The early half of winter is quite an exciting time. The nights draw in, and the weather gets colder, but you don’t mind it too much because you know that Christmas is coming. The Christmas and New Year festive period is a time to gather with friends and family, eat, drink, and be merry. It makes it worth dealing with the darkness and the frosty conditions outside.
Once that period is out of the way – as, sadly, it is now – winter becomes a little harder to deal with. The warmer months feel a long way away, and we begin to feel the toll that the season takes on our bodies. That’s why it’s important to change up your vitamin and supplement routine to best suit the harsher environment.
We suspect that many of our readers already have a vitamin and supplement regime, but if you keep to the same routine throughout the year, you might be missing the point of taking supplements. Our bodies need different forms of sustenance and energy at different times. We shouldn’t approach our vitamin routine as if we were playing a game of online slots with our health. We all know how online slots work – you keep putting money into the machine, and each time you do so, the machine generates a random result. When you’re playing online slots on website like Dove Casino, that’s all part of the fun, but none of us want a random response from introducing supplements to our bodies. Below, we’ve outlined the best supplement options for the next few months – along with the reasons you should be taking them!
Immune System Boosters
You’re not imagining it – people really are more likely to get ill in winter than they are at any other time of year. The season brings a whole raft of sicknesses along with it, and some of them are more sinister and unpleasant than an everyday bout of flu or a cold. The human immune system is a wonderful and powerful thing, but it needs our help to work at maximum efficiency. That’s why it’s a good thing that there are so many supplements available to give your immune system a much-needed boost and help it to keep the work of the viruses at bay. We don’t want to get into the business of recommending any individual brand but look for anything that contains a healthy combination of vitamin C, zinc, mushroom extracts, and adaptogens. Your body will thank you for it.
Oregano Oil
We’ve all been on the internet for long enough to know not to fall for anything that calls itself a ‘wonder drug.’ Oregano oil is not a wonder drug, but it is a naturally-occurring substance that’s been proven to have a wide variety of health benefits. For mild infections, it’s as effective as antibiotics, so you can use oregano oil instead of an antibiotic and therefore reduce the chance of antibiotics becoming ineffective as a treatment for you through over-exposure. Various medical trials have shown that it can ward off UTIs, and it’s also good at treating excessively oily skin and therefore preventing outbreaks of spots. More importantly for winter months, though, oregano oil can help you to fight off persistent colds and sore throats. If you take it all through the winter, it might even stop them from happening in the first place.
Vitamin D
We get most of our vitamin D through sunlight. That’s fine when the weather is good, but not so much when the sun takes its annual winter vacation. If you’re one of the many people who always feel they’re at their best during the summer, that’s not just down to the weather. Vitamin D has a profound effect on our mood. When we have enough of it in our system, we feel happier and more optimistic, but when we have too little, the opposite of that is true. Unless you happen to live somewhere where the sun stays out all year round, you almost certainly don’t get enough vitamin D during the winter season. Fix that problem by taking a supplement, and you may be surprised by how quickly you feel better about yourself.
Elderberry
Medical science has come on a long way during the past two centuries, but sometimes the old cures really are the best. Elderberries have been a base ingredient for a number of different types of medication for hundreds of years, and that’s not without good reason. They have antiviral properties and will improve your chances of avoiding anything from a mild cold up to a full-blown sinus infection. You probably don’t need us to remind you that sinus infections frequently result in toothache as well as flu-like symptoms, and they’re the last thing anyone wants to be dealing with when the world is already dark and dreary. Get to know elderberries, and include them in your diet in any way you can.
ZMA
ZMA is the best ‘all in one’ supplement you could possibly take during cold months. It’s made up of three primary ingredients – the Z is for zinc, the M is for magnesium, and the A inexplicably stands for vitamin B6. Don’t question the acronym, just stock up on it and let it do its work for you. Magnesium is a supplement you’re fine to take all year round. It helps you to relax and to concentrate and has also been shown to combat fatigue – a problem that arises a lot during the cold months. Zinc is a great immune system booster, and also improves metabolism. If you’ve over-indulged during the festive season or you’re eating more than you normally would to combat the cold, a faster metabolism is a good thing! The final ingredient, vitamin B6, is another immune system booster that helps to shore up the work being done by all the other active ingredients we’ve discussed.
Will taking these supplements guarantee that you don’t contract a winter cough or cold? Sadly, no. Nothing can! They will reduce the chances of it happening, though, and they’ll aid your recovery if it does. This is your winter survival kit – so go out and get it!
Leave a Reply