding positive results. “The government and the armed forces are trying to oust Boko Haram from the areas they occupied a year ago and they have been very successful. “We still see attacks, unfortunately, but not on the scale that we have seen previously. So this shows that they are under pressure, which is very important,” said the Danish envoy. He called on the Federal Government to find amicable solutions to the insecurity in the Niger-Delta region for the quick economic recovery of the country. “The issues of the South-South have to be handled in a way that will ensure that this lifeline (crude oil) continues to flow. “This is because, for the time being, that (crude oil) is the major source of income,” he said. On education, Gettermann said quite a number of Nigerians were studying in Denmark with the aim of coming back to use their knowledge for the benefit of Nigeria. “That is what we want we want to see – go out, learn something new, get some new ideas, come back and then implement them in Nigeria. “That’s the future and that way, you help us to build your country, being in Nigeria, learning from the outside but also learning in the Nigerian context. “We come as foreigners and want to do many things but we always have to remember to do it in Nigeria’s context to benefit the people and not only for commercial gains or purposes. (NAN)
Abuja – The ongoing anti-corruption agenda of the Federal Government is yielding positive results, the Danish Ambassador to Nigeria, Amb. To...
There is nothing worse than having a nagging cough. Coughing can keep you up at night, interfere with your work and make you feel just plain miserable.
Coughing is a natural response to irritation or a blocked airway and often accompanies allergies, colds or the flu. There are many effective home remedies for coughing in general, but it helps to know what caused a cough in the first place.
A temporary block in the airway, say, from food particles accidentally entering the airway while swallowing, may make you cough hard, but it usually gets resolved pretty quickly. Bacterial and viral infections of the throat may initiate shallow, but painful coughing. Tackling the infection is the best way to resolve this kind of a cough.
Types of coughs
If it’s a dry cough, irritation of the airway lining could be the reason. Respiratory allergens often produce this type of coughing. Remedies that suppress coughing work better here because the bouts of coughing may further aggravate the airway.
Respiratory tract infections usually produce a deep cough that may bring up phlegm. It is good to get rid of this thick mucus that would otherwise clog the airway. A home remedy that lightens the mucus and facilitates its expulsion is preferable until the infection gets resolved. But a dry cough may persist even after the infections clear up because the mucosal lining of the airway may have suffered damage. Keeping the airway moist with increased hydration is the key here.
Home Remedies For Coughs:
Here are some home remedies that seem to be effective at reducing or eliminating coughing. Choose the method that works best for you depending on the type of a cough you have.
1. Salt water gargle
Salt has been used as an anti-infective, anti-inflammatory agent from time immemorial; in fact, papyrus scrolls from Egypt dated 1,699 B.C contain recipes of salt treatments. Dental surgeons still recommend gargling with a salt solution after surgical procedures to prevent infections and promote faster healing. When you gargle with a salt solution, a temporary increase in pH makes it difficult for the bacteria to survive.
To make a disinfectant solution that soothes an inflamed throat and relieves a cough, just dissolve a half teaspoon of salt in a cup of warm water. The idea is to get an isotonic solution––similar to tissue fluids in salt concentration––so that it doesn’t irritate the mucous lining of the oral cavity. Salt water gargle instantly relieves throat pain whether it’s due to strep throat, tonsillitis or common cold and allergies.
The anti-inflammatory effect of a salt gargle often lasts several hours, but the longer you have the solution in contact with the throat tissues, the better it is. So throw your head back and give it a good shot, repeating the procedure several times a day.
2. Steam inhalation
Inhaling steam is a simple, yet effective way to treat both a dry cough due to allergies and wet cough associated with bronchitis and other respiratory infections. Inhaling the warm vapors moisturizes the dry, irritated airways and helps relieve inflammation. It also lightens the phlegm accumulated in the respiratory tract, making it easier to cough up. Inhaling steam before bed clears up nasal and chest congestion and provides for a goodnight’s sleep, without bouts of coughing disrupting your sleep as well as everyone else’s.
Eucalyptus oil or menthol is sometimes added to the boiling water for extra effect, but it’s not necessary. Just plain water brought to a rolling boil can provide enough steam for the next 10-15 minutes. Cover your head with a towel and inhale the vapors from a safe distance to avoid burns. What you need is the water vapor rather than the heat. Be especially careful with kids.
3. Fresh ginger
The strong anti-inflammatory action of ginger helps relieve a sore throat and airway inflammation whether it’s from allergens or infections. You can extract ginger juice from a fresh rhizome and mix it with equal amount of honey to make a cough syrup. Take just a few drops at a time to soothe the throat and suppress a cough.
Making ginger tea is another option. Crush a few slices of fresh ginger and boil it in water two to three minutes. Sipping this tea warm can stop coughing bouts. Make several cups of ginger tea and store it in the refrigerator. Warm up a cup and drink whenever you need it.
4. Lemon and honey
If night time coughing fits are killing your sleep and disturbing others, let lemon juice, and honey come to your rescue. This light drink can be taken just before bedtime to soothe your throat and keep the respiratory tract well hydrated throughout the night.
