With winter getting ever closer, it’s worth thinking about what you need to stock up on to make sure you can face all the challenges the season brings with it. Even in countries with a moderate temperate climate, winter can bring extremes of cold, storms and snow that can mean the risk of serious discomfort at the least if you’re not ready to face them.
Medications
If you take regular medication for any kind of condition, then you need to make sure you’ll always have access to a regular supply. If you can, stockpile as much as possible – this may not be possible for some strictly controlled substances. In cases where you can’t keep additional supplies at home, discuss with your doctor what options you have for automatic renewals, virtual appointments and prescription delivery services to make sure the process is as frictionless as possible. The more difficult it is under normal circumstances, the more chance it’ll fail altogether under extreme conditions.
General Health
Winter is a challenging time for health, mental and physical. Consider stocking up on multivitamins to make sure your body is getting all the nutrients it needs, and your immune system is operating at its peak.
One vitamin that is a challenge to get in sufficient quantities in the winter is vitamin D. Created by the action of the sun on the body’s skin, with the reduced length of the day, and much of those daylight hours spent indoors, your vitamin D levels can dive. Consider buying a SAD lamp: these lights simulate the wavelengths of sunlight, which can have a good physical effect on your body as well as helping to boost your vitamin D levels.
Flu Season
Winter is when flu season is at its peak – the virus thrives in colder conditions, and the low humidity reduces the water weight of droplets containing the virus, meaning they can hang in the air for longer and there’s a greater chance you will be infected!
Keeping your general state of health high is important, as we discussed above, but it’s also worth investing in a stock of flu masks. The right flu mask doesn’t just reduce the spread of infect droplets from your mouth as you speak (and even breathe), it can also filter the air you are breathing in, catching the virus-filled droplets before they can hit the mucus membranes in your nose and throat, and begin to reproduce.
Putting in the extra planning to make sure you have stocks of all these essentials means facing the winter season with confidence!