Lovely's Anti-Virus Algorithm (LAVA)

  The following is a summary of my personal observation and experiment of what worked for me eventually and consistently against the flu virus and common cold.  It will need some more work of research and development to convert to a generic algorithm/technique that works in general for anyone/anywhere at various phases of viral infection.

  Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I was working part time in various locations in NJ and going to college and living in the dormitory in Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, and living part time in Edison, NJ, I was going back and forth between these places and sometimes even to a temple in Brooklyn (in New York city).  I wasn't always dressed/prepared for changes in weather and was meeting different people who may have been sick with the cold or flu so sometimes I came down with a cold or flu. I was pressed for time so I couldn't just stay home for a week or more and wait for the flu or cold to go through it's cycle of getting worse and then peaking out and then gradually going away so I decided to try different remedies or processes to accelerate the healing or reduce the total cycle time of the cold or flu.  I heard about various herbal teas from my friends in Brooklyn temple and elsewhere.  Some people I met at work told me some common saying "stuff a cold" while some others were at the other extreme saying the exact opposite of fasting.  Every time I came down with a cold or flu, I tried varaious things.  I once ate a whole bunch of food including yogurt, rice, etc. and drank orange juice and ended up even sicker and could not even get up in the morning nor could I sleep properly due to shivering.  I could not follow that theory of "stuff a cold" as it did not work for me.  Maybe it gives the illusion of working for some initially because it temporarily supresses the flu symptoms.  It certainly lacks the details as to what to eat and what to avoid eating, and I had doubts whether I should be eating anything at all as I didn't feel hungry while I was sick.  It was obvious that eating certain foods like yogurt seemed to make me sicker since I did that several times and ended up sicker and it just added coughing to my symptoms or at least I can state that it didn't help accelerate the healing but decelerated it as I stayed sick past the normal cycle time of about 1 week before the cold/flu gradually went away.  Stuffing my stomach with rice also made me sicker or at least I can state that the cold and/or flu kept going in the direction of getting worse undeterred by this food.  On one occasion I took ice-cream and I stayed sick past 2 weeks; that was the longest I had the cold.  Some of the herbal teas that I tried helped to give some temporary relief but I just could not finish drinking the full glass-- some had too much of a spice or some had no taste.  I did not want to force my body to take things that it was signaling me not to take just like I didn't want to stuff my body with food when I didn't even feel hungry.  After taking a smaller dose of the herbal tea, I can state that some herbal teas did give some relief after a few hours and slowed down the progress of the cold or flu somewhat or maybe they were not prepared properly to be fully effective as I still remained sick for a few days (almost a week).  When I did try various herbal teas, I stopped eating other things for some hours or rest of the day as I did not want to mix up the two theories of "stuff a cold" and herbal tea "remedy".  The various herbal teas that I tried in small doses did not accelerate the healing process that much compared to doing nothing.  I only took as much herbal tea as my body could tolerate which was less than a quarter of a glass to about half a glass and once a day.  In order to make whatever remedy I tried a controlled experiment, other factors had to be the same or be eliminated that can affect the cycle time of the viral infection.  For example, I noticed that going out in the cold weather and taking a bath or shower made my flu or cold worse.  Roaming around in cold windy weather definitely made things worse so any remedy I tried was done staying indoors at around room temperature or higher.  It was more important to avoid cold wind than cold temperature.  Even if sometimes temperature is in the 60s if there is cool air blowing, it will make the cold or flu worse than if temperature is in the 50s and no cold wind blowing.  Showering was an interesting one as a hot shower seems to make me feel better while I was in the shower but as soon as I came out and dried myself I started getting sicker and I ended up in a worse state than before I showered.  You can expect similar results to showering if bathing in tub, pool, lake, or some other body of water.  

  Another factor I noticed that affects healing time for the viral infection is stress/strain you put on the body which is already in a weakened state due to viral infection.  For example, watching TV or computer/video game monitor increases eye stress/strain and the eyes are usually feeling heavy already from the viral infection.  Even focusing on the road while driving a long distance increases eye stress/strain. Sleeping can help with eye stress/strain but it does not necessarily help reduce the healing time of the flu or common cold as you are only eliminating one factor but other factors can dominate and still get you sicker.  In fact, the other factors are usually leading you to a sicker state since once a flu or cold starts, you wake up the next morning and are sicker than the night before even after the eyes have been rested.  So heavy watery eyes is a symptom of the flu/cold getting worse within the whole body so just wiping out the heavy, watery eyes symptom does NOT heal your cold or flu.  This brings me to another point of why I am NOT even trying medicine as one of the ways to get rid of the flu or cold.  They are mainly suppressants of symptoms and NOT actually healing the patient or REMOVING the root cause of the flu.  Taking some pills to relieve the pain does not remove the cause of the pain.  The body is giving us signals through heavy eyes, pain in joints, cough, etc. that something is wrong.  What is the point of suppressing those symptoms-- the body will still have to be healed without you knowing of the symptoms. That's like removing a red light signal because there's a lot of traffic in the area.  You may speed up the traffic but you did NOT actually resolve the problem of why there was traffic.  Now you face more serious consequences that there will be potentially worse problems like accidents and deaths rather than traffic jams.  Modern medicine does NOT have a cure for the flu or cold so anyone going to the hospital or to a doctor will only get symptomatic treatment with drugs for suppressing the cough, drugs for easing the heavy eyes, drugs for numbing the pain, etc.  I rather have my symptoms.  I can see suppressing a symptom if its too painful for the person to tolerate but that cannot be considered part of the healing process.  The fact that a symptom has become extremely painful means the disease has gotten worse and is not being treated properly.
  
