Warming Winter Blues
Five ways to motivate yourself and lift your mood in cold weather
It’s a freezing February day, and you are sitting on the couch in front of the heater. You look out the window at a monochrome world of clear ice, white snow, grey clouds, and barren trees, their colourful leaves long gone. The sun has not appeared in days. You notice the sky darkening as day becomes night — and it’s only 4pm.
Going outside has become an ordeal, requiring significant planning: putting on a heavy coat over your warm sweater and donning boots, gloves, a scarf, and a hat. You remind yourself to take the hot packs you forgot last time, when your hands nearly turned blue and took forever to warm back up.
However, deciding that it is too late — or, rather, too dark — to do anything, you decide to forgo the outdoors as has become a habit these days. You bury yourself in work until you suddenly remember you have not eaten dinner, so you hastily warm up a microwaveable meal and turn on the TV until you feel tired enough to sleep.
If this series of events sounds as familiar to you as it does to me, you know that your mental health can easily get lost in the shuffle of a cold day. Winter can be uniquely stressful, with more family gatherings or even heightened feelings of isolation if you are spending the holidays alone.
A drop in mood brought on by the changing of the seasons could be a sign of a condition known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD). SAD also involves other depressive symptoms, including loss of interest in hobbies, difficulty sleeping, physical aches, difficulty concentrating, and social withdrawal. If you find yourself experiencing depressive episodes consistently during certain seasons, it may be worth consulting a doctor or mental health professional to help you manage your symptoms.
Whether you have SAD symptoms or more general ‘winter blues,’ there are ways to prioritize your mental health and preemptively combat low mood and motivation. Here are five ideas to try this winter season.
1. Go outside… seriously
I know, I know, easier said than done. However, going outside can help your body produce vitamin D, reduce stress, and improve your mood. Exposing yourself to natural light in the morning, in particular, can help you sleep and regulate your circadian rhythm.
Some potential options for getting outside could be taking regular walks or habitually drinking your morning coffee or other beverage of choice outside. Coordinating your outdoor trips with a friend or family member could help hold you accountable and make the experience more fun. If you prefer solitude, popping in headphones and listening to music or a podcast can help pass the time.
2. Prepare meals ahead of time
Making meals each day requires multiple steps. You have to decide what to eat, create a list of groceries, shop for ingredients, and cook the meal. If left for the end of a cold, long day, cooking for yourself can be daunting.
Meal prepping at the start of each week can reduce the mental and physical burden of having to plan and make meals each day. Your meals may even be more nutritious if you subsequently rely less on frozen meals and takeout.
There are different ways to meal prep and plan, and plenty of articles online explaining how with helpful tips. There is no right or wrong: you can buy and prepare ingredients for all your lunches and dinners for the week, leaving the cooking itself for each day, or you can cook multiple portions of one recipe you can eat throughout the week.
If you are still unsure about meal prepping, you can try it out by choosing one recipe each week you want to make, and buying and preparing the ingredients on a day you have some free time. And it is absolutely okay to skip meal prep if you are having a difficult day.
3. Make laughter part of your daily routine
Victor Hugo said it best: “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.” A recent meta-analysis found that spontaneous laughter is correlated with a reduction in cortisol, a stress hormone that also affects motivation, mood, and fear. Put more simply, laughter can lead to less stress and boost mood.
You can find some activities that tend to make you laugh. Engaging with humorous media — books, TV shows, podcasts, stand-up specials, or movies — or goofing around with friends can promote regular laughter. Consistently doing things that simply bring you joy can also lead to laughter. Even if they do not, remember that the smiles and small moments of joy matter, too.
4. Lean into warmth and comfort
Winter can often make us crave coziness: hot cocoa, fuzzy blankets, comfy sweaters, warm fireplaces, and aromatic candles, for instance. Regardless of whether you live alone or with a large extended family, you probably want your dwelling to feel like ‘home,’ and the sights, sounds, smells, sensations, and tastes we often associate with winter can be great for promoting that warm ‘homey’ feeling.
Take advantage of this opportunity to engage in cozy self-care, especially when you feel stressed. Think of one object that embodies warmth or coziness for each of the five senses, and find ways to incorporate each item into your week. Looking back on fond memories of winters past may help remember objects and sensations that bring comfort.
5. Connect with family and friends
In colder weather, people often feel isolated and lonely, which can, understandably, harm their health over time. Coupled with the lack of energy and low mood that can arrive in wintertime, isolation can feel even more difficult to remedy. Put simply, being social can be a chore.
Connecting with people doesn’t have to look one particular way. You can set up coffee dates with your friends, attend local community events, and volunteer in your community. However, connection can also look like chatting with a friend over video about what you are currently reading, casually watching TV with your family, or checking in over text with the people you care about. Online support groups and warmlines are alternatives, too, especially if your in-person circle is small.
The presence of loved ones can enhance positive experiences and make boring or irritating tasks more tolerable. You could consider including someone as you complete daily tasks, such as going on walks, grocery shopping, or exercising. Finding ways, no matter how small, to build connection into your regular routine can do wonders for your mood.
If you find yourself feeling down when the winter months roll around, you are not alone. Between the early setting of the sun, colder weather, difficulty navigating the ice and snow, and lack of reliable sunlight, it can feel like an uphill battle to feel motivated to do much of anything. As a therapist, I work to connect people to the things that bring them joy and the personal values that make life feel meaningful.
I would be honoured to sit with you through life as we know it and support you in working toward what life could be. You can fill out the contact form here to book a free 15-minute consultation and learn more about the therapy process.
