8 Brain Hacks to Beat the Winter Blahs
It’s that time of year. The time when the days get shorter and darker, the air gets colder, and the weather gets more and more unruly. The weeks between the time change, when the clocks “fall back”, and Winter Solstice, when the days start getting longer again, can have a dramatic effect on our body’s internal clock and can sap energy that may seem to come more easily in the warmer months. There are days when many find it hard to motivate even the basic to do list items, let alone have the extra energy to prepare for end of year events such as final exams, work obligations, and holiday planning. Additional stressors such as strained finances, prolonged contact with extended family members, rich foods, and societal pressures to create the perfect holiday experience can leave our nervous systems overwhelmed and our brains and bodies caught up in hybernation-like inaction.
Indeed, our nervous systems are greatly affected by changes in temperature, sunlight, and activity levels that come with the winter seasons. Luckily, there are a few simple ways we can trick our nervous systems into performing for us, so we can stay active. Below are 8 brain “hacks” to beat the winter blahs.
Frame Each Task as a Choice
In our busy lives, there are things we can control and things we cannot, and the way we talk to ourselves about these can greatly impact the way we see them. Many cognitive counselors work with clients on how they talk to themselves about their problems, helping to identify how subtle changes in word choice can impact the emotions we associate with it. For instance, the sentence “I don’t know how to do that” takes on a radically different tone when we add “....yet” at the end as in “I don’t know how to do that yet.”
The same goes for the many tasks that we need to accomplish in a day. Instead of telling ourselves, “I have to determine a menu for the dinner party by tomorrow,” we might simply say, “I want to determine the menu for the dinner party by tomorrow” or even a slightly more neutral “I’m going to determine the menu for the dinner party by tomorrow.” If we use this kind of language, it helps us to recognize that we have options. Even more so, humans are hard-wired to feel better when they feel like they have autonomy over the challenges they face. So to frame a task as taking control of a problem can trick us into wanting to do it even more. If we make these subtle language shifts habitual, we can actually train our brains to view our challenges with an open-minded curiosity instead of avoidance or pessimism.
2. Activate a Somatic Reset
Between winter temperature changes, limited light, rich foods, and more barriers to outdoor activity, our nervous systems often feel like they want to go into a hibernation-like state. Often we wait for a thought or feeling in our brains to go down to our bodies to tell them to move. That signal may seem not to come, because top-to-bottom is actually not the direction that the strongest signals travel. Our nervous systems are actually designed to prioritize information that is coming up from the body and traveling to the brain – not the other way around. The reasons for this are due to historical traits that helped our ancestors stay alive. After all, who was more likely to live – our ancestor who reacted to a sight or sound and then figured out whether it was a tiger or a kitten OR our ancestor who wasted precious time figuring out that it was a tiger before starting the process of reacting? In the modern day, many of us have had this experience when we’ve accidentally placed our hand on something hot. Our bodies have pulled away quickly, without knowing what it was that hurt us. If we waited for our brains to decide what it was, make a decision about what to do, and then send a command to our hand or foot to move, we would end up with many unnecessary injuries!!
This mechanism of bottom-to-top communication can be used in our favor when we can’t seem to do what we want – by providing stimulation to our bodies to give them a wake up nudge. This can be achieved any number of ways. Going outside for a burst of cold air and some fresh air in our lungs are great ways to wake our bodies up. Similarly, a splash of cold water on our faces or, for those who are more courageous, hopping into a chilly shower can achieve the same ends. These processes will help to reset our dopamine receptors (the neurotransmitter that motivates us), bring us into the present moment, and tell our metabolisms and cardiopulmonary systems to shift out of anxious states. Our bodies will take the threat of being cold and/or wet as a “negative” stimuli, making anything we do immediately after seem more enjoyable - like that task we’ve been putting off!! Another tactic can be to increase activity in the cardiopulmonary system – taking a brisk walk around the block (or even the house) or doing a few jumping jacks or push ups. Both will shift our blood and oxygen levels, uplevel our metabolisms, and give our brains a dose of feel good neurotransmitters. Finally, methods of activating (aka “toning”) the vagus nerve, which runs from our brains through our necks and into our torsos, can help pull us out of feelings of overwhelm and anxiousness – anything from emphasizing the exhale as we do deep breathing exercises to humming in a way that helps us feel vibrations in our throats and chests.
3. Take Smaller Steps
Imagine being at a big gathering such as a birthday party, running into a good friend we haven’t seen in a while, and deciding to catch up. We may be having a lovely time talking to this person and really want to continue the conversation, but if there is a loud crash across the room, we have no choice but to briefly turn away. For just a split second, our bodies and minds will redirect their energy to the new information that has been presented to us. We will not have a choice. Our bodies will immediately respond, with most or all of our senses, fully engaged in determining what has caused the crashing sound and, more importantly, if it indicates a danger to our well-being. Additionally, we will feel a sense of being “startled” – with our bodies preparing to flee, even before we have made that determination – and, once we’ve determined that someone just dropped a tray of snacks, it will take us a moment to settle ourselves back into the conversation with our friend. Indeed, as much as we try to convince ourselves that we are able to think about more than one thing at once or “multi-task”, there is adequate research that we cannot. Even in those rare moments when we think we are working on two things, such as when typing up notes during a meeting with our boss, we are usually just moving from one task to the other and back very quickly.