  So in trying various remedies, I made sure the other factors (rest, going out in the cold, showering, food, drinks, etc.) were kept the same and did not adversely affect the flu or cold otherwise comparing the remedies would be like comparing apples and oranges. Minimizing the adverse factors for the viral infection, I tried various remedies from stuffing a cold to complete fasting and from rubbing various balms on the body to various herbal teas but nothing really significantly reduced the healing time from around a week.

  Then one day I just "ran"/"slept" into a remedy for the cold and flu--  I felt the cold/flu coming as my breath was hot and eyes felt heavy before I got into my car.  While driving to the various locations that I was going to daily in my car, I was normally turning on the heat in my car and feeling some relief from the cold or flu.  So I went to work and actually felt okay by the time I got there but expectedly started shivering at work as the cold/flu gradually worsened.  I went back to my car in the parking lot during lunch break and turned on the heat just to get some more of that temporary relief that I felt while driving to work.  Although it was temporary, it was enough for me to go back and finish the work.  The next day I was slightly worse but still went to work and during lunch break I did the same of going to my car in the parking lot and turning on the heat.  However, this time I fell asleep in the car with the heat on and woke up around two hours later when the sun was shining directly in my face and on my head.  But I was NO LONGER sick-- no more cold or flu.  Some combination of sun, car, napping, and internal heater in the car wiped out my cold.  Maybe the fact that I didn't eat anything during lunch and was just relaxing during lunch added to the cure but it was gone within 2 days!  The first day, the sun was not that involved nor did I fall asleep in the car.  Regardless of what combination exactly and actually caused me to get cured, I simulated the same conditions the next time I got the flu/cold.  My job at that time as a software engineer was debugging and optimizing other people's software so I had figured out to leave everything alone if it works until you can prove that your modifications/optimizations will not alter the results (output).  So I purposely parked the car where the sun would shine directly on me while I had the heater in the car running and I didn't eat lunch and I tried to take a nap.  It worked again. The flu or cold just disappeared the same day it started!  It has worked every time I tried this in the 1980s and 1990s without fail with only exception being when the weather was cloudy and I could not simulate the same conditions.  It did not work when there was no sun or the sun was "dim" or "hazy".  It worked in the winter, fall, spring and summer so it was more dependent on the sun rather than the temperature outside.  Of course, getting a cold or flu in the summer is a rare event.  I only recall getting a cold in the summer once-- most of the time the viral infection occurred in the fall or winter as the flu virus is seasonal and peaks out gradually during winter.  The time of my nap varied from 15-20 minutes to around 2 hours for the various times that I was able to cure myself.  By this arrangement, I reduced the cycle time of my flu and cold from several days or weeks to several hours.

  Once again, this was and has been just my personal observation and experiment.  It would need some more work using various measuring instruments in a controlled experiment, mathematics, thermodynamics, etc. to isolate, optimize, and quantify the exact factors involved so it can be made into a generic algorithm to make it work for people in general who are not like me.  For example, I know some people cannot stand the heat and have become conditioned to having an air conditioner or a fan whenever the temperature is above 90 Fahrenheit while others lie in the scorching sun all day at the beach or elsewhere without any fans or air conditioners and feel great or can easily tolerate it.  There are some (like me) that cannot stand the dry air of fans or "artificial" air of air conditioners regardless of the heat index and start getting sick lying in the fan for a few hours.  So the generic algorithm would need to incorporate these extreme cases of people.  Also, it may need to take into account extreme cases of people for the other factors mentioned above in the cure.  For example, leaving the car window slightly open and/or taking sips of water could be REQUIRED depending on the weather and physical make-up of the person.  Also, remember the "food" factor as I had very little or nothing to eat when I cured myself but it may be okay to eat certain "foods" that do not adversely affect the healing process or that can help in accelerating the healing process.  Of course, some people cannot fast or reduce their meals significantly so the right foods to eat would be required even at the cost of slowing down the healing process.


Lovely Dayal

Feb. 25, 1992