With winter close upon us, it’s easy to stay busy with holiday planning. But amid all the celebrating, make sure to take care of your health, too.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, wintertime can be a blow to your health. You could easily catch the common cold, the flu, pneumonia and much more during that time of year.
Plus, the cold weather and dark hours can impact your mental health for the worse.
If you want to stay healthy — both mentally and physically — this winter, try these tips.
There’s a reason we get sick in winter — it’s germ season. Luckily, there are steps you can start taking now to ensure that you stay healthy.
According to Harvard Health, “Your first line of defense is to choose a healthy lifestyle.” You can boost your immune system by:
Additionally, experts at Bastyr University recommend upping your vitamin intake. They recommend incorporating vitamins A, C, D and zinc into your diet.
When it’s dark and cold outside, the last thing you want to do is leave your house for a run or to go to the gym.
But exercising is good for your mental health — which is often impacted by seasonal affective disorder in the winter.
According to the Mental Health Foundation, exercise helps the body regulate stress levels, mood and self-esteem, and it can also help with depression, anxiety and dementia and cognitive decline in the elderly.
So how can you work out in the winter? Here are some tips:
Sleep is imperative to staying healthy and fighting off germs. And, according to Healthline, we need more sleep that usual in the winter.
As Healthline reported, a study published in “Frontiers in Neuroscience” in 2023 found “that humans experience longer REM sleep in winter than summer — even in artificially lit urban areas — and less deep sleep in autumn.”
According to researchers from Charité Medical University of Berlin, “human body clocks are set by the sun and changing day length and light exposure over the course of the year can affect our sleep duration and quality.”
Nicole Eichelberger, an American Board of Sleep Medicine certified sleep expert, gave Healthline a few tips on how to get better sleep:
According Baylor College of Medicine, vitamin D is crucial to your “overall health” — but is difficult to absorb in the fall and winter.
Mike Ren, assistant professor at the school, said, “You need the sun high in the sky, not when it’s rising or about to set, for your body to effectively absorb sunlight to absorb the vitamin D.”
With the darker months upon us, it’ll be harder than ever to get the recommended 800 international units of vitamin D per day — which amounts to about 15 to 30 minutes of sun exposure, according to Baylor College of Medicine.
According to Health.com, you can start taking a vitamin D supplement in the winter — but experts recommend that you consult with your doctor before you do.
And while vitamin D isn’t commonly found in food, there are a few foods you can incorporate into your diet to increase your vitamin D intake. Those foods are, according to Health.com:
According to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “Cold air and low humidity can cause dry, itchy skin.”
During wintertime, you might want to prioritize an especially moisturizing skincare routine to keep your skin healthy and happy.
Here are a few things you can do to manage your dry skin:
It’s not unusual to feel blue around wintertime. In fact, it has an official name — seasonal affective disorder.
“(SAD is a) well-defined clinical diagnosis that’s related to the shortening of daylight hours,” Dr. Matthew Rudorfer, a mental health expert at National Institute of Health, said. “It interferes with daily functioning over a significant period of time.”
If you find yourself suffering from SAD each winter, there are a few things you can start doing during the fall that could help, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine: