Is the cold weather making you feel blue? During this time, many people experience sadness, have difficulty concentrating, and struggle to keep their energy up to complete daily tasks.
While you can’t change the weather or hurry along Daylight Saving Time, you can take action to improve your student’s mood and help them concentrate.
Here are 5 of our favorite ways to beat the “winter blues.”
Get Some Sunlight
Getting outside daily, even for a few minutes, can greatly impact your mood. Sunlight plays a big role in balancing serotonin levels, increasing your vitamin D level, and lowering stress and anxiety. All of these help improve your emotional state. Sunlight, especially morning sunlight, also helps balance circadian rhythms—leading to better quality sleep.
Encourage your student to get outside on weekends. Schedule an afternoon walk or bike ride for the family. Remember, we still soak in vitamin D even when it’s cloudy!
Let Food Improve Your Mood
Vitamin D can also be found in foods we eat. Try adding fatty fish, mushrooms, and vitamin D-fortified foods like milk, orange juice, and yogurt to your family’s diet. If it’s hard to get these on a regular basis, consider a vitamin D supplement for the winter months.
Because vitamin D supports bone, heart, and GI health, it is a good vitamin to prioritize for overall health. And of course, it’s easier to be in a better mood and concentrate when we feel physically healthy.
Plan a Social Event
Socializing is good for our mental health. Being a part of a sports team, club, or other extracurricular activity are easy ways for your student to build strong friendships, but make sure your student’s schedule has room for socializing and fun apart from official activities, too. Especially if your student is a teenager, it’s important to model a lifestyle that has room for play—which is proven to increase creativity and problem-solving among adults. Also remember that socializing can be as simple as catching up with a loved one via the phone or zoom.
Maintain a Regular Schedule
While routines are always important, they are extra important in the winter months because they create a sense of stability. Routines are particularly trendy right now, with social influencers posting their morning and evening “5-9s.” Though students will have adjusted times for their morning and evening routines, the premise is the same.
Popular activities your student could include in their morning routine: stretching, drinking a glass of water right away, ignoring their phone for the first 30 minutes after waking up, exercising, meditating, listening to music or a podcast, or journaling.
Popular activities your student could include in their evening routine: skin care, bathing or showering, reading, putting away devices 1 hour before bed, lighting candles or dimming lights, making to-do lists or laying out clothes for the next day, or making a gratitude list.
Don’t Snooze on Sleep
The other benefit of a regular schedule is improved sleep, which is scientifically proven to boost your mood. Students aged 6 to 12 years old need an average of 9-12 hours of sleep per night. Teenagers (ages 13-18) need an average of 9-10 hours of sleep per night, but on average, only get 7 hours of sleep.
Sleep is crucial for proper brain function and impacts attention, memory, analytical thought, decision-making, risk-assessment, impulse control, irritability, and creativity. Keeping (and enforcing) a regular bedtime is one of the best things you can do to help your student succeed.
Thankfully, longer, warmer, and sunnier days are ahead for us all, but in the meantime, make sure your student is engaging in behaviors and taking actions that can help mitigate the winter blues!