7 things you can do when it’s cold to warm up naturally

When it’s cold, we usually look for the heat of the stoves or the fireplace to warm up. However, we can do a lot to activate the body and maintain body temperature in other ways.

There are as many ways to activate as one can imagine but these are some of the most effective things we can do to gain energy and promote physical and mental well-being.

1. Take sunbaths

With the sun you don’t usually have a middle ground: in summer it is drunk until it burns and in winter it is forgotten.

A face and torso sunbath, lasting about ten minutes, reconciles us with the seasonhelps to warm up and favors the synthesis of the daily dose of vitamin Dessential for fixing calcium in the bones and with preventive action against breast, colon and prostate tumors among others.

Besides winter sun baths prevent and treat “affective syndrome” or “seasonal depression”.

The most effective in this regard are the first rays of the sun in the morning because regulate the production of the most influential hormones on moodmelatonin, controller of rest and activity cycles, and serotonin, associated with the feeling of well-being.

2. Train energetic awakening

People who withdraw from the cold may be hypotonic and the idea of ​​an active winter is very strange to them.

They usually have cold hands and feetand they feel especially listless during the first hours of the day.

It can help you a lot stretches upon waking to loosen up muscles and stimulate circulation.

After getting up, they can put their hands and feet in cold water for a couple of minutes and then take a alternating shower of hot water with a few seconds of cold water at the end.

It helps them aromatize the rooms with toning essences: lavenderwhich relieves superficial discomfort; Orange tree, which acts against melancholy and lack of appetite; and verbenawhich improves the ability to concentrate.

If they have a garden, at sunset they can walk for five minutes with your bare feet in the dew or snow. Then he takes a hot foot bath and they are massaged with juniper oil.

3. Exercise indoors

Some people have such an aversion to cold that as much as its goodness for health is guaranteed they will not exercise outdoors. But that is not why they are obliged to cultivate a sedentary lifestyle: they have other options.

At home they can do a gym table, pedal on an exercise bike or use steppers, treadmills, ski machines, or rowers.

They can also go to a gym or a heated poolwhere they will also benefit from the relationship with other people who can advise them.

4. Practice tai chi and chi kung

The traditional Chinese psychophysical disciplines, such as tai chi or chi kung, they mobilize the chithe vital energy, with a optimal effect on physical and mental health.

The combination of movements, synchronous breathing and visualizations of the flow of the chi manages to influence the internal heat generation and its distribution.

Taichi and chi kung are therefore ideal techniques for winter, although the practice only makes sense if it is regular and built into a habit.

The ideal is to learn with a teacher who corrects the most subtle errors, but as an example can be tested with the following sequence of only two positions that activates circulation in the energy meridian of acupuncture known as “triple heater”.

The first position is called wu chi and it is about imitating the dignity of a tree. You have to stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, your arms resting at your sides, your chin slightly tucked in, and your pelvis gently tilted so that the lumbar curvature is attenuated. The knees are slightly bent, as if riding a horse.

Concentration goes to the point so you have, located three fingers below the naveland take nine slow, deep breaths before moving on to the next step.

The knees are slightly bent, with the back straight and without protruding the buttocks, and the hands are crossed in front of the abdomen with the palms facing upwards. The hands and trunk are raised at the same time. The lungs fill up while inhaling upwards.

Upon reaching the chest, the palms turn outward to face the sky. The palms continue to be raised while the heels are raised. Finally, the sky is “held” with the body fully stretched.

Each time you inhale, the arms retract a little, as if the air entered through the palms of the hands. When exhaling they stretch slightly. But it is the respiratory movement that moves the arms and not the other way around.

The arms are slowly spread out to the sides like a bird spreading its wingsin a wide circle. The exercise is repeated nine times.

5. Have a positive attitude

Some say that We live in a culture of complaint and fear. In summer it is too hot, in winter the cold is unbearable and the blame for everything is blamed on the government or multinationals “that favor climate change”.

Those who freeze in the summer near the air conditioning outlet are often cooked next to the heating in the cold season.

seems more sensible learn to enjoy every moment without taking refuge in artificial environments that disconnect us from the cycles of nature. In other words: let’s be active, let’s show ourselves alive. It is the attitude that makes the cold good or bad. Instead of being overprotective, let’s welcome it.

The activities they are so beneficial in winter they have nothing to do with those other work and routine obligations that are so often exhausting and stressful. On the contrary: provide energy and satisfy important physical and mental needs.

So start exercising outdoors or start one of the other proposals explained in this article. there should be no sacrifice, but a pleasure.

6. Enjoy relationships

ANDn winter we tend to internalize, to withdraw into the personal worldwhich is necessary and enriching, but we must not forget to enjoy friends and loved ones.

Enjoy an active winter togetherwhether doing exercise in a group or excursions, allows counteract the effect of low temperatures with human heat.

The camaraderie, the share pleasant moments -like the beginning of the year- and adventures with loved ones encourages us to maintain a positive attitude which is surely the best way to support the immune system against the viruses that threaten it in winter.

7. Take steam baths

If you miss the intense heat, the sauna can become the favorite winter rite.

Improves mucous secretion bronchial, prevents colds and flu because heat kills viruses removes toxins of the body and improves the condition of the skin, muscles and the circulatory system.

Another option to warm up is the steamy heat baths or hot baths with magnesium sulfate salts or essential oils of ginger and eucalyptuswhich can be easily prepared at home and is recommended for recovering from colds.

A good idea is to make a sauna or bath on Friday afternoon, after the working day. One or two hours can be reserved to treat yourself to a sauna relaxing that opens the doors to a liberating weekend.

To sleep, rest and prepare a good awakening the next day, you can perform a relaxation exercise in bed, breathing slowly and deeply while loosening the tension of the musclesstarting with the feet and ending with the scalp.