Tips for Winter Wellness

January and February can be difficult months; the fun and festivities of Christmas and New Year’s Eve are becoming a distant memory, and it’s still cold, dark and damp outside. While many of us start a new year with the best of intentions when it comes to wellness, it can be hard to keep up the motivation in the reality of a British winter. These tips will help you optimise your health and wellbeing this winter, and by dedicating a little time to nourish your physical and emotional health you can protect your immune system and emotional wellbeing.

Eat Well

Eating seasonal, locally produced whole food is the best way to make sure you are getting all the vitamins and minerals you need to keep nourish you body. Your plate should be a mix of colourful vegetables, healthy fats, high quality protein and whole (rather than refined) carbohydrates.

While this approach will set you up to meet your nutritional needs all year round, there are certain vitamins and minerals that are especially beneficial during times of stress on our immune systems:

Zinc is an important mineral for the good functioning of our immune system and metabolism. It can be found in shellfish, red meat, poultry, beans, nuts and dairy products.

As well as helping to boost your immune system, Vitamin C is an antioxidant that helps to protect your cells and protect against the effects of free radicals. If free radicals build up on the body they can harm your health, so the fewer the better. You can get your vitamin C from citrus fruits such as oranges and lemons, peppers, strawberries, tomatoes, kiwi fruits and cabbage.

Selenium also help to improve immune system function, and is found in red meat, turkey, chicken, fish, shellfish, mushrooms and eggs.

Iron is essential for helping your immune cells grow and mature and help protect you from infection. Iron rich foods include liver (but do avoid this if you are pregnant or breastfeeding due to the high levels of Vitamin A it contains), red meat, beans, nuts, and poultry. Iron is best absorbed by the body when paired with Vitamin C, so make sure to contain some of these foods on your plate too.

Omega 3 has a positive influence on the functioning of our immune cells and also helps to reduce inflammation in the body. Sources of Omega 3 include fatty fish such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring and sardines. It is also abundant in nuts and seeds.   

Good gut health

Believe it or not, a whopping 70% of your immune system is located in your gut. To promote a healthy gut microbiome, you need to include fibre, probiotics and prebiotics. Plants are a fantastic source of both fibre and prebiotics so make sure to eat lots of fruits, veggies and legumes such as peas, chickpeas and lentils. Probiotics are living microbes found in fermented foods which help to regulate your immune responses. You can find probiotics in kimchi, kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha and tempeh.  

Take a Supplement

When looking to buy supplements, consider which vitamins and minerals can you get from your diet, and which need topping up. Vitamin D is difficult to come by during winter in the northern hemisphere and therefore supplementing this is always a good idea. If you don’t eat a lot of fish or fermented foods, then consider Omega 3 and probiotic supplements.

Get outside

You may not feel like it when it’s cold, cloudy, and dark by 5pm, but continuing to get outside during the winter months is seriously beneficial for your health. Just fifteen minutes a day can improve both your mood and physical health. Even on a grey day, exposure to natural daylight raises your serotonin levels (the happy hormone), helping to keep those winter blues away. A walk outside also helps to boost your immune system by decreasing stress hormones. Stress can reduce the number of cells which are needed to fight viruses in the body.

Exposure to sunlight also helps to keep your circadian rhythm in check, which leads to my next point:

Sleep well

Sleep plays a vital role in both your physical and mental wellbeing. It affects your stress hormones, immune system and blood pressure, not to mention your mood. I’m sure we’ve all felt cranky after a bad night’s sleep before! Getting a proper amount of good-quality sleep can therefore help you function at your best. Make sure that your bedroom is cool, dark and quiet, and try to limit your screen time for a couple of hours before bedtime. If you find your mind racing as soon as you lie down to sleep, journalling before bed can help to process worries and emotions, and get any to do lists you may be fretting over out of your head and down on to paper to deal with fresh tomorrow.

Finally, a word about alcohol and sleep. While you may fall asleep faster after a couple of drinks due to alcohol’s sedative effects, it seriously messes with your sleep stages, leaving you feeling badly rested and groggy the next morning. It takes around one hour to process one unit of alcohol, so therefore if you do choose to drink, try not to do so too close to bedtime.

Meditation and breathwork

As mentioned above, stress is particularly unhelpful when we want to stay fit and healthy, as it reduces our ability to fight off infections. Meditation and breathwork are great ways to destress. Perhaps the easiest breathing technique is box breathing, where you inhale through your nose, slowly counting to four, hold that breath for four seconds, exhale from your mouth for four, hold again for four, then start the cycle again.

Do bear in mind that if you are feeling stressed to the point where you feel particularly low, or are finding it difficult to carry out your usual daily tasks, it is important to talk to your doctor or other qualified healthcare professional.