The cold damp weather is here, we're indoors more and closer to other people, and viruses start spreading through the community. Here are a few things you can do to improve your immune function and help decrease your risk of infection.

Wash your hands frequently The single most important way of preventing colds; can decrease your risk by up to 80%.

Drink more water and teas We perspire more even with low-grade fevers. Water, teas and soups are great fluid sources; Ginger root or tulsi tea is especially good when you have a cold. Limit or avoid alcohol and caffeine.

After the holidays, most people find themselves carrying around a few extra pounds and thinking about how to trim them. Surely, some of the most familiar New Year's resolutions are to start exercising, eat better and lose weight. Here are some practical and effective recommendations to support you in losing weight healthfully.

We put into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year--in excess of $1 billion worth of plastic.

24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi.

When you buy a bottle of water, you are primarily buying the cost of the bottle itself. Many of the plastics leach phthalates, potent hormone-disrupting chemicals.

The bottled water industry is now a $15 billion industry and is trucking 1 billion bottles of water around each week in ships, trains, and trucks in the US alone.

The most astonishing example of this is Fiji Water. The factory produces more than a million bottles a day of bottled water, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water. Fiji's utility structure cannot supply enough electricity to run the water plant, so they run big generators on diesel fuel, tarnishing its pristine ecosystem. Fiji Water travels to the US halfway around the world, and that's after the bottles are shipped across the ocean before being filled, making transportation the biggest cost of the water.

Ayurveda is about conscious living. Consider an in- home filtration system. I personally have a Multi Pure drinking water system.