There are many home remedies for sore throat using natural herbs and organic compounds available right in your own home! Here are a few “top tips” for home remedies for sore throat:
Cayenne pepper: This is probably my number one natural cures for a sore throat. It sounds completely counter-intuitive that hot pepper would help a sore throat. What crazy person would put hot pepper on tender and irritated mucous membranes? However, if we think about the actions of Cayenne, we can make more sense of this as cayenne is a very good anti-inflammatory. Think about all the creams and lotions for arthritis that contain capsicum, or the active ingredient in cayenne. With this in mind, we can see how cayenne can be one of the best home remedies for sore throat relief.
For an effective sore throat home treatment, simply make a concoction of a cup of warm water and a quarter teaspoon or so of cayenne. It will not harm you so bump of the amounts to whatever you can handle! Then gargle with your solution and you will notice the sore throat much less irritated and sore. It doesn’t matter if the you have a sore throat on one side, just swish the liquid all around your throat. One of the more simple home remedies for sore throat relief is with a cayenne gargle like this:
½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper powder
½ teaspoon of salt
Juice of ½ lemon
½ cup of warm water
- Gargle with this every 15 min for about two hours and then as needed.
Hot Tea with Honey: This is an age old sore throat home treatment! Simply put a little extra honey in your favorite herbal tea. It best to use “raw” honey is the least processed and has not had all the healing elements filtered out. Therefore raw honey is not clear and is more of a solid than a liquid like processed honey. This is because it contains bits of propolis, royal jelly, honey comb, and other helpful compounds that are not strained out or destroyed in the processing of commercial honey.
Cool-mist humidifier: Use a cooling mist humidifier in your room at night to help keep your throat moist and soothed. What simpler sore throat home treatment could there be!
Apple Cider Vinegar: Apple cider has a wide range of uses and one age old use as a sore throat home treatment. Apple cider vinegar has natural antibacterial properties that help heal and soothe the a sore throat. An easy way to use Apple cider vinegar is to put two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar into a half cup of hot water. You can add honey or maple syrup to sweeten the taste and make it less harsh. The great herbalist Dr. John Christopher is known to have drunk a cup of apple cider vinegar sweetened with maple syrup every day of his life! Here is one of the simplest recipes for home remedies for sore throat relief using apple cider vinegar:
1 cup warm water
1 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar (try and get the cloudy, unfiltered type, like Bragg’s)
1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice
1 heaping tablespoon of honey
- You can also gargle using this recipe. Don’t worry if the sore throat on one side as you just swish the liquid all around your throat.
Saltwater: Another age old treatment for natural sore throat relief. Salt and saline has been used for centuries to cure and prevent colds and other ailments. Even in modern times a well known cure for respiratory problems is to sit inside a salt cave and inhale the salt fumes. Salt has natural antibacterial properties and this is why it has been used for millennia to preserve foods. Here is a nice simple saline solution to use to gargle with for a simple sore throat home treatment:
1 cup of warm (not hot) water
1 tsp salt
- Mix the salt into the warm water and stir until all the salt is completely dissolved. Then simply gargle with this mixture a couple of times and it should greatly help your sore throat. If you have a sore throat on one side, don’t worry, if you swish the liquid all around your mouth, it will soothe the affected area.
Herbs for Sore Throat Relief:
There are also a number of herbs used for home remedies for sore throat relief that can help reduce inflammation of throat tissues and mucous membranes. Slippery elm is one of the best as you can mix slippery elm powder into a runny paste and this will coat and heal sore throat tissues. Here is a nice herbal syrup that can really soothe a sore throat:
For this recipe, use a total of 2 oz. of herbs to 1 quart of filtered water-
2 parts slippery elm bark
1 part wild cherry bark
2 parts valerian
2 parts licorice root
2 parts comfrey root
4 parts fennel seeds
1 part ginger root
1 part cinnamon bark
1/8 part orange peel
- Put the herbs in a quart of water and simmer over very low heat until the liquid is reduced by half. Strain the herbs from the water and mix the remaining liquid with a cup of honey for each pint while it is still warm. And there you have a very effective and all natural sore throat home treatment!