“It’s December and the holiday season is in full swing. As your jolly CVS Pharmacy Ambassador*, I’m here to remind you about ways to stay healthy and happy so you can enjoy this month’s festivities and celebrations.
Did You Get Your Flu Shot?
My boyfriend L and I got our flu shots back in October at our local CVS MinuteClinic. According to the experts at CVS, “Getting a flu shot is the most effective way to protect yourself and your family from catching the flu.”
If you didn’t get your vaccine, you can still get one at CVS’ 9,600 retail pharmacy locations and more than 1,100 walk-in MinuteClinics. The MinuteClinics are open every day, including evenings and weekends, with no appointment needed.
You can get your flu shot at CVS MinuteClinics across the country.
If you do happen to catch the flu, CVS can be a helpful resource. For example, with the CVS Pharmacy mobile app, you can shop via the app, place an order and have it delivered right to your car door with CVS Curbside pickup! This is especially nice when you’re not feeling well.
What About Other Immunizations?
In addition to the flu vaccine, it is important to make sure all your common immunizations are up to date before heading off to a crowded gathering. The CDC says to get the pneumonia vaccine if you are 65+ and the shingles vaccine for those 60+.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, that will include me, me, me next month! I’m going to check out the new shingles vaccine, Shingrix®, that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) says it prefers for healthy adults aged 50 years and older to prevent shingles and related complications.
Take Care When You Travel
Are you traveling overseas during the holidays? I went to the MinuteClinic before I left for my Viking Ocean Cruise last month. The Nurse Practitioner Karen prescribed medicine for motion sickness, which luckily neither L nor I needed on our voyage. (Stay tuned for my posts about my travels coming soon.)
Before going on an ocean cruise, I went to the MinuteClinic to get medicine for motion sickness.
Are you traveling out of town during the holidays? With the CVS Pharmacy App you’re able to quickly and easily transfer prescriptions to a CVS location nearest you if you forgot your medication.
Health Tips For The Holiday Season
The experts at CVS provided some additional suggestions for staying healthy when your world gets fast-paced:
♥ Get Your Z’s: Make sure you are getting enough sleep each night. While this can be difficult during the holidays, it’s important to give your body time to recover from all it’s done during the day. Sleep can help revamp your immune system.
I’ve been using the Melatonin tablets that I received in my package from the CVS team. I take a pill about an hour before I go to sleep. The pills help me fall asleep — unfortunately if I’m having a bad menopausal night, they don’t help me stay asleep. These days, I’m glad for any extra sleep I can get in the night hours. (Note: Check with your doctor before taking any over-the-counter sleep aids.)
CVS Pharmacy offers CVS branded OTC products for colds and flu. I use CVS Melatonin supplements to help me fall asleep.
♥ Don’t overindulge: While food is a major component in many holiday plans, it is important to be cognizant of the kinds of foods you’re eating. You can still eat that pie you’ve been dreaming about, but be sure to also add in some fruits and vegetables to balance out a nutritious diet.
♥ Protect yourself from illness: During the holidays, people tend to be closer in proximity to others—celebrating in a busy home with people coming and going or even stuck on a plane surrounded by people who may have coughs and sniffles. Again, take the necessary precautions like getting vaccinated to protect yourself from illness.
Also beware of those who go to work when they are sick. In a recent article in The New York Times, Dr. Pritish K. Tosh, an infectious diseases researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, suggests “people stay home until they are fever-free for 24 hours.” In addition, to eliminate the risk of infecting others, Dr. Tosh says, “avoid physical contact with other people, especially shaking hands, use hand sanitizer or wash your hands after coughing or sneezing, and wipe surfaces down after touching them.”
Tips For Staying Happy During The Holiday Season
I wanted to give you some tips on how I plan to stay happy this month. These simple tips work for me and maybe they will work for you.
♥ Buy flowers for yourself. I bought an inexpensive bouquet of yellow roses this week at the supermarket and put them in a vase on my kitchen table. Flowers make me happy.
Treating myself to flowers makes me happy.
♥ Take time to meditate. Taking 5 or 10 minutes each day to meditate can have a lasting effect and help calm the nervous system. I like Kelly Howell’s meditations from the BrainSync MeditateMe app. My kids use the Headspace app for their meditations. I’ve heard the Calm app is good too. Meditating makes me happy.
Take time to meditate each day. Even a few minutes may make you calmer and happier during the holiday season.
♥ Brew a cup of chamomile tea. After a long day, I like to relax with a cup of chamomile tea each evening. Tea time makes me happy.
♥ Soak in a warm bath with epsom salts. I LOVE my new soaking tub. I sprinkle epsom salts in my bath water and scent the salts with lavender oil. Only issue is I LOVE my baths so much that my skin is starting to dry out. So I bought some lavender skin cream to use after the bath. Lavender and epsom salt baths make me happy.
I love to take baths, especially with lavender scented epsom salts.
How do you stay healthy and happy during the holiday season? Share a tip so others can benefit from your wisdom.
I leave you with a favorite quote from a small sachet pillow I keep in my home. I think it’s especially fitting for this time of year when you may might want to over indulge. It says:
“Remember the little things,
for one day you may look back and
realize they were the big things.”
Cheers to your health and happiness!
Judi
* Disclosure: I’m proud to be working with CVS Pharmacy for their 2017 influencer relations program. All opinions expressed are my own, and all product claims or program details shared should be verified at CVS.com or with the appropriate manufacturers.
