11 Ways to Alleviate Winter Suffering - or How to Survive Winter!

Winter is still here!

As many of you know, I find winter tough. My body shuts down and my mind feels shadowy. Even after 13 years in New York, winter has never been easy for me. It has taught me some lessons, though!

I’ve developed a strategy that gets me through it in one piece:

1. Nurturing food. Think seasonal, think root vegetables: potatoes, turnips, onions, beets, sweet potato, and carrots, as well as other winter veggies such as Brussel sprouts, squash, and garlic, garlic, garlic. Grains to keep you going – buckwheat, rye, faro, rice, quinoa and oatmeal, of course. Chickpeas, black beans, and legumes all aid digestion.

Focus on eating warm cooked foods. Avoid commercially processed and packaged foods if you can as they don’t bring anything to the digestive or immune system. Increase heat, improve circulation, and get rid of congestion and inflammation with teas – a combination of ½ tsp of cinnamon, ginger, and clove boiled in water for about 5 minutes can do wonders.

2. Inspiration, learning. I have a memory of my grandfather always studying. He was constantly interested in something, always learning. I remember him studying French Literature in his eighties. My Granny Heather is the same, constantly educating herself. They taught me one of the secrets to a good life: always be learning.

Winter is the perfect time to start that new evening class. Join a book club! Anything that will keep your brain stimulated and inspired. Even at my winter lowest, I can go to a gallery and be pulled out of my slump immediately. I feel lighter, I feel my blood warming, my mind fluttering and igniting.

3. Make things! This leads very easily into the next essential thing for me. As an artist who also runs a business, I know my balance quickly gets off if I do not have a creative physical project on the go. Using my hands to create something is part of who I am. I love the Louise Bourgeois quote: “Am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands.”

For me, making art is a guaranty of sanity. It is a form of meditation that is active and productive. It allows me to examine, to be transported, to express, and to make sense.

Find your thing. Learn to knit, take a pottery class, a cooking class, a sewing class, a painting class. Anything where you use your hands so that your mind will follow. And I don’t want to hear “I’m not creative!” One of the things I teach in my Art of Meditation series is that we are all creative. Making is about the process, not the result. That is the focus, enjoy the making.

4. Hibernation. Don’t be afraid to check out if that is what you need. Stay in, your bed is your friend! Be warm, make good food, read, take long baths, watch “Godless’” or “Game of Thrones” –whatever your viewing guilty pleasure may currently be! Celebrate hibernation.

5. Connection. “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.”-Victor Hugo.

Hibernation has its place, but it is also important to maintain social connections. It’s easy to feel too tired, or decide it’s too cold out to make plans, but try to make dates with friends and keep them. Choose the friends that inspire you, encourage you, that make you feel good. Celebrate those friendships.

We have a profound need to connect and there so much research showing how important it is to wellbeing.

6. Exercise. Take your pick. Of course, I think yoga with the right teacher is the answer to most problems in life, but any kind of exercise that increases your heart rate will do. Exercise elevates our mood. Get out a stop early on the subway and walk to work or errands. A walk in nature (see #8) is even better.

7. Aromatherapy. Essential oils can transport you. Inhale some lavender and suddenly you are Provence and the sun is shining. When we inhale an essential oil, the olfactory system is activated as is the limbic system (the emotional brain). This is why one smell can trigger such emotion. Because of sense of smell is so directly connected, essential oils work quickly. Adding some to some Epsom salts and sprinkle in a nice warm bath, a few drops on your pillow or directly on pulse points (check for sensitivity first) can really shift your mood.

In winter I love citrus, eucalyptus, oregano, tea tree, peppermint and lavender oils.

8. Nature. We are lucky to have a lot of blue sky during the winter in New York. I often go outside and just look up. Soak up that sky. We also have lots of parks and waterfronts, so it’s fairly easy to get into some open space.
Make a point of getting out in nature as often as you can. Get in touch with the seasonal energy.

9. Vitamins. I fully believe in an ideal world we should get all the nutrients we need from our foods. And as a vegetarian, I make sure I eat in a way that provides well. When I feel my immune system is compromised–whether by my sometimes low winter mood or my monthly cycle–I do reach for vitamin C or a multi-vitamin. Vitamin D can also really help in the winter.

10. Mindfulness. Mindfulness allows us to be in the moment. We are not pining for summer or wishing we were elsewhere, we are right where we are, breathing in the cool air and looking at the skeletal structures of the trees. With mindfulness, we learn to accept the moment as it is without judgment.

11. Meditation. Meditation saves me every day. It is something I rely on, something that is always there. It is not always easy, but it is something I can actively do that helps me in endless ways. Final recommendation for winter – learn to meditate!