Holistic Guide to Winter Wellness

How many of us are guilty of wishing away the winter season? Hiding inside and declaring a state of hibernation until the high temps return? Resisting what we can’t avoid is sure to make the winter season feel darker, colder and longer than it really is.

Instead of working against our natural rhythms, I’m challenging you to flip your mindset and embrace winter this year. Use it as an opportunity to align yourself with habits, routines and practices that honor the season of rest. 

Keep reading for my Holistic Guide to Winter Wellness so you can embrace the cold, winter months and still feel your best.

Eat Seasonal Foods

The best place to start and one of the easiest ways to feel connected to the season you’re in is to prioritize fresh, seasonal produce in your diet. Intentionally eating produce that is in season is a low effort way to ensure you’re getting a wide variety of vitamins and minerals from your food.

Focusing on eating seasonal foods also provides us with the most nutrient dense options possible. Fall harvest crops like apples, potatoes, squash, carrots and other starchy vegetables are kept in cold storage, which helps maintain the quality of nutrients throughout every step of the supply chain. Use soups, stews and warm apple crisp as inspiration for using these types of produce!

Lastly, eating foods that are in season leads to less waste since they stay fresh for longer.  Have you ever bought a container of berries in the winter only for them to go bad in a couple of days? In contrast, eating food more closely to the location where it was grown will extend its shelf life.

Not sure what produce is seasonal during this time of year?  Some of my favorite types of produce to cook with in the winter are:

• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Brussel sprouts
• Cabbage
• Kale
• Red, white and purple potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Turnips
• Beets
• Carrots
• Squash

Cruciferous vegetables will provide you with lots of Vitamin A, C and E as well as calcium, magnesium and potassium while root vegetables are a great source of dietary fiber.

Interested in learning how to eat more seasonally? Cooking with seasonal produce is a cornerstone principle of The Real Food Prep Club.

Prioritize Hydration

Making an intentional effort to stay hydrated is especially important for feeling your best in the winter because of the dry air and low temperatures. Here are a few of my favorite ways to stay hydrated in the winter months.

Drinking warm, soothing teas like herbal, green or black tea throughout the day not only hydrate but also offer health benefits. You can sip on warm tea in the morning, afternoon and evening! My go-to brands for tea are Well Rooted Teas (local to Minneapolis!), Sacred Blossom Farm and blends made by Dr. Britt Stamer, a practicing Naturopathic Doctor in Minnesota.

An easy way to further level up your hydration is by adding extra hydrating ingredients to your tea. Hydration boosting mix-ins like lemon, mint or honey can improve flavor and provide extra nutrients! Challenge yourself to play around with different combinations and find one that you can savor throughout this season.

Incorporate broth based soups into your meal plan. Warm broth on its own, or as a base for your soup are excellent for staying hydrated. I recommend choosing vegetable or meat stock to maximize nutrients!

Lastly, use a humidifier to combat the dehydrating effects of that dry winter air. Using a humidifier can help you retain moisture, and combining it with the staples above will help keep your respiratory system hydrated. An added bonus is maintaining dewy, hydrated skin all throughout the winter season.

Gentle Movement

Most winter movement routines go something like this: lose all motivation and energy to move starting in November or December and stop moving all together during the holidays. Then, set crazy New Year’s resolutions to wake up at 5AM every single day and go to the gym.

When you put it like that, it sounds a bit unrealistic doesn’t it? Especially considering that winter is actually a season of rest and January is right in the middle of that season.

Try this instead: allow your body to lean into physical rest and take movement more slowly and intentionally. Swap your 5AM alarm bells for a sunrise alarm clock that helps mimic waking up with natural sunlight. Change out that daily HIIT workout for low intensity exercise like walking, body weight exercises and intentional stretching.  I just restarted wearing my step tracker to hold myself accountable to getting in 5000 steps a day. 

Your body, and your cortisol, will thank you for being gentler this season!

Supplementing

It would not be a true winter season without constantly trying to dodge a winter cold! It can be difficult to avoid altogether, but adding a few high-quality supplements to your daily routine can help set your immune system up for success.

Perhaps the most important is Vitamin D3! In many parts of the world, the sun’s rays simply aren’t strong enough to produce Vitamin D3 (yes, even if it’s a sunny winter day). 

Supplementing during the winter supports your overall health as Vitamin D3 plays a role in nearly every system of the body: immune system, hormonal health, cardiovascular health, etc. Bonus points if you can take a Vitamin D3 plus K2 combo since K2 helps the body metabolize Vitamin D3 properly!

Vitamin C is a well known supplement for any time of year, but it’s especially powerful in the winter season. Vitamin C’s role is to support the formation and function of your immune cells so it’s a no-brainer to add to your winter supplement routine. Supplementing with Vitamin C can shorten colds and reduce the severity of symptoms you might experience during a bout of illness. 

Zinc is another powerhouse supplement to incorporate this time of year as it also supports the function of your immune system and aids in your resistance to upper respiratory infections.

Dr. Aviva Romm’s blog post on Immunity Boosting has been a stepping stone to finding a winter supplement routine that resonates with my goals. This winter, I’m focusing on Vitamin D3 to prevent sickness and incorporating Vitamin C, Zinc, elderberry syrup and echinacea when I’m feeling the symptoms of a cold or flu. I’ve even experimented with making my own elderberry syrup at home!

Check out these Winter Wellness supplement recommendations on Fullscript and get 25% off your order.

Embrace the Season

As we touched on at the start of this guide, winter truly is the season of rest and recovery and reflection. What did you like about your last year, what habits do you want to leave behind? What habits do you want to ease into?  Allow yourself to lean into what these couple of months have to offer you so that you go into the Spring season feeling rested, relaxed and rejuvenated! Here are a few ideas:

Lean into physical rest by allowing your body to sleep more than you might in the other months. The National Sleep Foundations tells us we sleep 1.75 - 2.5 hours more in the winter due to the natural changes in our circadian rhythms with less natural daylight.

Get outside as often as you can! Fresh air is so important for our overall wellbeing and for supporting our immune system. Aim for even a few minutes daily, as long as the temperatures allow for you to do so safely.

Start a new hobby, especially something you can do with your hands that challenges you: puzzles (I love the Jiggy puzzle membership!), knitting or crocheting, cooking (inside my membership of course!) or baking and reading are all perfect activities for these darker months. Challenge yourself to picking up a new, screen-free hobby this winter!

Embrace the darkness and practice gratitude for it. There are some parts of the world that are dark for 20-22 hours every single day in the winter. Do you know what people who live there do? They live their lives in the dark! They exercise in the dark, they go to work in the dark, they run their errands in the dark. 

This season, allow yourself to observe your surroundings with minimal or no daylight. What kinds of wildlife do you see? What types of plants thrive during this time of year? What smells, sounds and sights look different than the warmer months? Chances are you will be able to experience a deeper sense of appreciation and gratitude for all of the beauty the winter season holds.