4 Vitamins Your Body Craves In Winter

Now that winter’s here, we’re all enjoying the run up to the festive period, and we’re loving wearing our bobbly hats and scarves. But one part of winter that’s bringing a lot of us down is the amount of cold and flu-like illnesses going around.

If you want your body to stay as healthy as possible in the face of cold weather and winter bugs, you’re going to need to make sure you get enough of the right vitamins. Here are some of the vitamins your body craves in winter.

1: Vitamin D

Vitamin D is also known as the sunshine vitamin, so it makes sense that when the sky clouds over in winter, your body starts to miss it. Of course, there’s still sunshine during winter, and there’s still vitamin D to be soaked up, but we don’t get nearly as much as we’re used to.

To top up your vitamin D levels, you could brave the cold weather and go for a stroll outside. But if that’s out of the question, there are always foods fortified with the vitamin. For example, milks and cereals.

2: Vitamin C

This vitamin plays an important role in boosting your immune system, so you can see why we need it so much in winter, when the colds start to hit.

Vitamin C is also important in building the strength of your skin. And the cold winter air, and believe it or not, the sunshine, can damage your skin. So making sure you get enough vitamin C can help keep your skin healthy throughout the colder months.

To get enough vitamin C, you need to make sure you get your 5 a day, as it’s found mainly in fruits and vegetables.

3: Vitamin E

This is another one that helps protect your skin in winter. It helps your skin retain its moisture, meaning you’ll be less likely to experience the dreaded dry skin that so often comes with winter.

There are several places you can find this vitamin, for example in meat, certain vegetables, and nuts.

4: Vitamin A

Vitamin A is good for both your immune system, and for repairing damaged tissues (which comes in handy when your skin takes a battering from the wind).

You can find vitamin A in vegetables like carrots, tomatoes, and leafy vegetables, and in fruits like mangos, apricots and watermelons. You can also find it in some meats, fish, eggs and milk.