Place the onion slice in your socks , and sleep as you usually do. Take an onion and cut it into thin and flat slices (make sure it’s an organic onion to avoid any side effects of pesticides like fungal infections). One of the coolest ways to stimulate these meridians is to put an onion slice inside your socks and wear them to bed. Onions offer a range of health benefits when they are eaten as part of a balanced diet.

When we cut an onion, it brings tears to our eyes but we get immense benefits from its consumption. By just putting a slice of onion each in socks before going to sleep, you will get tremendous health benefits starting from purifying your blood to removing toxins to killing germs. While there is no scientific evidence that this is true, many believe that the purifying effect onions have on the air can make it more breathable. Onions are air purifiers and when in contact with the skin they kill germs and bacteria. Also, the juice that onions produce when you cut them open, when in contact with the skin, will enter the bloodstream and help purify the blood.

Practitioners apply pressure to specific areas of the body to try to help chronic diseases, stress, strokes, and muscular disorders. Being sick stinks, but sleeping with raw onions in your socks probably stinks even more. However, swarms of natural medicine buffs are trying it anyway in the hopes the vegetable will cure or alleviate respiratory symptoms. This remedy may originate back to as early as the 1500s, according to the National Onion Association, when it was widely believed that placing raw, cut-up onion around your home could protect you from the bubonic plague.

Onions are also rich in organosulfur compounds which can prevent the development of cardiovascular disease if regularly consumed. In a similar way to reflexology, this ancient practice focuses on specific points in the foot based on a belief that each point affects the health sunburn cocoa butter of a different internal organ. Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Choose from a number of subscription models to not only gain access to high-quality fact-based news on your desktop or mobile device, but also to show your support for Australia’s only not-for-profit newswire. Onions do have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties when eaten, but don’t have any fever-reducing effect when applied to feet. Putting sliced onion on the bottom of your feet can help to relieve a fever. The issue, Dodhia went on to tell The Sun, is when people use folk remedies as their main treatment, especially in the cases of life-threatening conditions. “Using unproven household remedies should never supersede advice given by a medical professional,” she said, “nor should using these methods deter people from seeking the help of a pharmacist, GP or doctor.”

“If you’re unsure about what’s causing your symptoms, your doctor can order tests to determine the cause and recommend the best course of treatment,” she said. Most respiratory infections are caused by viruses, so antibiotics won’t help. But your doctor can help determine if you have a bacterial infection or other complication that might warrant medication. Onions are rich in sulphuric compounds, which make it anti-fungal and anti-bacterial. Practicing this habit will prevent you from smelly foot and will not let bad smell revive. The onion in sock home remedy has origins in western folklore and is hundreds of years old.

In fact, many experts have weighed in, further debunking the onion healing theory. If that explanation isn’t doing it for you, Wolfe provides additional reasoning as well. “These kinds of remedies like onions in your socks and a lot of these things have existed for centuries when they didn’t really understand the science behind how infections are passed. It just kind of grabbed hold and it resurfaces every couple years, or even decades,” says Dr. Brian Curtis, vice president of clinical specialty services for OSF HealthCare. People across the country are getting sick with a multitude of seasonal illnesses.