Some people like to claim that freshers’ flu doesn’t exist. But as you will most likely find out – it does. Some get it worse than others but in the post freshers’ exhaustion, just as you are trying to knuckle down ready for work, the illness will strike. You’ll spend the first few lectures of university trying to hear your lecturer over the sound of 300 students intermittently coughing. It’s not the best thing about first year, but it’s a rite of passage. So here’s how to manage freshers flu.

1. Medicine and water. Like any illness you treat it in the same way. Sip your Lemsip, take paracetamol, rest and drink plenty of water.

2. Look after yourself. Sleep and eat as well as you can. It can be hard to find the motivation to cook when you’re feeling ill so making sure you have easy to cook things in the cupboard and plenty of fruit.

3. Call home if you need to. Sometimes hearing a family member’s voice can cheer you up and they’ll have some helpful advice if you need it.

4. Try to attend your lectures and seminars. Everyone is feeling rough but getting behind right at the start of the year could make the rest of the year more stressful than it has to be. Drag yourself up for an hour and you can go right back to bed once it’s over.

5. Take cough sweets, tissues and water to those lectures. There’ll be plenty of other people coughing but nothing makes you feel self-conscious like having a coughing fit in the middle of a lecture of 100 people.

6. Check up on your flatmates. Sometimes if people are feeling ill they might shut themselves away. It’s always worth knocking on their door occasionally to see how they are and ask if they need anything and hopefully they’ll do the same for you when you are feeling under the weather.

7. Go to the doctors. For most people fresher’s flu will clear up without much fuss. But if after a couple of weeks you’re still feeling ill then get yourself down to the doctors to get checked out.

8. Don’t let it dampen your enjoyment of uni. After the hype of freshers’ week and the buzz of going to your first lectures, freshers’ flu can give you the time to wallow and miss being looked after. It’s easy to decide that you’re not ready for independence or that uni is too much for you. So tackle that first illness and you’ll feel confident that you can handle the rest of university life when you’re well!