Peak health this winter… 7 top tips to help us through.
With the autumn equinox behind us, the leaves are falling thick and fast and it’s starting to feel decidedly chillier out there. Many of us may be dreading the onset of winter, exhausted already from the first wave of the pandemic and now feeling overwhelmed in the face of current local lockdowns and a potential new Covid-19 spike.
It may feel like a stretch too far to turn our attention to our own health and wellbeing right now but taking control of our own health can be positive than we think. Once we start to putting plans in place for change – exchanging old habits for newer, more positive ones - we can feel so empowered and energised.
It’s been over 20 years since Stephen Covey published his book: ‘The 7 habits of highly effective people: powerful lessons in personal change’. In it he observed that people are more effective when they focus their time and energy on the things they have control over, rather than wasting their time and energy on the things they don’t. In our current times, this advice is something we should all be thinking about.
Changing old habits can be challenging at the outset. However, this is a perfect time of year to turn our attention inwards, focus on home comforts, evenings inside in the warm – and rethink how we can adopt new habits that will make us happier and keep us in peak health.
Here are my recommended building blocks to help stay fit and healthy this winter.
1. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Sleep is so crucial for our immune function as well as our general physical and mental wellbeing. Long-term lack of sleep has been linked to serious health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and stroke. According to the Sleep Council many of us aren’t getting enough sleep, with a third of us only sleeping 5-6 hours a night - and with a quarter of school children not getting the sleep they need. In the days before electricity, TV and social media, we all naturally slept more in winter. So, with the nights drawing in, there’s no better time to focus on our sleep hygiene. For more info, visit the Sleep Council’s website (link in Further Reading below) or read Matthew Walker’s excellent book ‘Why we sleep’.
2. Be active! Social media adverts are awash with exercise options and gyms are back in business again. However, if your motivation has taken a knock of late, of if your purse strings are tight and/or you struggle with confidence, it can be hard to know where to start. The best place to start is with easily accessible activities such as cycling or walking. They not only keep you fit but enable you to make the most of the autumnal sun, boosting your mood, vitamin D levels - as well as helping you sleep! If walking feels too dull, there’s always borrommydoggie.com to help you find a 4-legged companion to take along with you! For accessible, low cost classes, there’s a plethora of online classes offering a wide choice of exercises that you can do from the comfort of your own home. Check out our Zoom Pilates classes here.
3. Healthy eating quick wins! It is likely many of us have some room for improvement in our eating habits. Most of us are aware that a nutrient-rich diet with lots of fruits, vegetables, pulses and whole grains best supports our health and wellbeing. Practically, however, too many of us do not get our ‘5 a day’. Nature helps us along this time of year, with its bounty of seasonal fruit and vegetables, from pumpkins in all their shapes and sizes, to root vegetables such as beetroot and turnips, to apples, pears, sprouts and runner beans – not only perfect for hearty meals but all reflecting those gorgeous, autumnal colours! (link to foods in season in Further Reading, below). Whatever the gaps, we need to be mindful that winter is not the best time to be rigid or self-righteous about our diet. In his book, ‘Healing Foods’, Paul Pickford writes that ‘a bad relationship [with food] is more poisonous’ and that ‘if you desire… a treat, it is better to have it than stuff yourself with rice to suppress the desire’. Ultimately, it’s about moderation - and there are some quick wins we could all adopt that will start seeing a change to or habits, such as eating more fruit and vegetables, reducing our consumption of sugars and refined carbs, laying off processed and takeaway meals, eating breakfast and avoiding eating too late in the evening.
4. Stay hydrated! In winter we can often feel less thirsty and drink less. However, water helps the body carry nutrients to cells and eliminate toxins, so getting if you get dehydrated you also risk getting run down. Being dehydrated can also affect our mood and wellbeing. The European Food Safety Authority suggests a total of 1.6-2 litres of fluids a day and the Eatwell Guide suggests around 1.2-1.5 litres/day. Caffeinated drinks can act as a diuretic as well as disrupt our quality of sleep - so swap those colas and coffees out in the afternoon and evenings to limit any impact. There’s such an array of choice of alternative drinks available to us these days from herbal teas, Rooibos to flavoured water. The best option is plain water but whatever you choose, make sure you limit sugary and fizzy drinks. To help you get in the habit of drinking more, fill a water bottle each morning and keep it close by, remembering to sip it regularly through the day and monitor how much you consume to check you are drinking enough..