Mix in the juice of a small lemon and two tablespoons of honey in warm water and drink it. It helps lighten the mucus and makes it easy to bring it up. Make several cups of this drink and use it as and when you need it. Here are another 11 reasons why you should drink a glass of lemon and honey water every day.
5. Dry ginger and pepper
Dry ginger and black pepper powdered together is a traditional Ayurvedic remedy for a cough. It’s a handy mixture to carry about for instant relief. It has to be mentioned here that dry ginger is nothing but the ginger root dried after light steaming, but it differs from the fresh herb not only in taste and flavor but in therapeutic function as well.
You need only a tiny pinch of the mixture on your tongue, but it is extremely spicy and pungent. Rock sugar is often powdered along with the spices to make it easy on the palate, or you can mix a pinch of ½ tsp pure honey and lick it off the spoon.
6. Turmeric milk
Traditional Chinese and Indian Medicine has long been using turmeric in various herbal preparations to treat respiratory, digestive, and skin ailments. Not surprisingly, it is now recognized as having excellent anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. The part used is the yellow-colored rhizome of Curcuma longa, a low-growing tropical herb related to ginger. The main active agent in turmeric has been identified as curcumin, which gives the spice its golden yellow color.
Since turmeric can fight both bacteria and viruses, besides relieving inflammation, it is very effective in treating coughs due to a throat and respiratory tract infection. To make turmeric milk mix one to two teaspoons of turmeric powder in a cup of hot milk and drink it twice a day. Traditionally, goat’s milk is recommended as cow’s milk is thought to increase phlegm. Alternatively, you can boil turmeric in water and add a tsp butter or coconut oil since fat enhances the bioavailability of curcumin.
7. Raw garlic
Eating raw garlic cloves is the simplest way to get rid of a cough, be it due to throat irritation or respiratory infections. It has a long history of being used to treat respiratory diseases from pneumonia to whooping cough. The bioactive chemicals in this pungent bulb have wide-ranging antibacterial activity against pathogenic bacteria, both gram-positive and gram-negative ones. Sulfur compounds like alliin and allicin and their derivatives are responsible for this effect.
Keeping a clove of garlic in the mouth and crushing it occasionally to release a little bit of juice can help control coughing bouts. Crushed garlic added to food may help prevent secondary infections that usually follow a common cold and respiratory allergies.
8. Onion juice
Onion is a milder alternative to garlic, but it contains many organosulfur compounds and flavonoid polyphenols that give it excellent antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. Onion juice is particularly useful in treating bronchitis and helps ease a productive cough by lightening the mucus. It can also inhibit bacterial growth in the throat, easing painful coughing.
Grate a red onion and squeeze out the juice. Take one-half teaspoon at a time, ingesting it slowly in case of throat infection. You can mix it with honey or rock sugar for taste, but unsweetened juice is just about palatable if you want to avoid sweeteners.
9. Hot soup
Hot broth and soups are soothing for the throat and particularly useful in relieving a cough that accompanies cold and flu. Chicken soup is the most popular, but studies show that it’s the spicy ingredients in the soup such as onion, garlic, ginger, and black pepper that do the trick, so any soup containing these should work.
As you sip the hot soup, the steam containing the volatile active agents in these herbs enters your airways and loosens the mucus, while the warm liquid soothes your throat. Drinking lots of broth and soup also helps increase your hydration levels.
10. Fresh grape juice
Fresh juice from red grapes sweetened with a teaspoon of honey is a delicious way to treat a deep chesty cough. When there’s chest congestion due to an accumulation of mucus thickened with microbes and their debris, it’s never wise to suppress it. Grape juice acts as a mucolytic expectorant, helping lighten the phlegm and making it easier to cough up. Make the juice fresh every time to take maximum advantage of the antioxidant phytochemicals in grapes.
11. Raisins
Raisins are nothing but dried grapes. The sugars and other beneficial compounds in grapes are concentrated in raisins, so they make a handy cough remedy that you can easily carry around when you’re under the weather.
Using raisins as a cough remedy is particularly attractive to children who turn their noses up at many concoctions they’re forced to drink. For young children, make a smooth sauce by cooking ground raisins in water with some additional sugar to get a thick consistency. A teaspoon as needed will help ease coughing.
12. Licorice
Licorice is the root of a leguminous plant Glycyrrhiza glabra native to parts of Europe and Asia. Dried roots of this plant have been used as a traditional cough remedy. Children are usually given a stick of licorice to chew on to prevent coughs. In fact, licorice candies came into being from this practice, although the ones you get today have no real licorice in them, only sugar.
Licorice can be used in several forms to relieve a sore throat, cough, bronchitis, and other inflammatory conditions of the respiratory tract. It can even treat hoarseness due to laryngitis. To make a naturally sweet herbal tea, boil one teaspoon of licorice root powder in two cups of water. Licorice powder can be added to black pepper or to herbal teas as a functional sweetener.
