Many of us dread the nights drawing in and this year there is added apprehension. Here experts offer advice to get yourself through the colder months
Winter is coming and the beauty of autumn – red and gold spreading across the neighbourhood trees; low-hanging mist; a morning glitter of frost – has an ominous quality this year. I don’t need to set out why we are all facing the next few months with real apprehension: almost every headline is doing that for me. The grim bonus is meteorologists predicting that La Niña may mean a colder-than-usual early winter.
But even at the best of times, I don’t think we as a nation deal with winter brilliantly. It’s something to endure or escape rather than appreciate or even enjoy. I personally fixate on Christmas, a frenetic emotional maelstrom – more powerful even than the John Lewis advert – of family, financial anxiety and festive frankenfoods. Then I lurch into some absurdly puritanical “new year, new you” regime for four minutes before giving up and spending months in custard-fuelled, snotty, grey lethargy. But does it have to be this way? I talked to experts to find out how eating, dressing, moving and generally living a bit differently might help me embrace, and even enjoy, winter.
