7 Winter Wellness Tips: Avoiding The Winter Blues

Winter can be a challenging time to maintain healthy habits, especially when the cold weather makes you want to hibernate indoors with comfort food and Netflix. Good intentions and healthy habits can go by the wayside fast when you’re trying to keep warm. Here are some winter wellness tips, to help you avoid falling into a rut and keep your body and mind in top shape.

The Impact Of Winter: How Cold Affects Your Wellbeing

Winter brings shorter days, colder temperatures, and often a whole lot of challenges that can affect our physical, mental, and emotional wellness. Understanding the impact of winter on your health and finding effective strategies to combat these challenges can help you maintain a healthy and balanced lifestyle throughout the colder months.

Winter Wellness Tips to Help You Thrive All Year Round

These wellness tips will help get you ready for the winter months. If you want to really level up your winter wellness, take my 30-day wellness challenge!

1. Mental Health Matters

Winter can have quite an impact on moods. With my closest friends, it’s a bit of a running joke about my seasonal moods, but there is a legitimate reason why you too might be feeling low during the colder months than you do when it’s warm and sunny.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD – such an appropriate acronym) is a form of depression that relates to changes in seasons. For most people with SAD, their mood will start as the Autumn weather kicks in, leaving you feeling moody and less energetic.

So don’t be quite so quick to brush off those “winter blues“. Instead, take steps to nurture your mental health and even seek professional help if you feel like your slump isn’t improving!

Spend Time In Sunlight

While the sun might not be shining as often and that window of time when you do get to feel the UV rays on your skin is limited, spending time in natural light will help counter the impact of those seasonal mood dips. Just because it’s cold outside, don’t skip spending time outdoors.

And if you are experiencing SAD, there are light therapy treatments that can mimic natural sunlight to help improve your mood and energy levels.

Stay Connected

Social connections are vital for mental health. Make an effort to stay in touch with friends and family, even if it’s through video calls or phone chats. Invite friends for dinner dates and indoor catch-ups, rather than hibernating for 3+ months. Or plan a self-care party at home!

Plan virtual hangouts, movie nights, or book clubs to keep the social interactions going, even on those days when you can’t think of anything worse than leaving your cozy house.

The winter months often mean fewer social events or making plans with friends and this can in turn result in feeling lonely or isolated. That’s why it’s important to make social time a priority through the winter months.

Practice Mindfulness

The shorter days and longer nights of winter can sometimes lead to feelings of sadness or depression. Practising mindfulness through meditation, deep breathing exercises or journaling can help you stay grounded and maintain a positive outlook through these cold, dreary days.

2. Stay Active

Cold weather and shorter daylight hours can make it difficult to stay active. Many people find it challenging to exercise outdoors, and the temptation to stay indoors and be sedentary increases. But there’s no reason you can’t bring your workouts inside!

Home Workouts

When it’s too cold to venture outside, bring your workouts indoors. There are plenty of online resources, apps, and YouTube channels offering free exercise routines that you can do in the comfort of your home. Try yoga and pilates or high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and dance workouts. The best option is the one you enjoy, not the one you think you should be doing!

Investing in some basic home workout equipment such as resistance bands, dumbbells, or a jump rope. These tools can add a little fresh variety to your home workouts and make it easier to stay committed to your fitness routine.

Healthy Hack: To stop myself from slacking off, I put my activewear on as soon as I get dressed for the day so I am more motivated to get my workout done.

Exercise Classes

The same goes for indoor classes at the local gym or hall. If you are the type of person who needs others to keep you accountable and motivated, why not join a weekly exercise class? Shake your booty with some Zumba. Roll around on the mats at Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu. Or work up a sweat with your boxing gloves on. Best of all, you can help your friends stay motivated too by dragging them along.

Exercising + socialising = winning!

Take Regular Walks

Even a brisk walk around your neighbourhood can do wonders for your physical and mental health. Aim to get outside for at least 20-30 minutes each day, regardless of the weather.

I live in a hot climate and while our winters are very mild, I adjust my routine so that instead of walking early in the day to beat the heat, in winter I walk in the middle of the day or in the afternoon when the temperatures are warmest.

Try Winter Sports

Winter sports like skiing, snowboarding, ice skating, and snowshoeing are exciting ways to stay active and make the most of the winter season. These activities give you a full-body workout and can be a great way to embrace the winter months with friends and family joining the fun.

The best thing about these type of activities is that you can only do them during the winter season, so this gives you something special to look forward to each winter.

3. Have Something To Look Forward To

I touched on this briefly above, with having something to look forward to helping you to stay motivated and find happiness, even if you hate winter as much as I do! Here are some of the ways I make getting through winter much easier:

Set Goals

Having personal projects or goals to work towards can give you a sense of purpose and keep you motivated throughout the winter months. Even if your winter goals are sticking with your pre-winter morning routine habits or not eating your weight in carbs, you’re still setting goals.

Goals are one of the most powerful motivators to help us focus on our winter wellness!