A similar principle applies when we try to complete a task that has multiple steps. To say that we are going to “write an essay for history class” or “clean the house for the guests” may feel so big as to overload our brains. With both of these example tasks, there are several smaller steps, and if we can name what they are, or even better, get them out of our brain and written onto a single piece of paper, it might be easier to visualize exactly what needs to happen. Instead of the overwhelming task of “write an essay for history class”, we might identify five specific steps: review the assignment description, read three research articles about the topic, create an outline, write a draft, and then edit the draft. Instead of “clean the house for the guests”, we might list four specific chores: dust the shelves, vacuum the main living areas, clean the bathroom, and set the table. Perhaps in each of these, we will find a new task to complete; for example, prior to setting the table, we might realize that the silverware needs to be polished. But breaking the tasks into smaller steps is likely to make the tasks more manageable by letting us focus on one part at a time. A bonus is that crossing each step off the list one at a time will allow more opportunities to feel good about our accomplishments and motivate ourselves to keep going.
4. “Frontload” Rewards and Change “Friction”
Those of us who have pet dogs or have raised children will be familiar with the differences between rewards which help to encourage certain behaviors and punishments which may discourage others. While rewards are certainly great motivators, it is often how and when they are given out (known as “reward schedules”) that can have the greatest impact on shaping our behaviors in ways that align with our goals. One way to do this when motivation is lacking is to frontload our reward schedule so that most of the reward comes from getting started on a task. An example for someone struggling to complete a worksheet for math class might be to have the primary reward come after sitting down at our desk, pulling out the worksheet, and opening our textbook. We are unlikely to stop the process there; more likely, we will try to complete a few items on the assignment. If we are struggling to exercise, we might make most of our reward contingent on putting on our gym shoes and driving to the gym. Again, we are unlikely to turn around and go home after completing those initial steps and will likely enter the building to do a few exercises. Regarding what rewards we should give ourselves for completing these initial tasks, it might be tempting to say we will do something like buying a wishlist item or a similar treat, but if we are planning to make these behaviors into habits, we will want to make the reward something simpler and more repeatable - not to mention less expensive. Something as simple as putting a check on our calendar that indicates that we completed the frontloaded tasks or taking a moment to revel in how proud we are of ourselves can be equally rewarding, easier on the budget, and won’t get in the way of the next steps in the larger task at hand.
Another important behavioral technique deals with “decreasing the friction” to the desired behavior or making it easier to complete, while also “increasing the friction” to behaviors that may get in the way. For example, if we want to make sure we do a yoga session in the morning but know that we often spend that time scrolling on our phone, we might decrease the friction to the yoga session by putting our yoga mat out on our bedroom floor while increasing the friction to scrolling by turning off our cellphone and putting it in another room before going to bed the night before. In doing both these things, we increase the likelihood that we will do yoga which is right in front of us before even getting to our cellphone which is further away.
5. Use Short Bursts
Despite our best efforts, our lives are often very busy, and some days we may be too tired to accomplish our goals. It is in these moments that we may find that short bursts of activity help us to make small dents in our project. Perhaps we realize that the cupboards in our kitchen are in disarray, and we decide we want to re-organize them. Instead of spending several hours taking each item out, we might decide to do it in small chunks, working on a single shelf or a single type of item, like the cupboard where we keep our pots and pans.
Another method is to define the burst by time instead of by item. If we are struggling with an overloaded email inbox, maybe we set a timer for 10 minutes and spend it deleting any email that we know for sure is spam. Ten minutes may not be enough to get to the whole inbox, but reducing our inbox even a little will make us feel like the task is more possible, and maybe it will create a sense of momentum to keep us going a little bit longer.
6. Visualize the Impact
It’s important to be realistic with ourselves and accept that our To-Do list will never really be complete. New tasks are often being added and priorities are often in flux even as we work on it. When we are feeling overwhelmed by our To-Do list while also contending with low energy, it can be hard to envision the impact of our efforts. And yet, setting goals and envisioning what we are working toward can have really positive impacts on our energy. It may be important to determine what both short term and long term goals will look like. For example, if we have decided to pass a cold winter by starting a new hobby like woodworking, we might take time to look at designs of simple projects (like a simple shelf that we can create while stuck indoors all winter) and imagine what they will look like when they are completed. After that we might think about a larger project like building a picnic table and chairs that we will be able to enjoy the following summer. We should not only focus on what these items will look like but also how we will feel when we have completed them. And we shouldn’t just think “yes, that would be cool.” We should really take the time to imagine how it will feel to put books on a shelf we made ourselves or eat a lunch full of summer time treats while sitting in the sun, feeling the wind on our face, or enjoying the company of family and friends.
