

If you're indoors, make sure to close windows and doors to avoid chilly winds from sneaking into your home, making the indoor air even colder. You can warm up your house by adjusting the thermostat higher than the outside temperature, or placing a space heater in a corner to sufficiently heat your entire room.
If you're outdoors, avoid standing in windy spots like windows, balconies, and try to choose a sheltered place to keep your body from getting too cold.


3. Enjoy Hot Meals
Eating warm meals is a piece of advice from doctors during winter. Surely, no one enjoys having cold dishes in such chilly weather. Supplementing hot meals provides a source of warmth for your body when transitioning from the cold outdoors to indoors.
Alternatively, a simple cup of warm water can temporarily warm up your body, increasing body temperature and providing instant warmth.


4. Avoid Prolonged Bathing and Hair Washing
We often have the habit of bathing and washing our hair, but in extremely cold days, it's advisable to simply freshen up and maintain personal hygiene instead of taking excessively long baths. In winter, the body doesn't produce much sweat, so there's no need for prolonged bathing.
Also, it's not recommended to wash your hair and bathe simultaneously as it weakens the body. Washing hair exposes the body to cold, and if prolonged, it can lead to fainting or nervous system weakness due to prolonged exposure to cold air. Avoid doing both at the same time, especially during days with extremely low temperatures. Pay attention to keeping your bathing time within 5 minutes.


5. Avoid Going Out in the Early Morning or Late Evening
The air in the early morning or late evening tends to drop significantly compared to the daytime, especially during these times when fog descends, making your body confront the cold extensively.
The advice for you is to limit going outside during these periods, or make sure to keep your body warm carefully to prevent it from getting cold or experiencing thermal shock.


6. Stay Hydrated
Water constitutes up to 70% of our bodies, present in all organs, including the bones. To ensure normal bodily functions, experts often encourage us to increase water intake. However, the effects of drinking plenty of water, whether excessive consumption has harmful effects, and how much is enough are not widely known.
Staying hydrated, some may think it's unnecessary outside of summer when the body loses water. That's a misconception; regardless of the season, our bodies always need an adequate amount of water to maintain efficient functionality. Ensuring proper hydration keeps your body operating at its best, helping you have a healthy winter.


7. Shield Yourself When Venturing Out
When going outside and directly facing the cold air, use a scarf or ear coverings to shield your ears from the chilling wind. Like the neck, ears are a crucial area containing many nerves, and it's important to keep them warm cautiously.
Many people often forget to keep their ears warm, which is noteworthy advice for everyone during extremely cold and harsh days.


8. Get Adequate Sleep
Getting enough sleep is one of the ways to prevent flu and colds, maintaining health when cold air prevails. It might seem unrelated, but the truth is just that. Sleep has a close relationship with the overall health and well-being of every individual.
You need to sleep for a solid 8 hours each day, with at least 7 hours per night to help maintain a healthy body, warding off common illnesses, especially flu and colds. Numerous studies have shown that if you sleep less than 6 hours per night, you increase the risk of catching the flu or cold sixfold compared to those who sleep 7 hours.


9. Wear a Face Mask When Going Out
With the increasing urban pollution nowadays, wearing a face mask when going out has become a habit for everyone. Not only does it help against dust and bacteria, but a face mask is also extremely useful on chilly windy days.
For people in Vietnam, wearing a face mask when going out is not yet a common habit. In Japan, almost 100% of the population wears face masks to protect their health. So why not us? Let's cultivate the habit of wearing a face mask when going out.
Using a face mask when outdoors helps us combat dust, pollution, sun protection, and especially in winter, it helps us resist the cold and chilly air from invading our nasal and throat cavities, preventing respiratory-related illnesses. This is how we can boost our overall health.


10. Stay Active
As the cold air sets in, our bodies often feel tired, reluctant to move, and just want to curl up in a warm blanket all day. However, staying active in the cold season is crucial to maintaining good health, resisting common illnesses like flu, colds, cough, fever, and more.
Through exercise, our bodies warm up, promoting better blood circulation and overall metabolism, reducing fatigue and joint pain. Physical activity also lifts your spirits, boosts your mood, and provides extra energy to start a productive day. Instead of lying in bed lazily on cold days, cultivate the habit of exercising every morning with some basic fitness routines.


