Wintering

Wintering highlights the similarities between the cold season of the year and the period of hardship in a human life, by emphasizing how everything eventually passes in time, and how we can learn to embrace challenging times by learning from wolves, from the cold, and how our ancestors dealt with the winter.

Before the industrial revolution that brought forth electricity and artificial lighting systems, humans were naturally deprived of daylight during winter, and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, a study from 1996 aimed to replicate the natural conditions of a typical winter for the participants. The result? Improved health. People slept more, but their bodies managed to adapt and wake up during daylight. While awake, they were more calm and reflective.

Perhaps if we look at it from a different perspective, winter isn’t such a bad thing to go through. In fact, it allows us to become more introspective and reflect on what matters. We learn to appreciate the little things, the good times, and to face the challenging temperatures with limited resources. In life, times of hardship are similar to winter.

While we don’t get much sun and life doesn’t seem quite cheerful, we grow stronger, learn to overcome obstacles, and most importantly, we get to know ourselves a little bit more. Therefore, we must get comfortable with times of anxiety and uncertainty, while we learn how to navigate through them. These are the times to meditate and reflect upon what truly matters to us and how we can become better for the next season.

Winter is the season of sheltering from the cold. Every year, we prepare in advance to face the negative temperatures by stocking up on supplies, preparing shovels for the snow, and cozying up our homes. However, perhaps we’ve got it all wrong. If you look at animals, they don’t fear winter, but rather embrace it. They hibernate and spend their cold days in the midst of it all, in solace and meditation. In fact, low temperatures can have immense benefits on the human body. For example, swimming in cold water can increase dopamine, the happiness hormone, by up to 25%. Moreover, it decreases fatigue and stress. Extreme temperatures benefit the mind, as it forces us to be awake and live in the present. Therefore, embracing winter as animals do isn’t a bad idea at all. On another level, we can look at life the same way. As inevitable as it is, difficult times will occur. However, the way we respond to them can change the course of the situation. Just like animals, we can learn to fully embrace the situation and trust that spring or better times will come. During winter,…