Give the central heating,  blow heaters and electric blankets a bit of a break this year and use these natural tips to keep snug this winter.

1.  Warming foods - Eating is the one thing we do between 3 - 5 times a day, so looking at our foods is a good place to start. There's a fair amount of research that has been conducting about eating according to the seasons and this would certainly fit into the Locavore diet (a diet where you only eat foods that have been grown in and around your current location). 

This makes great sense to me, as it is how our ancestors ate thousands of years ago, when they also had virtually no disease. Local, organic, chemical free seasonal foods.

So in the winter, including primarily the foods that are still growing, which just so happen to be many of the warming foods, is the way to go. Some of those foods include

Parsnips
Swede
Onions
Turnips
Potatoes
Endive
Lambs Lettuce
Raddichio
Kale
Cauliflower
Brussels Sprouts
Sweet Potatos
Celeriac
Fish
Chicken
Oat porridge
Soups
Stews
Casseroles

2. Gorgeous Ginger - Add a chunk to your juice, cooking (chop it up or use a garlic press to mince it) or your tea to let it kick start your circulation and warm you up.  Work out how much you can tolerate as too much can be a little hot for some.

3.  A nice cuppa - Now is not the time to get your drinks from the fridge or pile them high with ice. Drinking your drinks at room temperature or even warm can keep you temperature from dropping and have a few hot drinks throughout the day can also warm you up.

4. Spice it up - Dishes seasoned (though not too heavily) with curry powder, cayenne pepper, garlic and mustard can help to increase your circulation and increase your temperature during chilly days. They can do this even if they aren't served hot. A raw vegan curry sauce dolloped over a rich green salad of Kale leaves, parsley, coriander and spinach, with a few cherry tomatoes is a filling dish, which will leave you positively glowing (protein types may want to add some nuts and avocado to this dish).

5. Skin brushing and exercise - Exercising to increase circulation, enhance your immune system and of course warm you up may be an obviously choice, even some gentle stretches can get the blood pumping on a chilly morning before you head out the door to work. Maybe less common as a winter warmer  is skin brushing. This is a great exfolliant for the skin, it helps to stimulate detoxification of the lymphatic system,  it improves circulation and it can very invigorating.

You obviously need to be sensible in cold weather, doing the above alone without taking basic precautions won't help much. So make sure you have a 'winter set' (hat, scarf & gloves) that you actually wear, consider adding more layers to your clothing and bedding and don't stay out in the cold for prolonged periods of time. Keeping your ankles, wrist and lower back where your kidney are protected, can also help to keep you protected from the cold weather.

http://www.davidel.com