Mindful Tips for a Stress Less Winter By Rona Cherry l Winter Health l Healthy Living Tips

Mindful Tips for a Stress-Less Winter

You shoveled your car out last night. This morning, thanks to a passing snowplow, it’s walled in again. You have a cold and you’d like to stay home, but you have to make a big presentation—assuming your voice doesn’t fail, and you can shovel out your car in time! Winter brings out more than its share of stress, the most relentless enemy of our loving selves (how loving are you when you’re frazzled?). Here are ways to cope with winter stress—and stay in touch with the love at the center of your being.

Rona Cherry has written about health and wellness for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Ladies’ Home Journal, Vegetarian Times, and many other publications. She was the editor-in-chief of several national magazines, including Fitness and Longevity. She is also an ordained Interfaith Minister. Check out her website here!

Start With Mindfullness - 5 Minute Break

This one comes early in the day. It’s the first thing you do when you open your eyes. Don’t charge out of bed. Just lie there. Savor the warmth of the blanket (don’t savor too long, or you’ll go back to sleep!), and give thanks for your shelter from the cold. Then focus your thoughts on what you can accomplish today—not on the worldly playing fields of work and gain, but to make yourself a more loving person.

Set a specific assignment, like calling a friend going through a hard time and truly listening with all your heart. Or striking up a conversation with an elderly person on the bus (you’ll never know, but it may be the finest thing you do all year). Give thanks for the opportunity to do these things, then gently rise and begin your routine. Keep your thoughts fixed on the loving acts you have set as your intentions. Do you feel the difference? You’ve begun your hectic day with inner peace.

Consider the Downside of Materialism - 90 Minute Break

Thanks to our loving generosity during the holidays, winter can also be the season of credit-card sticker shock. When the oil slick of bills washes up on your doorstep come January and February, you know all too well how it can rob you of the joy of living. Worry about money is a brutal form of stress, and if it’s relentless, we cease to live and we merely exist. Set aside a few hours to absorb the wisdom of Catherine Ponder, whose classic “The Dynamic Joys of Prosperity” was published in 1962. (You’ll find it on amazon.com.) Ponder was not a spiritual adviser by training, yet her words will touch your spirit and empower you—bringing you respite from anxiety and helping you open your heart.

Cooking as Meditation - Two Hour Break

Make a pot of homemade winter soup to warm body and soul. And make the making of it an exercise in mindfulness. Forget the names of things—carrots, celery, onions—and look at them as if for the first time. See the subtleties, the gradations of the color on each vegetable (amazing, when you look mindfully, how many shades of orange a carrot contains!). Bring all your senses to the task. Feel the textures; inhale the wonderful aromas; listen as the water reaches a rolling boil. Feel the resistance of the water as you stir. Gently sweep all thoughts to the side. Attend only to your senses. As you give all your attention to the soulful business of making a wonderful soup, you will feel the great comfort of a quiet mind.