I remember one winter when I drove all the way to the gym, parked, opened my car door, and then felt an icy blast of wind that blew so furiously that it shot me back into the driver’s seat of my car. My commitment to working out that day was not enough to go up against the blustery east winds that were common in that part of the Pacific Northwest. I decided against the workout and drove to get coffee instead.
Finding motivation for things in the winter can be a challenge. The days are short and dark, the weather conditions can create huge challenges, and these things can affect your mood, leading to a lack of energy. In the long winter months, it’s not just consistent workouts that can suffer. It’s also common for your desire to start or finish tasks to wane, for eating healthy to be a chore, and for creativity to plummet. This lack of motivation can have a negative impact on everything throughout your day, including your work and relationships. Consequently, when spring finally rolls around, it seems you’ve got a lot of catching up on the things you let slide all winter.
Creating a system for motivation can help not only bring healthy consistency in the winter months but also to see progress in areas of your life that will make you a healthier person.
1. Sauna Therapy
Ditch the diet or whatever your typical New Year resolutions have been in the past. When it comes to motivation, your brain and body can experience fatigue when you’re tackling the same old problems every year. If you find that you’re starting a diet each winter or heading back to the gym in January, go out of your way to do something you’ve never done before.
In fact, the simpler the thing, the better! For example, if you don’t have access to a sauna, investigate a new gym membership with access to one. You can also do an online search for sauna therapy, as this type of health and wellness salon is popping up all over the place. Sauna therapy has all kinds of health benefits for your immune and nervous system. After 20 minutes in a sauna, you feel energized and invigorated, which is a huge help with motivation.
2. Float Therapy
If you’ve never heard of float therapy, it’s a sensory deprivation tub filled with Epsom salt and water. The temperature of the water is set to exactly your body’s temperature, making it so that your body’s senses don’t feel the water. Due to the salt content in the water, you float; there’s a feeling of weightlessness, no pressure on your skin, muscles, tendons, or joints, just pure “nothingness.” Float therapy provides a state of relaxation that can’t be compared to anything else.
Additionally, this type of therapy is known to improve sleep quality, alleviate chronic pain, decrease blood pressure, enhance circulation, relieve stress, and reduce anxiety. Also, if you are still doing consistent workouts in the winter and want to implement something new to help with motivation, float therapy helps with exercise recovery by accelerating muscle recovery.
3. Aerial Silks
Often, the lack of motivation in the winter months can be due to the fatigue of doing the same old thing repeatedly. Try doing something to benefit your health that’s entirely different. It used to be that aerial silks were used for performance only, so the first thing that comes to mind might be the circus or other traveling act that features artists performing acrobatics.
However, because of the many health benefits, aerial silk studios are popping up in many cities and towns across America. While a silks class can be a very serious workout, there are varying levels from beginner to advanced. Benefits include enhanced flexibility, stress relief, spinal decompression, and body awareness. Additionally, as you move into more advanced techniques, an aerial silks class will strengthen your muscles, core, and stability. Aerial silk classes are fun and can keep you motivated all winter long.
Give yourself a reason to get up and get moving!
Motivation doesn’t just happen, so it’s necessary to make a plan that will get you up and moving. While starting a new crotchet or knitting project might seem more appealing in the winter months, doing something that creates more movement and motion in your life is going to promote sustained energy, which leads to those motivated feelings.
Don’t let the long winter months be a punishment by circulating the same old ideas; instead, come up with something totally different. Maybe it’s an acting class or community theater, volunteering at a community center, or starting your own group to help others stay motivated. If you’re a leader in this area of your life, you can be a huge help to someone else who is also struggling to stay motivated throughout the winter.
Read Next:
4-Minute Tabata Workout… Too Good to Be True?
