Holistic Living RN

Winter is right around the corner and with it…flu season. As an Emergency Dept RN, I’ve already seen the first cases of flu this year.

So what can you do to help yourself and your fam stay healthy and avoid getting sick?

These are my Top 5 Winter Wellness tips:

1. Wash your hands. Seems simple, but the act of washing your hands {with soap} actually loosens any bad germs from your hands and sends them down the drain. You don’t need antibacterial soap. Just regular soap. Studies have actually found anti-bacterial soap to be harmful. Triclosan, the former #1 ingredient in anti-bacterial soap, was recently banned from hand soap by the FDA because of its cancer-causing properties.

2. Get some sunlight every single day.  Your skin makes Vitamin D from the Sun. It can’t do this if you have sunscreen on every inch of visible skin. During the Winter, the Sun is rarely strong enough to cause skin damage, even with prolonged exposure. An exception to this is if you’re in the mountains or at high elevation, then please use sunscreen. Low Vitamin D levels are associated with everything from chronic diseases to cancer.

3. Use essential oils to help support your immune system. Essential oils are plant extracts that work with your body’s cells to support and boost your body’s own natural illness fighting ability. Research is now catching up to the old wives tales about “alternative” medicine, and we now know HOW many of the essential oils we use work. Example- melaleuca {tea tree} actually blocks the entrance site on your body’s cell wall where the flu virus enters. Without entrance, the virus isn’t able to hijack your cells to make copies of itself and make you sick. OnGuard is doTERRA’s immune boosting blend. A 5th graders science project going around the internet shows it kills the bad stuff better than even Clorox bleach or alcohol hand sanitizers. I use 1 drop of each on the bottoms of every persons feet in the house everyday. I also make a hand sanitizer with these 2 essential oils and water. Cheap, easy and effective.

4. Take a quality multivitamin and fish oil supplement everyday. Even if you eat organic and mostly raw foods, our soil is diminished or devoid of so many of the vitamins and miners our bodies need to operate at maximum efficiency. When the stores get low, our bodies are more susceptible to illness. Most of the vitamin supplements out there are not very bio-available- meaning they aren’t absorbed very well, so your vitamin is a waste of money and you aren’t getting what your body needs. doTERRA worked with the premiere vitamin scientist in the world when developing their vitamin line. And although they are known as an essential oil company, their vitamins are the #1 selling product!

5. Stress less. The Holidays can be a time of stress for so many people. Family. Travel. Obligations. Money. Work expectations. Take the first 2 minutes of every day, right when you wake up, to list the 5 things you are most grateful for in your life. They don’t have to be big things. It can be something as small as warm coffee, or as big as a place to live. By starting the day with gratitude, it sets your mind up to see the positives in the day as the stress builds up. The more often you practice this, the more and more you’ll notice the blessings you already have, and with that comes less stress and worry. For bonus points, just as you’re laying down to bed, think about the best part of your day- ending the day with the gratitude you started it with.