Our Health & Wellbeing
In consultation with Axbridge and Wedmore Medical Practice and with the support of Wedmore Parish Council here is this month’s item relating to our health & wellbeing.
Feeling comfortable in our own skin!
We don’t talk much about this in the winter, but then we obsess about it in the summer! I’m talking about our skin. It’s the largest organ of our body and covers about 1.5 to 2 square meters, according to the National Library of Medicine. Click here for more information.
Apart from keeping all our other essential organs inside, rather than exposed, it has a surprising number of other functions. Obviously, its main function is to provide a barrier against potential harms, eg chemicals, ultraviolet light, injury and bugs. It also helps us maintain our body temperature, produces Vitamin D and gives us the sensations of touch, heat, cold, and pain, which all help us keep as safe as possible in our environment. So this is an organ to care for all year round!
According to Patient Info ‘winter can wreak havoc with your skin, leading to itching, soreness, and even infections’. This damage can be caused by ‘cold air and harsh wind’ which can dry the skin and leave it ‘feeling dry and chapped’. Also central heating can dry the air and woollen jumpers can irritate the skin. Washing can strip the skin of its natural oils, so too much washing and showering is not recommended. How to care for your skin in winter So although we are ’Sweaty, warm and colonised by all sorts of bacteria‘, according to Dr Primrose Freestone, microbiologist at the University of Leicester, she advises that a daily shower is not always necessary, unless you are dirty and sweaty! Find out more Primrose Freestone | University of Leicester
However there are other parts which need a daily wash to keep us healthy – I will leave you to read the details in Good Housekeeping, 7th July 2025! How often you really need to wash. Also the BBC has some guidance too How often should you wash yourself – and your things? – BBC Bitesize. So a daily shower may for many of us, especially with older skin, be doing more harm than good, by diminishing our skin’s natural oils. There’s no need to shower every day – here’s why – BBC Culture. According to Patient Info even just water can strip out our natural oils and using ordinary soap will exacerbate the process. They advise considering a soap substitute rather than soap. Then to ‘pat your skin dry gently with a warm towel – rather than rubbing it – to avoid stripping more oils from your skin. Apply a moisturising cream while your skin is still just damp’. Hywel Williams, Professor of Dermo-Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, adds that our natural oil or sebum, reduces in the winter. https://patient.info/features/skin-conditions/what-winter-weather-can-do-to-your-skin So we need to conserve what we have!
One of the essential functions of our skin is to make Vitamin D. The NHS website, last reviewed by the NHS in 2020, states that Vitamin D ‘helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. These nutrients are needed to keep bones, teeth and muscles healthy’. Other sources, eg Healthline, suggest that it is also ‘important for the proper functioning of the immune system’, thus helping to protect us from infections. Most people can make enough Vitamin D from sunshine in the summer months, ‘but between October and early March we do not make enough vitamin D from sunlight’. The NHS therefore advises that we ‘should consider taking a daily supplement’ in these months. So it would seem that we need to look after our skin in the winter so we can expose it in the summer, to top up our Vitamin D, if nothing else! Please go to the website for more information. Vitamin D – NHS
Support for people with dementia and their carers in Wedmore
Carer’s Group
Do you care for or support a person living with dementia? Then this friendly informative group is for you! Come along on the first Friday of the month to The Swan Hotel, Wedmore between 10am and 12md, next meeting on 9th January 2026. If you want to find out more about the Memories Workshops and Carers’ Group, phone HeadsUp on 01749 670667 or email wedmorecarers@yahoo.com. If you need help with funding for attending HeadsUp, just ask, help may be available.
Coffee and a Chat
For general support with mental wellbeing Somewhere House, a charity based in Burnham, visits The Bluebird Café in Wedmore on the first Wednesday of the month, from 10-12md. They offer an opportunity to meet and chat. For more information contact them on 01278 780769
Cathy Butterworth
Wedmore Health & Wellbeing Project
01934 806266