Staying in good health is hugely important and can seem like a huge undertaking, especially if you have been practicing some not-so-healthy habits up until this point. Fortunately, even small changes can better your overall physical condition – and therefore uplift your mental health as a result too.
For one thing, simply changing up your diet to include less processed foods, less high levels of salt and sugar, and less unhealthy ingredients can make a bigger impact than you might realize. In addition to this, adding in ingredients like fruits and vegetables, hearty sources of protein, and whole grains provide you with the essential vitamins and nutrients that you need to feel your best self.
Beginning some kind of exercise regiment has also been shown to greatly, sometimes even drastically, improve overall health. Simply adding more movement to your day can go a long way – and when you make this a regular habit, your risk factors for various conditions and illnesses will be likely to drop quite dramatically indeed. For many people, even just getting up and walking more can make a huge change. Other forms of exercise, from running to swimming to yoga to pilates to dance, provide a health boost as well and can be a part of living a healthy and sustainable life.
Of course, preventative measures of care will bolster your immune system and keep you from getting sick – even during the winter months, when many people get sick (after all, up to one billion colds are contracted throughout the course of just one single year). All of the above will help to keep you from getting sick, but so will things like the flu shot.
Flu shots can be obtained right before flu season starts, typically starting in the month of September. Health experts and officials recommend that people get their flu shots at least by the end of October, as the flu shot usually takes around two weeks to become effective. Babies getting their very first flu shot should get it even earlier, as most children will need two doses of the vaccine the first time that they obtain it.
And getting flu shots is easier now than ever before, thanks to the spread of urgent care centers all throughout the United States. Urgent care clinics offer a number of different kinds of flu shots, though you will still typically need to take your young children (under the age of seven) to their pediatrician for their flu shots. Ultimately, though, most people will be able to get their flu shots directly from an urgent care location. Most walk in urgent care centers will have finite supplies of flu shots, however, so it will be important for you to go in as soon as possible, at least by the time that the month of October has well and truly arrived.
Of course, you might still contract the flu. Though the flu shot lowers the rate of flu by about half in adults and children alike (according to data regarding the 2018 to 2019 flu season), it is not 100% ever, something that can be attributed to the constantly mutating nature of the flu virus. So some people who get the flu shot will still get the flu, but it is actually quite likely that the version of the flu they contract will be considerably less mild than what they otherwise would have gotten. And flu treatment can help to mitigate symptoms if not erase them, as a virus cannot be cured. This anti viral treatment can again be obtained by the the typical urgent care location. Going in to an urgent care center as soon as you notice yourself developing flu symptoms will help to ensure that the treatment works, as it is only effective in the first couple days after developing symptoms.
All in all, the care and keeping of your health will likely involve both scientific and holistic approaches. A healthy and balanced combination of the two will ensure that you stay healthy as much as possible even during bad flu seasons, even during high periods of illness, even all throughout the winter months.
