(December 20, 2011) — Warning, students: be aware of the increase of colds spreading throughout the school. According to GUSD Health Services Coordinator Lynda Burlison, every year around this time many students tend to get sick with a variety of viruses. This is mostly due to the cold and windy weather which causes students to catch colds and get sick with the flu. “The windy weather, like we’ve recently been having, really affects students with allergies and asthma,” said Burlison. It’s easy for a virus to spread, especially through crowds of people like those in the auditeria classrooms. One sneeze can spread germs more than three feet according to Children’s Memorial Hospital. According to Time Magazine , people tend to get more sick in the winter because they tend to stay inside to avoid cold weather, making them stay closer together. Hanging around people who are sick increases the chances of catching something. Direct contact like holding unwashed hands, kissing and hugging makes it more likely for a person to get sick. Along with being near and exposed to sick people more often in the wintertime, people tend to start habits like decreasing the amount they exercise and replacing the foods they eat with ones that have less nutritional value, according to USA Today . Without proper exercise and diet, the body’s immune system weakens. Without a strong immune system, it’s a lot easier to catch a cold. “In the wintertime I always get lazy when winter break gets closer,” said junior Andrea Nino. “I’d rather stay inside eating than exercise and eat a salad.” Many people who get sick have their own ways of getting rid of a cold. Sophomore Tatevik Stepanyan said that she’s been sick for a while with a stuffy nose and an itchy sore throat. “I drink TheraFlu tea. Even though it’s really disgusting, it helps,” said Stepanyan. She said that she boils water to lean her head over so she can inhale the steam, which helps open up her sinuses. Cough drops were a necessity for Stepanyan to have while stuck with her cold. Whenever she’s sick, Stepanyan dresses as warm as possible even though she knows that dressing warm does not change anything about being sick, since it’s the virus that makes you sick. Waking up sick is common when a person first catches a cold. Senior Arno Bolbolian remembers waking up sick on Christmas Eve last year, and said that he had instantly felt dizzy. He suffered from a sore throat and a stuffy nose all day. On Christmas day, he was still coughing and had a fever of 101.2 degrees, but this didn’t affect the rest of his holiday. “I just had to fight through the symptoms,” said Bolbolian. He spent the day visiting his family and celebrating.