The key to staying healthy all through winter lies in a combination of three basic steps:
- Take simple preventive measures to keep up your natural defenses against any infection.
- Limit your exposure to any common infections that are doing the rounds in the general community.
- Be prepared with knowledge of the fastest and most appropriate response to infections.
What follows is general advice on maximizing these three simple steps to staying healthy all through winter. As always, it’s crucial to consult with your healthcare professional for personalized care, especially if you have underlying health conditions.
It’s important to remember that a primary component of staying healthy throughout the winter has to do with our overall health, not just avoiding illness. We all want to maintain a level of health that allows us to fully enjoy the winter season (and any season, really). Refreshing your general knowledge about the things that contribute to staying healthy all through winter can significantly reduce your risk of winter illnesses and keep your immune system strong is a great start.
Stay informed, stay prepared, and here’s to your good health this winter!
What are the dangers that winter brings?
Before diving into how to avoid infections, it’s important to quickly go over the main threats winter brings, which are COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), bronchitis, and influenza.
All of these are respiratory diseases and have similar symptoms that overlap. The main differences are in how they are transmitted, the characteristics of the illnesses they cause, and who is most susceptible to severe illness and requires hospitalization. In general, COVID-19 poses a greater risk to older people, RSV poses a more significant threat to children, and the flu poses a lower threat to most people, although it’s higher for those two groups as well as pregnant women. Bronchitis is most often a consequence of getting one of the other infections, which then spreads to the lungs.
In all cases, people infected who have underlying cardiac or respiratory conditions or are immunocompromised, regardless of age, are in the highest risk category.
Maintain the natural barriers against infection
The best way to maintain resistance is to keep the body healthy. Some of the simplest steps are:
- Aiming for a balanced diet rich in the key vitamins and minerals. Nutrients for a strong immune system include:
- Vitamin C, which is found in citrus fruits, strawberries, bell peppers, and broccoli.
- Vitamin D, which is found in fatty fish, fortified foods, and supplements. Vitamin D is especially important in winter when sunlight exposure is limited.
- Zinc is found in meat, shellfish, legumes, and nuts.
- Exercise can boost the immune system and help ease your way through most infections. Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week. Focus on muscle-strengthening around the upper body. This can keep powering your breathing even if an infection loads your lungs with fluids.
- Sleeping 7-9 hours of quality sleep is crucial for immune strength.
- Chronic stress weakens the immune system. Practice simple stress management techniques such as mindfulness, meditation, and breathing, which release feel-good endorphins and help your immune system and heart.
Keep the bugs at bay
One of the hard-learned lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic was that viruses need close contact between infected people and the rest of us to jump across and spread their evil. Infections, particularly respiratory ones, thrive in winter due to the increased indoor activity and close contact with others. Flu and COVID-19 spread mainly through respiratory droplets ejected into the air when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks. RSV and bronchitis are typically transmitted through direct contact with respiratory secretions when touching an infected person or surface.
Avoiding personal contact with our friends, work colleagues, and family is impractical for most of us. Add to that challenge the fact that people may already be infected and remain infectious for days before feeling symptoms, and altogether avoiding contact with infection becomes virtually impossible. Rather than resorting to the brutal techniques of total social distancing that were imposed in the early days of the pandemic, it makes better sense to use the simple steps that keep the risk to a minimum:
- Keep vaccinations up to date. COVID-19 and flu vaccines are known to be effective, so unless you have a specific reason for avoiding these, get your local healthcare facility to boost your immunity regularly.
- Regular hand washing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds when you are in an area where other infected people may have touched the surfaces can significantly reduce the risk of infection.
- Wearing masks in crowded indoor settings can be an effective way to prevent airborne diseases like flu and COVID-19 from reaching you.
- Keep your body’s physical fences against airborne bugs in prime shape. One way to do this is to use the unique “sanitizer in a bottle” Enovid, which allows you to create a chemical barrier of nitric oxide with a single puff that will give you up to five hours of protection that stops the virus from landing and growing anywhere in your nasal passages.
Handling infections when they get through
As we said above, some simple steps can reduce the risk of picking up an infection. As well as putting up those barriers against the viruses, it helps to have a healthy body with in-built resistance. One emphasis is on the importance of a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains. These foods provide essential nutrients that can help the immune system function effectively.
However, if any one of the specific threats (COVID-19, flu, RSV) breaks through your defenses, you may be able to get back on your feet within a few days with minimal discomfort by following some of the time-tested home therapies. But remember that while these tips can aid recovery and comfort, they are not substitutes for professional medical advice, especially for individuals with underlying health conditions or severe symptoms.
In general, it is accepted that antibiotics don’t work against viruses, so it’s important to only resort to these on the advice of a doctor.
The common needs for all of the viral infections are hydration and rest. Viral infections often cause increased fluid loss from temperature-induced sweating and a runny nose. This can lead to dehydration, which can worsen symptoms. Drinking plenty of fluids such as water, herbal teas, and broths can keep an infected person hydrated and help thin mucus.
Rest is particularly important for children and older adults to be staying healthy all through winter. Keeping warm and avoiding sudden temperature changes helps the body fight the spread of infection.