Pamper Yourself

Don’t you hate that dreaded winter itch of dry skin, brittle nails and dry hair. When it’s drier, with less humidity, that impacts us too. Plus we tend to have hotter showers and spend time with indoor heating too, all contributing to the problem.

You can stay a step ahead this winter by making it a regular habit to use hand cream, body lotion and hair treatments to pamper yourself. This is quick self-care that you can do practically every day if the need arises. You will be more comfortable and therefore happier!

Plan A Trip

As much as chasing summer is the dream many of us have when the coldest days of winter kick in, that’s not always in the budget. So if you can’t take a trip somewhere warmer, you can still enjoy a more budget-friendly mini break closer to home.

Book yourself a night at a cozy cabin with a fireplace and embrace the winter weather or spend a weekend in a hotel overlooking the beach. You might not get to enjoy the beach, but you’ll get great rates during the off-season and a beautiful view to be grateful for.

4. Maintain a Balanced Diet

How good is comfort food? So good! Especially when you’re cold and all you can think about is some hot, cheesy, carb-loaded dish that makes your tastebuds happy. But too much of that can lead to feeling frumpy and uncomfortable, which is why a balanced diet is a must!

Eat Seasonal Produce

Winter offers a variety of nutrient-rich seasonal produce such as root vegetables, citrus fruits, and leafy greens. Incorporate these into your meals to make sure you’re still getting a balanced diet packed with vitamins and minerals – even if you’d rather just live on comforting pizza and pasta all season long.

Plan Ahead

Meal planning can help you stick to healthy eating habits, even when you’re tempted by those yummy comfort foods. Plan your meals for the week, prep ingredients in advance, and have healthy snacks readily available to avoid reaching for less nutritious options.

There are plenty of lighter options that are still going to warm you up from the inside, like soups filled with veggies and protein-loaded dishes.

Stay Hydrated

It’s easy to forget to drink water when it’s cold and we aren’t feeling as thirsty, but staying hydrated is just as important in winter as it is in summer. Herbal teas, hot water with lemon, and broth-based soups are great ways to add extra hydration and warmth if your usual chilled water doesn’t have the same appeal.

Healthy Hack: Get a water bottle with time guides on it to keep you on track with the amount of water you need to drink each day. I have a 1L bottle that I fill twice a day minimum. One side has AM hours and the other side has PM hours.

5. Create a Cozy Home Environment

Your home is your sanctuary and you can make it feel extra special during winter with a few little touches and wellness tips for winter.

Decorate For Winter

It might sound a little crazy to decorate for the change of seasons, unless you’re someone who loves any excuse to decorate their home. There is some power in it though. When you switch up your home decor with little touches of the new season, it brings simple joy to your life. Don’t just wait for Christmas decorations to go up if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere. Add cozy little touches to your home that make your space feel special during the winter time.

Warm Baths

Take advantage of the cooler weather by indulging in warm baths. Adding Epsom salts, essential oils, or bath bombs can add to the relaxing experience and help you unwind. Don’t forget a class of vino and a good book!

Declutter and Organise

A clutter-free and organised home can significantly impact your mood and stress levels. Use the winter months to declutter, organise, and create a cozy and inviting living space. This annual routine of making winter your time to get organised will help you defeat the dreaded winter slump, giving you fresh motivation.

Plus it beats doing your mega cleanout when you’re sweating your face off!

6. Make Sleep A Top Priority

A well-slept you is a happier you! You know it’s true! So here are some ways to get better sleep:

Establish a Routine

Having a consistent sleep schedule can improve the quality of your rest. Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends. Make your bedroom a sanctuary for sleep. Keep it cool, dark, and quiet, and invest in comfortable bedding.

Have a no-screen period before you go to sleep. Even 15 minutes is better than nothing, but 30-60 minutes is great. Reading can be a great way to wind down and prepare for sleep too if it’s something you enjoy.

Limit Caffeine and Alcohol

Both caffeine and alcohol can interfere with your sleep patterns. Try to limit your intake, especially in the hours leading up to bedtime. Sure, special occasions might see this healthy habit slip but as a general rule, you will sleep much better without either of these in your system before bed.

7. Do Creative Activities

Creative hobbies add joy to our daily lives and break the routine of work, eat, sleep, repeat!

Hobbies and Crafts

Winter is a great time to dive into hobbies or crafts that you enjoy. Sewing, knitting, painting, writing, scrapbooking, reading, or cooking – just a few simple ideas. If your hobbies are indoors, even better for winter! But even if they’re not, don’t skip them because having something to look forward to can provide a sense of accomplishment and joy.

Learn Something New

Consider taking up a new hobby or learning a new skill. Online courses and tutorials make it easy to explore new interests from the comfort of your home.

Maintaining healthy habits during the winter months can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. You can avoid falling into a rut and keep your body and mind in top shape. Don’t let winter be an excuse to fall off the bandwagon because you are awesome and that doesn’t change in winter!

And make sure you also check out these summer wellness tips for when the weather warms up again!