Humans have survived for as long as we have in amazingly harsh conditions and created complex systems because of unique abilities associated with a part of the brain called the pre-frontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex allows us to engage in future planning, think about subjects that may have multiple angles, and imagine places that we’ve not directly experienced. What’s more, our brains prioritize strong feelings, so we will take actions to either decrease them (like when we run away to decrease the feeling of fear) or increase them (feeling intense joy or love when we’ve worked hard to help our family or friends). So if we can not just imagine what the results will look like, but how they will feel, using as many senses as we can, we will feel a stronger evolutionary pull to accomplish the tasks that will get us there.
7. Engage in Group/Partner Support
Another reason that humans have come as far as we have as a species is because we have evolved to work in groups. Our ancestors who worked together were the ones more likely to catch large game animals to use for food or warmth, and thus survive to procreate, and those organizing instincts became even more complex as we settled into agricultural societies and built economies based on specialized work and trading of goods and services. There are certainly those of us who feel more comfortable working alone than in a group, but we do receive a brain-based reward when we accomplish things with others. This is the reason that people who work together to mount a play or beat a competitor at a soccer game will often feel a strong sense of comradery and accomplishment, even if they aren’t friends outside those specific activities.
For those who struggle to start or complete tasks, sometimes just having another person present can not just motivate us to start, but can keep us out of our minds and in the physical world long enough to complete the work. For others, just saying the goal out loud, talking through the steps, or discussing possible challenges to completing the task can serve as a version of accountability, making the goal more tangible and “in the real world”. If we then get to share with our confidant that we completed it, we may also be able to feel a strong sense of pride. However, in these cases, it is important that we know what motivates us and how we will or will not benefit if we end up completing the task just to avoid feelings of guilt or shame. While many of us have been socialized to respond to guilt or shame as motivators to accomplish tasks, these patterns are not necessarily healthy in the long term, and they can also cause us to act only to avoid difficult emotions or cause us build resentments towards the tasks or the people we associate with them.
8. Make All Experiences as “Good”
As much as it can be useful to envision our goals, break them into steps, build in reward systems, and create accountability to achieving them, it is equally important to focus on the processes that get us there. In a study of math students, children who were given encouragement while they focused on completing their homework assignments believed that they were better at math and were more likely to keep trying to learn math than those who only received encouragement if they earned a high score on a final project or exam. So while it is important to imagine what it will look like and feel like to have a clean house full of family and friends who are enjoying a holiday party, it is equally important to enjoy the process of getting there. The experiences of cooking or cleaning for a big party can be greatly enhanced by turning on fun music, making chores into a game with our spouse or children, or mindfully noticing how good our bodies feel during the effort. For example, we might turn on some oldies rock and roll music and try to scrub the floor to the beat while also mindfully noting how grateful we are for how well our heart and muscles rise to the physical demands we are putting on them or how our children are laughing at the funny dance we have made up. Shakespeare’s quote, “Things are neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so” applies here as we recognize that the story we tell ourselves about what happens can either add or subtract from how we experience the event.
And when all is said and done, it is important that we see that anything that has happened is useful, if only because it tells us something about how we operate. If we have achieved our goals, it is important to ask ourselves, “How exactly did I do that?” It didn’t just happen. Yes, there may have been some factors out of our control, but there were likely a number of processes that we can reflect on, build on, or use more intentionally in the future. We can identify what thoughts, feelings, or tangible factors motivated us, and which ones might have gotten in our way. Maybe we will figure out that we are most motivated in the mornings and should try to schedule the harder things then. Or maybe we will recognize that we prefer to accomplish certain types of tasks alone while others are more pleasant when done with a loved one. And at the very least, sometimes the best we can do is congratulate ourselves for at least trying, even if the result wasn’t exactly what we’d hoped, because it shows that we have integrity, perseverance, and are allowing ourselves to grow and change.
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Motivation can be hard, especially in the winter months. Working with a mental health professional can help clients learn about their patterns, assess and address their challenges, and celebrate their successes – even the ones that others in their lives may not fully understand or appreciate. Dr. “E” Elisa Woodruff (she/they) has training in cognitive, behavioral, and neuroscience-informed modalities that can help clients achieve many behavior based goals. Along with traditional talk therapy methods, Dr. Woodruff holds certificates in Neuropsychotherapy (exercises that help to strengthen and balance the brain), the Assessment and Treatment of Attention Deficit Disorder, Insomnia, and related challenges. Dr. Woodruff is currently taking new clients. Call 630-216-9151 to set up an appointment!
