If you have read my recent goals posts, you will know that I have been trying to make some pretty simple changes that I am hoping will make all the difference when it comes to the Winter. For many years now I have found Winter to be a tough month for me, with the change in the weather I find comes pain, fatigue and generally poor health.

Now its quite common for the colder months of the year to bring drops in vitamin levels and many other challenges for those who already struggle with their health, and I am no different. Almost every year I end up with very low levels of vitamins C and D, and my immune system as a whole takes a hit. So as you can expect, this means that I end up catching every little cold, bug and flu that goes around.

On top of this, winter and cold wet weather in general plays up my fibromyalgia something crazy. Any one with pain syndromes will probably know what I mean by this, me and my Nan always sympathise with each other as arthritis is also heavily effected by the weather. So this year I am trying to come up with some ways to make this have less effect on me. Last winter I have several days if not weeks where I couldn’t even get myself out of bed due to pain levels, and I refuse to let this happen again.

To overcome the pain, I have started doing a very simple routine of yoga each day. Just 10 minutes of yoga every day I am hoping will keep my muscles well stretched and hopefully put me in a good position that the cold doesn’t leave my muscle super crampy and sore. I know that when I was younger, the more active I stayed the less pain I would feel; although this was before my fibro, I’m thinking that the same effect should happen.

Although I know it will have little to no physical effect, I have also started doing 5 minutes of meditation each day. I am finding that this is helping to make me aware of what my body is feeling, and whether I am having a bit of a flare. The difference this has compared to without the meditation, is I am not only aware of whether my body hurts, but also helps me to think of the reasons for this and therefore deal with them. I will definitely be keeping this up.
All the other changes have purely been through choosing healthier food options. I’ve switched to eating a lot more fruit which will hopefully help to keep my vitamin levels stable, as well as having discovered these Porridge on the Go bars. I adore the golden syrup flavour, they just taste like flapjacks, but they are healthy. For breakfasts I’ve been having smoothies with the porridge and have cut caffeine out of my days. Finally I have increased my water intake by at least an extra litre.

So that’s my changes so far, I’ll be sharing the apps I’m using to help me with theses in a later blog post. Have you made any changes to your daily habits ready for the winter?