Keep Active Keeping up the motivation to exercise on a cold winter day instead of curling up under a warm blanket on the sofa can be diffi-cult. Slowing down physically can have the unwanted side affect of bringing you down psychologically. And at a time when the weather is lowering our spirits we need to take practical measures to stay active and happy.
Get Outside Go outdoors in natural daylight as much as possi-ble, especially at midday and on brighter days. Sit near windows whenever you can. Keep blinds and curtains open as much as possible to let in the light.
Keep Warm Being cold makes you more depressed. It’s also been shown that staying warm can reduce the winter blues by half. Keep warm with hot drinks and hot food. Wear warm clothes and shoes and aim to keep your home between 64F and 70F de-grees.
Eat Healthily A healthy diet will boost your mood, give you more energy and stop you from putting on weight over winter. Balance your craving for carbohydrates, such as pasta and potatoes, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Take Up a New Hobby Keeping your mind active with a new interest can lift your spirits. It could be anything, such as playing bridge, singing, knitting, joining a gym, keeping a journal or writ-ing a blog. The important thing is that you have something to look forward to and concentrate on.
See Your Friends and Family It’s been shown that socializing is good for your mental health and helps ward off the winter blues. Make an effort to keep in touch with people you care about and accept any invitations you get to social events, even if you only go for a lit-tle while. It will really help to lift your spirits. It’s easy to get into a rut of not going out dur-ing the winter: Staying in bed with Netflix can be a tempting option on a Friday night when you’re tired and it’s cold outside, but try to make an effort to spend time with the people you care about. It’s nearly impossible not to feel better about life when you’re enjoying conversations and fun activities with friends.
Create a Normal Sleep Schedule When it’s cold and dark all the time, it’s normal to feel way more tired than usual. But make sure you’re not sleeping more than 10 hours per night — pulling the shades and hibernating all winter may only contribute to your exhaus-tion.
Perform an Act of Kindness Volunteer to do something good for someone. Some-times the best way to stop feeling bad for yourself is to do something nice for another person. In fact, research has shown that a simple act of kindness can indeed boost happiness levels, so go out and do a favor for a stranger or someone you love.
Laugh. A lot. Seriously – Victor Hugo said: ‘Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face’.
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