Preparing for Winter

Summer has come and gone here in Maine. Well, actually Fall is all but gone too. Daylight Savings Time has brought darker evenings. We even had a snow flurry yesterday. This got me thinking about the imminent winter coming our way

Living in Maine, we like to complain about the winter. Negative temperatures, Nor’Easters, 4pm Sunsets, 10 months of it, etc. . . Some of it is exaggerated, but winter is difficult in Maine due to its harshness and length.
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Unfortunately, I suspect this winter will be harder than normal due to all of the preceding events this year. Any good Mainer has already had this regretful thought.

While it may be challenging, I do believe there are several things we can do now to make our endless winter a bit easier.

In today’s blog, we cover three separate areas of life: Physical Activity, Home Strategies, and Metal Health. Some topics may be fluid between headers, but we’ll keep them separated for ease of formatting.

Physical Activity

This is a health and exercise blog. It would be silly if we didn’t talk about activity. Staying active is probably one of the best things we can do for our overall health with or without a pandemic.

Under normal circumstances many people would simply join a gym, but 2020 is different. Indoor facilities aren’t enticing for everyone. Many people would prefer being outdoors. Fortunately for us in the North East, winter provides us some great sporting opportunities, but it may requires us to act early to ensure we have equipment. Nobody wants to get stuck like we did in July trying to find dumbbells.

So here are a few ideas to stay active this winter while staying outdoors.

1. Form a Routine- Whatever you choose to do with your time this winter, it is important to have some kind of routine to remain sane and productive. Whether you’re joining a gym or a running club, having some regularity in your activity will pay off wildly.
2. Buy a State Park Pass- Odds are wherever you live there are some beautiful parks with a lot of nature and space. Walking the trails of a good state park will provide hours of activity time and time again. Not to mention, it is always good to support the parks.
3. Cross Country Skiing- Maybe in tune with your new park pass. You may already have your cross country skis. If you don’t, you probably have a friend, uncle, or neighbor with some in their garage. You may just need to buy some boots. If you go this route, it may be worth while to get situated with them early before they fly off the shelves after the first snow fall.
4. Snow Shoeing- Just like cross country skiing, but different.
5. Winter Hiking- Can you tell that I like to be in nature during the winter?
6. Winter Biking- Not the best choice for everyone, but I enjoy it. It has become safer and more accessible thanks for lower cost fat bikes, but caution should be taken.
7. Rake your leaves and clean your roof- Get outside, clean up the yard, and enjoy your sense of accomplishment. While you’re at it, clean off your roof too. Get the gutters clean. Check the valleys and fascia. Give it a good once over. It’s better to do a little work now and make sure your roof is set for the winter so that future problem do not arise. Do this now because it will be much harder or maybe impossible to deal with issues in February. Is this a metaphor?

​Home Strategies

While exercise is important, odds are that exercise doesn’t rule your life. You may do it for an hour or two each day. Some strength training, some aerobic training, and maybe some stretching, but it may not be a large part of your day.
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What can we do outside of exercise, for the other twenty-three hours each day? What other habits can we form to keep ourselves healthy in the morning? At lunch? The odd time of day when you get hungry after lunch but before dinner?

Here are a couple of tips to consider this winter.

1. Form a regular sleep schedule- One of the best things we can do for our sleep health is to keep a consistent schedule. Try to go to bed and wake up each day with no more than thirty minutes of deviation on each end. Sleep is the paramount time for recovery. Not just recovery of our bodies, but also our minds. We heal our nagging injuries. We regain previous “energy” levels. We solidify memories. So much happens in sleep! We can confidently say that there isn’t a single system in our body (including our immune system) that is not positively effected by proper sleep or negatively effected by poor sleep. Get yourself on schedule and stick to it! Regularity in a chaotic world can go a long way.
2. Happy Light- Consider getting yourself a happy light. Whether or not your susceptible to Seasonal Affective Disorder, having a light that mimics the sun may be healthy. We all know how the dark days of winter drag on us. Having 30 minutes of “ sun light” a couple times each day may help. There are protocols using the lamps to help us get our sleep back on track too! The small investment could help you.
3. Eat Well- I think this one may be obvious. Eat lots of vegetables. I don’t just mean potatoes either. More vegetables means more vitamins and minerals. Eat the other good stuff too. Eat some meat if you eat meat. Eat healthy foods often. Make them tasty. Avoid the bad food.

Mental Health

Lastly, let’s talk about mental health this winter. Obviously I am in no position to tell people how to maintain their mental health, so here is a collection of ideas I’ve created for myself that may interest you.

1. Meet with friends and family regularly but safely- COVID19 has limited many of us from seeing our friends and family as freely and frequently as we would like. While we should be mindful of the way in which we are meeting others, I need to maintain relationships for my sanity. It may take some creativity, but I think we can do it. Anyone up for a hike through the snowy trails at Wolfe’s Neck State Park?
2. Reach out often- We are human. Most of us need relationships. It’s hard being isolated from each other. If you’re unable to see people in person, reach out by phone. We all did a great job back in April. We did a great job. We were Zooming all day long. Then it got tiring, summer came along, and we stopped. It’s time to pick it back up! Anytime you’re feeling a bit lonely, a friend of yours probably feels the same way. Connect often.
3. Consider a new hobby- We’re gonna need something to do in the evening when the sun sets at 4pm…
4. Develop a stress reduction practice- There will be stress. We’ve already endured a good bit, but there will be more. This winter, post-pandemic, around the happiest days of your life. Stress isn’t going anywhere. It’s part of life, but let’s learn to deal with it. This winter is a great time to learn quickly about what works well for you to reduce stress. Your practice may be a simple as breathing exercises or enjoying a moment of quiet. Maybe it is more complex like a Qi Gong routine. What the practice is matters less than the purposeful act of acknowledging stress and deciding to make an effort to reduce its negative effect in your life.
5. Challenge yourself in the kitchen- You’re cooking good food. Your meals are healthy. Things are going well. Why not step it up and challenge yourself? Try some new ingredients. Make more involved dishes that may take a couple days of work. We have the time, we’re home to watch the oven, let’s get creative. Oh, and share that good food too! 

“But I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one’s own ass, cross the street by oneself, or be trusted with money.”
​-Anthony Bourdain

These are just some ideas that I have been tossing around in my head since the first gusts of fall starting coming up the coast. Obviously it is not an exhaustive list. Take what interests you. Share it with others. Open up the conversation. It’s okay to admit that there is stress, uneasiness, and fear.