9 Vital Tips To Keep Your Family Healthy This Winter

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This post, 9 Vital Tips To Keep Your Family Healthy This Winter, is brought to you by Sambucol and The Motherhood. All opinions are my own.

Oh the coughs! The runny noses! They are everywhere every single winter. This year I’m on attack mode: operation keep my family healthy. I’m going to do all the things!

Here are just a few of the things I’m implementing for my family. In the comments here or over on Facebook, tell me how YOU are keeping your family healthy. What tips do you have that have kept illness at bay?

Vital Tips To Keep Your Family Healthy

Some of these tips might seem so common sense, but they are easy to forget. Others are more unique. I hope they all help you keep your family healthy this winter.

All of them are parts of an overall healthy lifestyle. If you and your family improve your overall health, you will feel sick less often.

1. Cover your mouth when you cough – Correctly

The quickest way to spread germs is by passing body fluids either through coughing into the air, near someone else, or by coughing into your hands and touching a surface someone else touches.

Covering your mouth when you cough is extremely important. It minimizes the amount of germs in the air or other surfaces. If possible, try to cough into a tissue and throw the tissue away or if you use your hands, practice regular hand washing.

It might be difficult to break a habit. Once you are used to coughing into your hands without washing them or grabbing a tissue, it’s hard to remember to stop. Just try to remember as often as you can and it will cut down on the transmission of the virus.

2. Eat fruits & veggies

Another tip – eat your fruits and your veggies – don’t just drink fruit juice.  Yes, some juices like orange juice has a ton of amazing Vitamin C. But your body was designed to digest sugars with fibers. When you drink just the juice instead of eating the fruits and veggies, you are only consuming the sugar and that can lead to health issues like blood sugar and weight problems.

Fruit is delicious and oh so good for you, but don’t forget to eat your vegetables too! In fact, the vegetables with the highest amounts of Vitamin C are bell peppers, kale and broccoli.

Find some new ways to cook the vegetables – I have some fun new ideas for you!

• Bento Style Lunches For Kids
• Individual Buffalo Chicken & Vegetable Crudités Cups
• Make a Broccoli Veggie Tree

However you do it, eat just a few more fruits and veggies every day. It will lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and increase the levels of vitamins and minerals you need to fight infections.

3. Use a tissue when you sneeze

Gross fact: when you sneeze, your mucous and spit can land as far as five feet away. Stop the spray by sneezing into a tissue. It can be tough to have something to grab so keep tissues around the house or near you when you aren’t feeling well.

Another option is to sneeze into your elbow. This prevents you from having to wash your hands after every sneeze. My kids like to call this the “dab sneeze.”

Whatever you do, try to keep the spray from reaching everyone.

4. Regularly disinfect surfaces like doorknobs

When cold and flu season is in full swing, I become a germ-killing machine.  I am constantly disinfecting frequently touched surfaces like doorknobs, tables, and counters. But you can’t forget the other really germy areas – the keyboard, mouse and other electronics.

5. Stay active

When it’s cold outside, it is harder to stay active, but try things like workout videos. Get your kids to do a few dance aerobic videos with you.

A sedentary lifestyle is actually dangerous.  In fact, according to the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD), “People who are sedentary have the highest rate of heart attack. In the Nurses’ Health Study, women who were physically active 3 hours or more per week (half an hour daily) cut their risk of heart attack in half.”

Find a way to stay active, even if it is 30 minutes a day. And teach these habits to your kids. Find fun ways to stay active like hikes to beautiful places, dance parties, even walking around the mall, or even an indoor obstacle course.

6. Get plenty of good sleep

Another very important thing to your health (and your kids’ health) is sleep. First, we all need to get enough sleep. Adults need at lest 7 hours of sleep, children age 6-13 need 9-11 hours of sleep. Basically, try to get around 9 hours of sleep if you can. There is a handy chart on the National Sleep Foundation website that explains all the different levels kids need at each age. Check out these great tips for kids sleeping.

Next, we all need quality sleep. Taking away electronics half an hour before bedtime will lead to a deeper and better sleep. Also put into effect a strict bedtime and waking time. When you train your child’s body what time to sleep and wake, it will be easier for them to get a better night’s rest. Not only is the schedule for wake and sleep time good for kids, but adults really need it, too.

7. Regular showers & bathing

Another vital tip for keeping your family healthy in the winter is to stay on top of regular showers and baths. It’s easier to remember to shower in the summer when you get sweaty, but it is just as important in the winter.

Not only does washing your body keep you all clean, but the steam from a hot shower cleans out your lungs and nose when you have a cold.

A nice hot bath can also decrease stress. Chronic stress has been linked to bad health effects, so take some time to destress and relax.

8. Remove shoes when you enter the house

The final vital tip if I have is to take off your shoes when you enter your house. I admit, we don’t do this as often as I wish we did. But it is so important. You can cut down on the transmission of viruses and bacteria by leaving the germs by the door and not tracking them into the house.

You can make this fun, too. Create a beautiful command center. Make shoe cubbies for each person in the house. Or even reward yourself (and your kids) with luxuriously soft house socks.

9. Herbs and Supplements

Herbs and supplements are a great way to keep you and your family healthy. In addition to regular vitamins, taking Sambucol Black Elderberry Gummies can be a great way support your family’s health this winter. Sambucol Black Elderberry is a unique black elderberry extract rich in immune supporting flavonoids. Having been recognized for centuries for their immune-supportive properties, Black Elderberries are high in flavonoids called anthocyanins, which give the berries their bluish-purple color. These flavonoids have antioxidant properties, and they also have been recorded to have a high oxygen radical absorption capacity (ORAC), which is the scale by which antioxidant activity is measured.

Sambucol Gummies provide strong immune system support to help you and your family stay healthy throughout the year and can be taken every day for continuous immune support. They provide the equivalent of over 3.5g of Black Elderberry per serving. This makes two gummies approximately equivalent to one serving of the Sambucol original syrup!

Sambucol Black Elderberry Gummies are great for becoming a daily part of your life. Sambucol Gummies are appropriate for both adults and children, and suitable for vegetarians and vegans. Sambucol Gummies contain no artificial flavoring, dairy products, eggs, gelatin, gluten, peanuts, preservatives, wheat or yeast. Sambucol Gummies are pectin-based, (derived from orange peels) which means they won’t stick to your teeth and won’t melt or stick together!

Sambucol Black Elderberry is the product of nearly 20 years of research, making it the most extensively researched elderberry product in the world. Developed by a world-renowned virologist, Sambucol Black Elderberry is trusted by millions worldwide. Look for Sambucol products at select Target stores and most drug and grocery stores.

Keeping Your Family Healthy This Winter

Honestly, all of these tips are incredibly important – not only to keeping colds away but also for improving the overall health of your family. I’m going to work on the taking the shoes off one. Which tips are you already doing? How do you keep your family healthy – are there any things you do that I didn’t list? Share them so we can all get healthier!