Healthy Living
Happy and Healthy Apartment Living in the Winter Months
Do you live in an apartment, a condo, or another form of housing where your neighbours are a mere sneeze away? Do you find it hard to keep busy in the winter months, with or without the kids at home? We all need to stay active, enough so to be healthy and happy!
Being cooped up indoors in the winter can lead to additional stress, frustration, and even boredom. To mitigate these potential outcomes, try having plenty of board games and other indoor activities on hand to keep the kids busy when it's too cold to play outside. Try to limit their time sitting in front of the TV, video games, IPADS, Tablets and other forms of digital media. For your personal winter day escapes, enjoy experimenting with a new recipe, or reading a good book. Get out and go for a "mall walk" indoors if it's just too cold to walk outdoors. Sometimes it's all about perspective though. Try to appreciate the inherently slower pace of winter and the advantages of being at home, spending some extra time with the family around a table together. After all, spring will be here before you know it.
In order to stay both healthy and happy throughout the winter months, it's very important to make exercise a priority. You may have to employ some creative tactics, but exercising during the winter will not only keep you physically fit, it can also help ward off the winter blues. If the weather is too cold for outdoor activities and your complex doesn't offer workout facilities, join a nearby gym or rec center. If square footage presents a challenge, there's nothing quite as invigorating as an interior hallway walk. Just be sure to remain respectful of your neighbours and check with your Super to ensure there are no restrictions around this.
Living in a multi-family building presents a number of wintertime wellness challenges. When you spend more time than usual cooped up indoors with family and roommates and when you live in close proximity to others, you increase your risk of becoming ill.
It goes without saying that the best way to avoid "catching a cold" this winter is to wash your hands often and use hand sanitizer after touching shared surfaces, such as elevator buttons, keypads, stair railings, carts, and door knobs. You should also regularly disinfect surfaces within your home with sprays and cleaners that have known disinfectant properties. During the winter months, low humidity can also potentially increase the rate of viral transmissions, so you may want to invest in a humidifier depending on the heating system in your building.
Finally, if the weather outside is gloomy for an extended period of time, and you don't receive enough sun exposure, you could experience a vitamin D deficiency. Consider taking a supplement throughout the winter months to avoid suffering the symptoms. But remember to always check with a doctor and a pharmacist to ensure that this is right for you.
………….and when all else fails, bundle up and enjoy some crisp, fresh air when you can!