How to Make the Winter Days More Bearable

The warm sunny months of summer have taken their leave now for flipside year. Summer holidays have gone for those of us living in the northern hemisphere. We squatter a longish spell surpassing the whoosh of expectation for the next holidays and warm sunshine brightens our days.

It’s not as bad as going to the dentist, but I, for one, moreover find it nonflexible to finger as positive well-nigh the climatically less cheery months ahead.

Even though we’re not amongst the unfortunate group of people who are genuinely unauthentic by SAD (seasonal propelling disorder), heading into the colder winter months is not particularly inspirational. Unless you’re very much into skiing or other winter sports, which my partner and I are not at this stage.

To write-up the winter blues and help smooth and hasten the way to the brighter and warmer days ahead, we’ve decided to try a few simple things. You might requite them a go yourself.

A Future Travels Plan

We need to get going on drawing up a short list of some possibilities for our next heady trips or getaways, and when that might be.

It’s one of the weightier ways to alimony the vision and mind looking forward and alimony the excitement of vaticination bubbling. The conversations virtually that should help unmodified the winter blues.

This kind of planning works both for solo travellers and non-solo.

Everyone’s different, but for us it doesn’t have to be a mega holiday to some faraway destination. In fact, our most recent trip was a special offer on a short unravel to a wonderful historic municipality in the south of France. It was a fantastic wits and included not only exploring the municipality and local walking trails, but moreover hiring bicycles and a day cycling withal wonderful waterway pathways.

At the moment, we are considering a visit to the Azores, hiking in the north of Spain or possibly in Italy for some time next year. North of Spain is ‘next door’, so to speak, and the other two would be a fairly short hop by air.

As long as it’s heady for us, we’re looking forward to it. That will help us to move on from the winter weather season to the next spring and summer when big vita await.

Exercise and Activity

When it’s not unconfined weather outside, I find it easy to lose motivation and be less physically active. There’s unchangingly an excuse, such as I’m trying to finish writing an vendible today, or I think that’s a rain deject coming our way, and so on.

Of course, the double-whammy is the uneaten visits to the cookie jar and the refrigerator that stuff less zippy seems to bring on.

Between one thing and another, that’s worth ‘taking steps’, so to speak, to distract ourselves from.

So, staying zippy can’t be emphasised enough. And I midpoint sufficiently zippy to maintain cardio, respiratory and muscular condition. This not only helps our physical health but moreover our mood and mental health.

Everyone will have variegated ways to maintain good physical condition. Mine is walking, cycling and a few simple pieces of exercise equipment lying virtually the house where I see them and use them daily.

It doesn’t have to be complicated, unless one is a fitness buff. I have written a short vendible here on some simple and inexpensive home equipment that will help alimony us in reasonable shape through the winter months.

Air and Sun

It wouldn’t be news that walking is fantastic for our health, both physical and mental.

There’s loads of info on the Internet well-nigh how much walking we should be doing, and we can trammels that out as a start.

We hear that we should target 10,000 steps per day on our step counter, etc. But let’s be clear, as far as I’m concerned, counting steps we do while pottering well-nigh the house doesn’t cut the mustard. Walking to the supermarket would be fine. But I would moreover dismiss shuffling well-nigh in the supermarket or other shops as irrelevant to what we’re aiming for.

What we need is jacket, hat, trainers or walking shoes on, out the door, and walk briskly and continuously for a period of time. The goody is we’ll get cardio exercise, fresh air, and moreover daylight. The daylight is salubrious for our mood, and if the weather cooperates, uncontrived sunlight on our skin provides Vitamin D, important for unorthodoxy health.

My worriedness target, as a septuagenarian, is a minimum of two 5-kilometer walks per week plus one 30-kilometer trundling ride. Total time taken for those would be well-nigh four hours. Sometimes I do more, and sometimes less if the weather doesn’t allow. I moreover include some daily home exercises with medium weights and resistance tube, stretches and plank.

I’ve been quite zippy for many years. For someone starting an exercise routine or less yawner to this level of exercise, it’s important to obtain translating from a professional trainer first.

So, let’s get out walking regularly and get some fresh air and sun. When we get over the initial inertia, it’s quite haunting and a huge uplift to our unstipulated feeling of wellbeing. All helps with what we’re aiming for here.

If you haven’t been walking for a while, read HOW TO RESTART YOUR WALKING HABIT.

The Cerebral Side

Almost everybody watches TV. But can we take some of that time to spend on something increasingly mentally zippy during the colder months? Chances are, we can.

Reading is unchangingly a unconfined option, expressly where it supports an existing interest or pastime. Amazon makes it so easy to scan every imaginable subject. And for those lucky few who still have a unconfined bookshop tropical by, what a way to get lost in variegated worlds, expressly when they have an in-store coffee bar! And let’s not forget to mention public libraries!

Many people moreover have aspirations to write, or maybe start a blog. There are uncounted online resources to help with this. For me, blogging has been a unconfined source of creativity and learning.

Perhaps there is a hobby we have thought well-nigh for some time. Maybe now is that time. Or maybe we are once urgently involved with a hobby that we can now invest increasingly time in.

Possibly there’s a undertow we’d unchangingly wanted to do. Udemy has a fantastic range of online courses for just well-nigh anything one could be interested in. I’ve washed-up quite a few. They are at a good level and are spanking-new value.

Connections

Maybe this should go right at the top of the vendible – those whose visitor we treasure and enjoy are paramount to our happiness. Doesn’t matter the season.

But as we throne into the colder, shorter, darker days, there’s all the increasingly reason to alimony in touch and get together with these significant others. No matter what we’re doing, family, friends and acquaintances make it increasingly fun and the time passes quicker.

Get-togethers over coffee, group supper out at the local restaurant, vellum or workbench game evenings. Limited only by our imagination and willingness to pick up the phone and make the undeniability to arrange. So why not do it – it can help shorten the wait to the longer warmer days again!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What do your winter days squint like usually? Do you wits winter blues? What are some unconfined ideas to get the time to pass quickly until the long, warm, sunny days return?