5 Tips for Staying Healthy During Winter
Consistently living a healthy lifestyle is already a challenge in itself. That challenge seems grow exponentially, though, during the winter as freezing temperatures make it tempting to hole up inside your home and wait for warmer weather.
While keeping your house shut off from the outside world is a great way to keep the cold out while keeping the heat in, a home that’s isolated from its external environment can become a haven for bacteria, viruses, and other pollutants that sneak inside your house. This could give rise to an atmosphere that’s potentially harmful to your health.
It’s important to make a conscious effort to stay healthy during winter, but how? This article offers some easy and effective ways to stay in good health all winter long.
1. Maintain proper ventilation
During the winter, you’re probably running your furnace, using your fireplace, or perhaps relying on both to stay warm and toasty. You might even be burning candles to help raise the temperature or add some relaxing ambiance. All of these activities, though, expose your home to toxic fumes and smoke.
Maintaining proper ventilation during winter is crucial because your doors and windows are probably completely sealed to keep the cold out. Although maintaining a comfortable temperature in your home is important, removing stale or contaminated indoor air and replacing it with clean and fresh air is just as vital for a healthy winter.
One way you can encourage this freshness is to install a heat recovery ventilator. If this is out of your budget, cracking open a few windows or simply running the exhaust fan in your kitchen and bathroom could help as well.
2. Sanitize surfaces regularly
Surfaces in your home, such as your kitchen table, bathroom fixtures, and even light switches are prime breeding grounds for sickness-causing bacteria and viruses. It’s important for you regularly sanitize these surfaces using a safe and non-toxic anti-bacterial cleaner to keep your home disease-free.
People tend to also overlook are everyday gadgets like phones, tablets, TV remotes, and computer keyboards as harborers of such contaminants. These days, these are the items that we hold and touch the most, so it can be beneficial to frequently clean these objects as well. Using a gentle cloth and a suitable sanitizing product will do wonders in keeping everything nice and clean.
3. Wash linens frequently
Whether we like to admit it or not, winter usually means staying curled up in bed, wrapped in thick blankets that have been there seemingly forever. Sometimes, this scenario even involves sipping a cup of hot cocoa and indulging in freshly-baked cookies that warm the soul.
It’s easy to imagine, then, how linens in the home can foster the growth of bacteria, as well as collect crumbs, dirt, and other particles that don’t belong there. This is why it’s crucial to wash linens frequently. We basically live in them and on them for the entire season, so it’s only fitting to keep everything clean and hygienic.
4. Use an air purifier
You already spend a lot of time indoors all year round, but slippery roads and sub-zero temperatures often mean that time spent inside the house spikes during winter. With more hours logged inside your home, you need to be mindful of the quality of the air you breathe.
This is where an air purifier comes in handy, because these machines clean the air and get rid of pollutants, germs, and allergens that may be lurking in the air you breathe to prevent allergy attacks and minimize the spread of infections. Air purifiers also help control unpleasant odors, which is really helpful considering that a closed-off home during the winter won’t be as efficient in dispersing foul smells.
5. Stick to healthy habits
Braving through even the most brutal winter season isn’t an excuse to slack off on healthy habits. In fact, you should even be more conscious of them more than ever, knowing that winter is notoriously known as peak flu season. Don’t forget to regularly wash your hands, for example, especially after using the bathroom and before and after eating.
If you’re unfortunate enough to get stricken with the flu, make sure to cover your mouth when coughing and sneezing to prevent the spread of viruses. Lastly, avoid touching your face — particularly your eyes and mouth — when you know that your hands are unwashed in order to minimize the risk of contracting infections.
Long winters are never fun, but don’t make them worse by increasing your chances of coming down with a pesky cold or a virulent case of the flu. Following these tips can help you take control of your home’s interior atmosphere and make you feel a little healthier on those long days indoors and away from the winter wonderland outside.
