5 Essential Vitamins for Winter Health

Winter brings less sunlight, more time indoors, joint pain, sniffles, coughs, and just basically an energy-draining cycle of blah. It’s no secret that more people suffer from depression and get sick more easily in the winter.

But it doesn’t have to be that way! You can enjoy hot cider, time with friends and family, and beautiful snowflakes without keeping a box of tissues and cough drops handy. You just need to give you body what it needs to help you. Let’s take a look at what that is!

#1 Vitamin C

This one is a favorite of moms everywhere. They stock you full of orange juice and supplements until you think you can’t handle any more. But there’s a simple explanation for why this home remedy is more potent in the winter months!

During the cold months, the fruits and vegetables that are high in Vitamin C aren’t growing naturally. Most of them are produced in greenhouses that are forcing them to grow out of season. Or you may not be able to find them at all. Which means your supply of this vitamin drops during the winter.

How it Helps:

Most people think it works to prevent to colds and the flu, but that’s not accurate. It actually works as an antioxidant that helps reduce the length and severity of the symptoms that you get. It does this by protecting the body against disease including heart disease and cancer while producing the collagen your body needs to grow body tissue and bones.

#2 Iron

When your body is low in iron, you will feel really sluggish. When combined with the winter blues you can end up being a shut-in the whole cold season. Women who have heavy periods are even more susceptible to being anemic (or not having enough iron).

How it Helps:

Iron encourages delivery of fresh, oxygen-rich blood, to the lungs, spleen, bone marrow, muscles, and cells. This keeps your body in top condition and helps you keep your energy level up. Think of oxygen-rich blood like fuel. Just like your car, the better fuel your body has the better it runs.

#3 Selenium

Selenium is another antioxidant that works to help strengthen your body’s natural defenses. It’s even been thought to help fight against cancer. Plants get their selenium from the soil. Because of this, the amount of selenium can vary drastically depending on how over-worked and depleted the soil is.

How it Helps:

It is one the key players in your body’s detoxification system and it helps recycle Vitamin C from it’s spent form back to it’s active one so you can get the most from your Vitamin C during the winter.

#4 Zinc

This handy little mineral has made quite a splash in over-the-counter cold-fighting medicines in the recent years… and for good reasons.

How it Helps:

When you take zinc during the first few days of a cold it can shorten the length of a cold. This is because the human body needs it to sustain immune function and keep your natural defenses working strong. Among other things, it also helps with cell growth and breaking down carbs.

#5 Vitamin D3

The sunshine vitamin is vital to your immune health during the winter. A study by the University of Colorado School of Medicine found that 77% of American adults are lacking in vitamin D, and that these Americans are 24% to 36% likelier to catch colds than those who have higher concentrations of the vitamin.

How it Helps:

You absorb Vitamin D naturally through your sunlight on your skin. During the winter, you get less sun exposure due to cold and covering your skin with warmer clothes. It helps to build stronger bones by helping improve your ability to absorb calcium and it promotes a positive mood. You want one that has the 3 on the label as this means that it comes from a natural source instead of a synthetic version known as D2.

Buy All Natural!

We carry all of these supplements and more in high-quality versions that are derived from food instead of synthetic variations. Your body can more-readily absorb whole-food nutrients so you’ll get more benefit from them than you will their man-made versions.

Here’s all of the items we discussed in this article: