Tips for Keeping You and Your Family Healthy as the Weather Starts to Cool

Now that summer is almost over, the weather is going to start cooling. With it, we know the likelihood of getting sick with flus, colds, coughs, and even the dreaded coronavirus increase. As such, it’s a good idea to understand some of the critical things to do to help protect you and your family. There are multiple steps to take to stay healthier as the temperature drops.

Improve Your Immune System

Firstly, it helps to boost you and your family’s immune systems, so you’re less likely to get sick at all and won’t become very ill if you get exposed to nasty germs. For example, it pays to book an online doctor visit or see a physician in person to get prescriptions for or receive flu and other vaccinations.

You can also help yourself by getting enough vitamin D, especially as the weather gets colder and there’s less sunlight around. Make sure you get around 20 minutes of sunlight daily to improve vitamin D levels, which in turn should help you ward off sickness. You might want to also stock up on supplements for anything you’re deficient in, such as vitamin C and zinc.

Clean Effectively

We typically get sick from the transmission of bugs, so anything you can do to reduce this transmission will help you and your family stay healthy. Keep your home as clean as you can to reduce the likelihood of germs making you all sick. Germs can live on surfaces for multiple hours or even days at a time, so regular cleaning is essential.

Pay close attention to how often and well you clean the most common touch points around your property, such as light switches, door handles and knobs, smartphones, toilet buttons, computer keyboards, and countertops.

Eat Healthily

You’ll also ward off illnesses by eating nutritious food every day. Prepare healthy snacks and meals that ensure the family ingests a variety of necessary vitamins and minerals, protein, complex carbohydrates, good fats, and the like. The more comprehensive the selection of foods you can eat, the more likely it is that you’ll consume all the essential nutrients you need to keep bugs at bay.

Take the time to wash fresh produce and blanch or steam greens like kale, spinach, and beans. This step will reduce the likelihood you pick up foodborne bacteria and chemicals that increase your chances of becoming unwell. Also, be wary of skipping too many meals. Doing this can put unnecessary stress on your body and thus negatively impact your immune system.

Exercise

Exercise is vital, too. While we all know it’s good for our health generally, did you know that staying active helps you to improve your immunity levels? Regular movement can go a long way to keeping colds, flus, coughs, and other illnesses at bay. You don’t have to go all out with your activity levels, though. Gentle to moderate exercises such as yoga, walking, and body-weight circuit activities can boost your circulation and oxygen levels and aid your immune function in turn.

It’s wise to look for ways to add incidental exercise into your days wherever possible. For example, cleaning your home, carrying groceries, mowing the lawn, taking the stairs rather than the lift, and parking further away from destinations, so you earn more daily steps, can all improve your overall health.

Rest Up in a Suitable Sleeping Environment

Sleep is another crucial ingredient in staying healthy and well. You and your family should try to get at least seven to eight hours of quality rest per night, with even more required for children, including teenagers. Getting enough shut-eye assists the immune system and will help you feel more energized to take the steps mentioned above, too.

Make it more likely that you all sleep well by setting up suitable bedroom environments. For example, install blackout curtains or blinds to limit light overnight and use heating and cooling systems and the right choice of bedding and sleepwear to find the optimal temperature for sleep. Also, stay away from screens before bed, as the blue light from TVs, computers, smartphones, and so on can make the brain think it needs to stay awake.

Staying healthy as a family unit as the weather cools relies on taking numerous steps, not just one. Every smart strategy you follow will add up, and hopefully, you and your loved ones can have a sickness-free rest of the year.