Summer is gone and the dark days of winter loom near. Achieving winter wellness for your family involves creating and implementing a health plan that ideals with current health issues, anticipated health issues and any chronic conditions. Along with physical health, a winter exercise and social plan need to be created, to maintain health and keep the winter blues away and stop a trip to your Melbourne, Florida physician.

Review Your Family’s Physical Health

All short and long-term physical health issues need assessing before winter. Review current medications, their cost and effectiveness, and whether they need re-evaluating by your family Physician. For long term health issues, scheduling appointments ahead of time and planning for inclement weather, should be a priority.

Create A Winter First Aid Kit

Winter always brings on the sniffles and colds. A fun family activity is to create a winter first aid kit to deal with coughs, colds, sinus and pain issues. Purchasing items ahead of time and adding bandages, antiseptic cream, and band-aids can bring comfort to a family in the event of a health emergency.

Assess Chronic Conditions

Many chronic conditions are affected by the longer winter months: Bronchitis, emphysema, asthma all can flare up with devastating effects. Discussing with your Physician how the winter months may affect a major health issue, can not only help determine appropriate winter treatment, but reduce physical stress. Immunizations for the whole family should be scheduled, to ward off potential debilitating flu viruses.

Create a winter eating plan

For winter wellness, you need to create a winter eating plan that incorporates enough vitamins for your family. The fresh fruit and vegetables you ate during summer may not be readily available during the winter months, or may come at a much higher cost. Plan to incorporate frozen and alternative fruit and vegetable selections into your family’s winter diet. Pay special attention to your Vitamin D and C levels and consider supplementing your diet with over the counter vitamins.
Create a winter exercise plan

The cold winter months often leave us with a feeling of boredom and fatigue. Exercise is easily incorporated during the winter and is an activity the whole family can do together. Exploring open winter walking trails, choosing a winter activity such as skiing or ice-skating can help increase lung capacity and maintain health levels during the winter. Prefer to exercise indoors, check out your local community center for low-cost exercise classes that get the heart pumping. Before beginning any new exercise plan always check with your Physician first.

Social Wellness

Getting out and about to socialize is often a lot harder in the winter, especially for senior’s. With the cold and bad weather, visiting friends and family may become more difficult and activities need to be planned more closely. Plan gatherings, but with a back-up plan if either the weather or health issues should interfere. If you can’t get out, plan telephone or Skype calls to avoid isolation or even consider becoming a volunteer on-line.

Achieving winter wellness for the whole family doesn’t need to be difficult. A plan is needed, to care for and anticipate winter physical, emotional and social health issues.