13. Mullein tea
The large, velvety leaves of the great mullein Verbascum thapsus was a traditional European remedy for a stubborn cough and lower respiratory diseases. It was a popular remedy for whooping cough (pertussis) when this disease was all too common before DTaP vaccine and antibiotics. The leaves were often rolled up and smoked like a cigar to relieve a hacking cough.
Mullein has anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties and function as an excellent expectorant. The saponins in the leaves and flowers work like natural detergents, releasing phlegm from the lining of the respiratory tract. The herb is not known to have any undesirable side effects or toxicity, so mullein tea can be safely used long term to treat persistent coughs due to tuberculosis and other chronic lung infections.
To make the tea, steep one to two teaspoons of dried leaves or flowers in one and one-half cups of boiling water for fifteen to twenty minutes. You can drink up to three cups of this infusion a day and also use it as a throat gargle.
14. Homemade cough syrup
The cough syrups from the drug store are full of synthetic chemicals and often come with warnings of drowsiness or other potential side effects. But you can make a cough remedy with natural ingredients that’s just as effective as, or even better than, the commercial version, and you know exactly what goes into it.
The potent ingredients of this 100% herbal syrup are thyme and peppermint that act as decongestants and licorice and mullein that bring in anti-inflammatory effect. Steep two teaspoons of each herb for thirty minutes in a cup of boiling water. Strain the infusion and mix in half cup honey when cold. Fill into a glass bottle and refrigerate. Take one teaspoon of this cough syrup whenever you feel a tickling in your throat.
15. Black Seed oil
The tiny black seeds of Nigella sativa, commonly called black cumin or black caraway or simply black seed, pack quite a punch when it comes to medicinal properties. It’s not called ‘cure of all but death’ for nothing. Crushed seeds can be mixed with honey for treating a cough, but black seed oil is even more potent.
Mix one-half teaspoon black seed oil with one-half teaspoon honey twice a day. This mixture has been reported to relieve all kinds of a cough, irrespective of whether it’s caused by cold and flu, airborne allergens, tonsillitis, laryngitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis or asthma.
16. Echinacea tea/tincture
Echinacea or purple coneflower is an easily recognized North American wildflower. This Native American cough and cold remedy works in several ways to not only relieve a cough but tackle the underlying cause, although it’s not as fast-acting as other remedies.
It stimulates the immune system by promoting white blood cell activity, so it ideally takes before you develop a full-fledged infection. However, regular use has been found to be very effective against chronic coughs that don’t seem to yield to quick fixes.
Make echinacea tea by steeping fresh or dried flower heads in boiling water for twenty minutes. Echinacea tincture is made by infusing the herb in alcohol. You can add a few drops of the tincture to regular tea or herbal teas for the immune boosting benefits.
17. Marshmallow tea
The roots of marshmallow plant produce a viscous, mucilaginous liquid when it’s simply infused in water. It is a very safe and effective remedy for a cough accompanying sore throat and cold since it soothes the mucous lining and reduces inflammation.
It is an excellent antitussive for a dry cough, effectively moisturizing the mucous lining of the throat and upper airways and suppressing coughing due to tissue irritation, be it from allergens or infections such as tonsillitis, laryngitis or bronchitis.
Steep a handful of crushed dried roots overnight in four cups of warm water and filter out the thick liquid. Drink it plain or sweetened with honey or sugar.
18. Aloe vera juice
Aloe vera contains a natural gel that is extremely soothing to inflamed tissue, be it your skin or the lining of the throat. The anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects of the aloe vera gel can relieve non-productive dry cough due to allergies and throat infections, besides helping fight the germs responsible. The gel also has a mild analgesic property, which is an added blessing.
Split open a two to four-inch section a mature aloe vera leaf and scoop out the clear gel. Eat it alone if you can take the slight bitterness, or sweeten with honey or mix with fruit juices to make it more palatable.
19. Sage tea
Common sage or Salvia officinalis is a medicinal herb that’s widely used all over the world for treating coughs as well as the respiratory diseases that produce this symptom. Many indigenous people have developed their cough remedies involving this highly aromatic plant, but a simple herbal tea made with the leaves is as good as any. That’s exactly what Dioscorides, the Greek physician from the first century B.C. ordered for coughs and hoarseness.
Steep a handful of fresh or dried leaves in four cups of boiling water for just five to ten minutes. You can drink up to three cups of sage tea a day and even use it for gargling if you have a throat infection.
20. Humidify the environment
High humidity seems to ease a cough probably because it helps reduce airway irritation due to dryness. If you have a stubborn cough accompanied by chest congestion, it helps to have a hot bath or shower. It will loosen up mucus and help cough it up more easily.
When you have a dry cough due to allergies, set up a humidifier in the bedroom to prevent coughing fits.
21. Increase hydration
Increasing body hydration, in general, has a positive effect on your immune function besides getting the body fluids moving more freely. This is particularly important when you’re running a temperature along with a cough and cold.
Drink warm water to soothe your throat, but you can also have fruit juices, herbal teas, and clear soups to stay hydrated.
There is nothing worse than having a nagging cough. Coughing can keep you up at night, interfere with your work and make you feel just plain...