5. Mind the nutrient gap! A well-balanced diet should give us all the nutrients we need. However, there are periods in our life where our diet and eating patterns go a little awry. Stress, lack of sleep, illness, too much alcohol and some medications can also deplete some of the key nutrients that play a critical role in supporting our immune system. During winter we need to pay extra attention and ensure we are not running low on some of those immunity-enhancing nutrients:
a. Vitamin D: the more we learn about vitamin D the more we discover its far reaching benefits on our health and wellbeing. We make most of our Vitamin D from sun-shine so, in the winter months, it’s more challenging to get enough. Although we can get vitamin D from foods such as oily fish (sardines, mackerel, salmon) and eggs, from October to March many of us may benefit from taking a daily vit D supplement.
b. Vitamin C has long been renowned for its role in supporting the immune function. Found in abundance in many fruit and veggies, vitamin C is particularly high in red peppers, green leafy vegetables, broccoli and Brussel sprouts.
c. Zinc is critical for many processes that take place in the body and its important role on supporting the immune system is bolstered by early findings that have shown that hospitalized COVID-19 patients with low blood levels of zinc tended to fare worse than those with healthier levels (source: WebMD - link below ). Rich food sources of zinc include oysters, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, ginger root, nuts (pecans, Brazil nuts, almonds, walnuts), pulses. liver, lamb, and oats.
d. Probiotics are the friendly gut bacteria that support a healthy digestive system. As our gut plays a key role in our immune health, we need to ensure we optimise our gut microbiome (the trillions of friendly bugs that colonise our digestive system). There are lots of ways you can increase your levels of good bacteria, such as increasing our fibre intake to getting a good night’s sleep. Science Focus has a top 15 list (see link Further Reading below). To help us regain balance, we can introduce fermented foods that are rich in probiotics (see my link on making kefir here) or take a probiotic supplement. There are lots of very good probiotic supplements available. It is helpful to know what it is you need as probiotics do different things (I’ll try to cover this in a future blog). Also, quality brands do not come cheap.
e. Multi-vits: If you are recovering from an illness, are particularly stressed or feel your diet has gone off the rails of late, then it is worth considering taking a good quality multivitamin through the winter months.
*Note: If you are supplementing, it is important to stay within the RDIs unless advised otherwise by a physician or nutritionist.
6. See your GP! It may be tempting to avoid doctor appointments and routine screenings at the moment, whether out of fear of getting exposed to illness or out of concern of overloading an already burdened health system. From routine smear tests, annual flu jabs through to concerns over an unknown symptom, please, please do not put off seeing your doctor!
7. Slow down and allow time for reflection. Our immune system does not function well when we are stressed and, in these sometimes uncertain times, it is more important than ever to take time out and ensure we are being kind to ourselves. Financial worries, isolation and loneliness, juggling family and working from home, can all take their toll on our physical and mental wellbeing. We need to care of ourselves first in order to be able to take care of others, our home, to succeed at work and so on. Fortunately, there are a lot of Apps and resources to help us adopt coping mechanisms such as mindfulness and breathing techniques. In his book, ‘Notes from a nervous Planet’, Matt Haig also advocates practising abstinence from social media to avoid spending our lives worrying about what we’re missing out on, or avoid risking missing a meal or sleep for the allures of the internet!
With a change in mindset, we can approach winter this year just as our ancestors did - using it as the season of hibernation, building and strengthening; a preparation to ensure we protect ourselves against ill-health as far as we can - and emerge stronger, fitter and healthier when the sun comes back around and the days start getting longer and warmer again.
Sources
Further reading
Web sites
Books
Stephen Covey: ‘The 7 habits of highly effective people: powerful lessons in personal change’.
Matthew Walker - ‘Why we sleep’
Paul Pitchford - ‘Healing with wholefoods’
(I’ve used Amazon links here for ease of reference. If you plan on buying any of them please support your local bookshops if you can).