Health & Wellbeing Tips in the New Year
Winter makes a big difference to our daily routine, often causing our healthy lifestyle to go out the window and increasing challenges to our physical health and mental wellbeing. Here are our top health and wellbeing tips to get 2022 off to a smooth start!
Staying hydrated
Most people will look at this and think we've started off easy, but if we're totally honest staying hydrated all the time can be pretty tricky.
Hydration is one of our most fundamental needs, and is even harder to attain throughout winter with cold weather conditions decreasing our hydration.
So, how much are we supposed to drink each day? It's a minimum of 2000ml for women and 2500ml for men.
Our top tips for staying hydrated day-to-day are:
Try adding fresh fruit to your water bottles and jugs for the added flavour and health benefits
Especially while it's chilly, it's a good idea to stick that kettle on for a cuppa - just make sure its caffeine free, meaning its time to get herbal
Carry a well insulated flask that'll keep your water nice and crisp or delightfully hot while you're out and about - and remember, the larger you go the more tempted you'll be to lighten the load
Whether you're a natural cosmetics fanatic or not, keeping your hair and skin healthy and well moisturised will help your body retain its hydration
Our top tips for staying hydrated in the sauna:
When it comes to using the sauna, it's important to keep our bodies hydrated by drinking a lot of water in the hours leading up to the session and again afterwards. This ensures our bodies are thoroughly hydrated beforehand, and replaces any lost fluids after too.
Of course, you can drink water throughout your sauna session too - but its best to leave the jugs of water behind so you aren't left chugging warm water. This way you can head outside every so often for moments of total refreshment mid session. What's more, these water breaks make the perfect opportunities to take a cold water plunge and really maximise the health benefits of your sauna session.
Reconnect with nature and the outdoors
Often through these colder months we tend to venture outside only to transport ourselves from A to B. This is a huge shame for our physical health, mental health, and overall wellbeing.
Being outside and exposed to the elements literally gives us a breath of fresh air, and gives our emotional wellbeing, physical and mental health, and immunity a huge boost all at once, bringing us back into the present moment, and helping us to reduce stress, get enough sleep, and meet people.
While we are pretty well-versed in the benefits of exposing ourselves to extreme temperatures, it might come to surprise you that exposure to cold temperatures has as great an affect on us as heat. Both extremes put us through good stress which helps our bodies better adapt to bad stress (or distress).
This is why incorporating the cold water plunge into your sauna session is really valuable. We didn't just stick cold showers outside for the fun of it. Regularly interchanging between the heat of the sauna and the freezing cold showers will supercharge your mind and body.
So - although staying inside where we have heating is undeniably tempting, and leaving it to venture into the cold seems counterintuitive in protecting ourselves from catching a cold - getting outside where it's fresh and cool is actually one of the best things we can do to fight infections and boost mental health, bring us into the present moment, and get a better night's sleep!
Our top tips for getting outside are:
Get active and exercise!!! You can fill days on end with a vast range of outdoor activities even here in London. Some of our favourite local outdoor experiences include London Fields Lido, the endless canal network, and the plethora of tennis courts in parks, but there is plenty out there so the possibilities for your next favourite hobby are endless.
Incorporate local plans that you can wander or cycle to into your daily life so you can rack up those miles with exercise and take in the spaces around you all at once.
Wrap up warm, fill your thermals and head to your local park for an outdoor picnic
Adventure on foot. There's great power in walking, and simply taking time to explore on foot really improves your mental health and physical health, gives you a sense of your surroundings, helps process difficult feelings, and counters feeling overwhelmed.
Remember, you don't have to go to the extreme. Small changes will help massively in the long run and often prove more sustainable.
Reconnecting with loved ones
Winter presents many of us with different challenges when it comes to spending time with loved ones. For many, we spend so much time with family through the festive period that we have to take a break to avoid stress, while for others this is a period where loneliness, depression and difficult feelings surrounding family, resources, and self esteem can really sink in.
Over the last few years our capacity to spend time with loved ones has been put through unprecedented struggle. Changing restrictions and lack of control over what we can do, with whom, and when, have emphasised our innate need to spend time with family and friends.
We understand times are still uncertain, but we do have a few tips for staying in touch:
Reach out! Perhaps you, your family member, or a close friend have had to be really mindful throughout the pandemic. Of course you can still phone each other and see each others faces over a video call, but why not reduce screen time and resort to slightly more old fashioned ways of communicating instead like writing a letter or postcard?
Important birthday coming up but you won't get to see them to celebrate? Instead of sending that happy birthday text you should get a card ready and written in advance, buy some of those things called stamps and get it in the post-box. Better still, you can make your own card for the added personal touch!
Make the most of the great outdoors! It's currently a lot safer to see people outside, so that's where your plans should be. There's plenty of wonderful spaces to enjoy meaningful time together, if you need some ideas head back to our last point.
Make something
A little known fact is that our entire rooftop was designed and built by those within and close to the Netil360 family, saunas included! And what a joy it is to take a project from ideation through design and build. But how does crafting benefit our wellbeing?
When we start a new project and develop a new skill we boost our concentration, creativity, and self purpose. Throughout the process cortisol levels and anxiety reduce, while our happiness, focus, and self esteem rise.
Craft is an incredible way to connect with others as it often requires looking to others to help us or for inspiration. It's also a powerful means of reconnecting with tradition, particularly for young people.
So whether you're looking to start a new career in craft, you've had a project in mind for a while, or you simply want to take a break from your regular routine, these tips will get you started in no time:
Make yourself some natural skincare. Consumerism has us believing we need to buy all of these products, but you can make some pretty amazing things doing it yourself.
Start simple by with skin softening oat and honey face mask packed with anti-oxidants, or
Take it a step further and make your own body scrub using Epsom salts, essential oils, and dried flowers
Get your needles out! Knitting and crocheting are an excellent way of keeping your mind active and your hands occupied, all while you relax. You can get starter kits and patterns from most retailers, and once you get into the groove you'll be wrapped up in your home-knits in no time.
Don't forget, there are plenty of passionate crafters out there who will be happy to share practical advice with you! A wealth of ideas, support, and advice can be found online and in your local library too.
Give your diet a health boost
Now, we all know that having a healthy balanced diet is crucial in leading a healthy life. With regular meals full of nutritional, fresh food we feed our body the energy it needs and give more support to brain function too.
In fact, if we eat healthy food there are many benefits for our mental wellbeing from helping to prevent us feeling low, to boosting our focus, and improving our sleep.
Our top tips for improving diet are:
Use that cookbook instead of just leaving it on the shelf. We might know everything there is to know about eating, but finding guidance and inspiration for cooking healthy meals takes the pressure off.
Once you've found the page you like (cookbook or online), invite your friends over get cooking! There's no need to get stressed in the kitchen because your friends can support you if needed and eating altogether helps make things feel more connected.