Hate Winter? Here’s How to Rethink the Season — and Maybe Learn to Love It

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The frigid floor when you climb out of bed on a February morning. The gusts of wind as you struggle toward your car after grocery shopping. The darkness that descends on a December

afternoon. The brown crusty snow piled in parking lots long after a February storm. Winter is a bummer, right?

But it doesn't have to be. 

In her new book How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark or Difficult Days, Stanford-trained health psychologist Kari Leibowitz argues that creating and maintaining a

“positive wintertime mindset” can be the difference between experiencing the “joys and delights of a special time of year” and grimly "sleepwalking" through a whole season.

And it’s not that hard to choose the former, says Leibowitz — “a reformed winter hater,” as she puts it — whose research has included spending a sunless season in Northern Norway and visits

to some of the chilliest places on earth. Her book describes how people in these cultures have, by necessity, adapted their behaviors and attitudes to make their winter days more pleasurable

— and how we can borrow some of their strategies.

The easy stuff includes making your home as snug as can be (get out those fluffy blankets, candles and fairy lights, people!). But she also advocates bundling up appropriately and spending

time outside, even on the coldest days (it can be a serious mood booster), as well as changing the way you talk about winter. It can be subtle: She'll say, "I hate being cold," not "I hate

the cold," for instance.

If you adapt your physical environment and behavior during winter, Leibowitz insists, your outlook is likely to change with it. (It’s a “fake it till you make it” kind of thing, which she

describes as “a tragically underrated” strategy.)

The author discussed ways to winter well with AARP by video chat from Amsterdam, where she’s been living for the past few years. (The interview has been edited and condensed for

clarity.)

I love the fall. It's the time of year when it starts getting darker, and I start changing my behavior. I get out the candles, and I light them when the sun sets —or, if it's gray and cloudy

out, I'll light them when I sit at the table to eat breakfast in the morning. It's so basic, it's almost cliche, like, “Oh, light some candles.” But it's really about transforming the

darkness. It's really about saying, “OK, it's gray and cloudy and dark out, so that facilitates me making it cozy inside.” Maybe I’ll host a cozy dinner party. I’ll put a heavy duvet on the

bed and get out my pajamas and fuzzy socks.