Your Guide to Healthy Living in Staunton

Let’s start the new year right with some healthy living! Maybe you’re doing a dry January or have vowed to exercise every day, practice mindful consumption, and declutter your house. Here are tips for mindful and healthy living right here in Staunton! 2025 is the perfect time to embrace your healthier lifestyle.

Healthy Food and Drink

• If your friends are meeting up for a beer or a glass of wine, you don’t need to stay home and stare at the TV. Why not join them for a mocktail? Check out the offerings at The Green Room, Zynodoa, Mill Street Grill, Byers Street Bistro or Accordia. Hit up Queen City Bistro’s “Late Nights” for some mocktail friendly, downtempo vibes.
• Feeling rundown? Staunton’s new Treehouse Juice Bar can fix you right up with its delicious juices, smoothies, wellness shots, and açaí bowls. Start fresh with a juice cleanse!
• Are you missing the peaceful Saturday mornings you spent wandering the farmers’ market last summer? Fortunately, you don’t have to wait until the outdoor market opens in April. Find all your favorite vendors, stock up on fresh ingredients, and support local growers when you shop at the Winter Farmers’ Market. 
• Cranberry’s Grocery and Eatery specializes in healthy snacks, light meals, and smoothies for breakfast and lunch. They also have locally produced and organic grocery items, bulk herbs, homeopathic remedies, and more.
• If you’re craving something light, stop in at Bijou for small-batch “seasonally and artfully inspired soups, salads, and desserts.”
• Look ahead to the growing season and reserve your share from a local CSA. Wild Altar Farmstead is devoted to “growing a relationship between food, community, and land.” Creambrook Farm offers raw milk herd shares. 

Fitness

• Mark your calendar for April 11th’s Staunton Senior Health EXPO in the Gypsy Hill Park Gymnasium. Score free health screenings and explore exhibits designed to promote the health and well-being of seniors.
• Get outside and enjoy a long walk in the great outdoors. Vivid scenery, fresh air, and exercise provide long-lasting mental and physical benefits.
• Staunton Parks and Recreation hosts a coed spring softball league, the Staunton Steppers indoor walking club, nature walks with Sancta Natura, and a Dancing Through the Decades dance class guaranteed to get your heartrate up.
• If you want a more guided outdoor experience, sign up for an outdoor adventure like tree or rock climbing with Vivid Earth Adventures. 
• You’ll always feel better with a good stretch.  Phoenix Fitness & Yoga offers classes in pilates, yoga, strength, and more, including suspended aerial yoga. 
• For yoga and aerobics classes, tennis, weights, cardio equipment, a swimming pool, and more, sign up for a membership at the Staunton YMCA, which is running a no-sign-up-fee promotion this month!
• If you like your workouts to be solo, try some sessions at Newtown Fitness, which  provides private, distraction-free workout rooms with commercial equipment.

Mindful Consumption

• Get a head start on spring cleaning and healthy living with zero waste when you shop home cleaning and personal care products at Refill Renew.
• Do you love to read? Make sure you have a card for the Staunton Public Library, which loans books, movies, and provides access to two different digital loaning platforms. The library also hosts a variety of literary and community-based programs like book clubs, game afternoons, and more to help the public stay connected.
• If you love to read, but don’t like new prices, get new-to-you books at Bargain Books and Poe’s Place.
• Shopping for vintage furniture and collectibles cuts down on waste in the landfills as well as gives you the chance to score finds that are unique and surprising. Staunton’s antique scene boasts vintage and retro treasures that tell stories from the past and bring a layered and individual look to a modern home. 

Decluttering

• There’s still time to reserve your booth at the Gypsy Yard Sale on February 1 in the Gypsy Hill park Gymnasium. Get rid of clutter and plump up your bank account at the same time. Win win!
• Have you moved to reading electronically or just have too many books that you’ve already read? Donate your old books to the library for its spring and fall book sales, which support the Friends of the Library.
• Don’t send your clothes and cast-offs to the landfill! Donate good-condition clothing, games, and housewares to the Staunton Salvation Army Thrift Store or the Valley Mission Thrift. Habitat for Humanity Restore is looking for your unwanted furniture, tools, and building supplies.

Embracing these local resources and activities can significantly enhance your health and well-being as you begin a mindful new year.