Make Like a Bear and Hibernate

Celebrating the great indoors

Photo by DANNY G on Unsplash

Throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere, it is cold. It is damn cold.

Today we had a high – a HIGH – of minus 15. If you happened to veer out of the sunshine momentarily, or if it was not high noon, or if the wind was blowing (it was always blowing), it felt more like minus 25. Even for us hardy folk who think nothing of wearing layers of long johns and mittens the size of baseball gloves, it was still the kind of cold that makes your eyelashes freeze, gives you frostbite, and seeps deep into your bones.

Tomorrow is going to be colder.

All to say, my planned article is going to have to wait, because this is a manifesto for self-care. No matter the temperature, deep winter is not the time for a new workout routine, a diet of any kind, or counting your steps. For one thing, it takes a lot of calories just to get to your car. For another, it takes a lot of energy to stay alive.

It’s time to make like a bear and take it easy - unapologetically, voluptuously, extravagantly easy.

Though I’m normally a big proponent for getting outside, from nature’s point of view, winter is a time of fallow and rest. It’s a suspension of growth and living things, a great and universal pause before the timeless miracle that is spring.

And guess what? We are part of this universal fabric of life, this warp and weft, this ancient, wired-into-your-DNA seasonal shift.

Yet we tend to forget it: to drive ourselves mercilessly onward with New Year’s resolutions, to sweat off that extra weight, to set goals that are higher, faster, better. We are a culture that loves constant self-improvement and always has a yardstick at the ready.

From a naturopathic point of view - indeed from inherited wisdom that has come down through the ages - winter is for rest.

Listen to your body. Honour that need.

A few ways to embrace the great indoors,

• Splurge on beautiful bath salts or fancy soap. I love these and these

• Dive into some good books

• Practice gentle yoga

• Catch up on great (and frivolous!) TV

• Make soup from scratch

• Make cookies from scratch

• Make a playlist of your Desert Island Discs (the 8 songs you’d bring to a desert island)

• Write an old-school letter

• Meditate. Try it solo, with apps such as Calm, or with the excellent

  Jeff Warren
  right here on Substack. Take this gem, for instance

• Go to bed early

• Apologize for none of this

Some sleeper favourites from the Tumbleweed archive,

• Strange but true: weird wellness and other fun facts

• Best dance scenes of all time

• Flower essences pack a powerful punch in feeling your best

• The power of the (hand) written word

• How breathwork blew my mind

And now I’m off to eat cookies on the couch.

I’m Heather.

I’m a licensed naturopath, an unlicensed free spirit, an author, a mother, a yogi, a dog lover, a mystic, a goofball, an average but enthusiastic dancer.

Most of all, I’m curious.

I’m on a mission to bring you on a magical mystery tour of wellness, whimsy, and wanderlust. Thanks for tuning in.