With the end of winter in sight, some folks may be weeping tears of joy. If you live up above the 49th parallel, November through March can pose a considerable challenge in terms of maintaining a positive attitude and staying productive. And while the inviting breeze of spring may not be far off, with its promise of patios, music festivals and cottage weekend, it’s a good time to reflect on how you fared this winter – if it was really hard, consider why that was and strategize for next year.
If you’re like most Canadians, then you probably default to watching Netflix and hiding under warm blankets (ideally with a romantic partner) during the cold months. While this act of hibernation can be comfortable, it can also stifle personal growth. If you want to stay active during the winter months, it’s a good idea to take up a hobby that actually gets you out of the house. This encourages interacting with other real live humans and also could spark personal growth that will have a positive effect on your life!
In this post, we’ll explore four great ways to stay active in the winter months and stimulate certain skill sets and brain waves.
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Join a specialized gym
While your friends may give you a hard time for joining a cross fit gym (the culture can be obsessive and all-consuming), it may be worth it – plus there’s a good chance you’ll gain some cool new friends. It’s tough to stay active during the winter months, but working out gives you a chance to move around, makes you strong and helps you feel good about yourself. Rock climbing gyms have also become very popular in recent years; if you’re into puzzle solving and hate the idea of picking up weights and putting them down over and over, rock climbing might be just the thing for you!
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Learn a Musical Instrument
Learning an instrument is one of the best options because it’s something that you can work on alone in your bedroom, or with friends. If you never learned an instrument growing up but feel compelled to try, music lessons at Long & McQuade are a great place to start – this way you can get crucial tips about technique and casual assignments that will motivate you to hone your chops. Whether you’ve always wanted to slap the bass, rock the keyboard like Ray Charles or pound the drums like Keith Moon, your local music store should be able to set you up. Practice at home or get a jam group together with friends – if you don’t know anyone who plays an instrument, try Meetups.com or Craigslist!
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Take a Class
If you don’t necessarily want to focus on one thing, you can mix it up every year and learn a variety of skills and crafts outside of your house. You could do art class one year, cooking class the next. There are great alternative classes for people who want to hone their amateur writing skills, improvisational comedy groups, dancing skills (read more about it here), the list goes on and on. If you try to teach yourself something new every winter, you will soon become a very impressive human indeed!
