Wintering

The subtle art of resting with the season

Well, hasn’t winter made an appearance properly this past week!

Here in the UK we have had snow and the temperatures to accompany it- my local area gets a threat then it melts once I get excited and lay plans about a snow camp, which has got me thinking more about resting with the season we are in before we get distracted by the coming season of spring.

The obvious aspect of rest that comes to mind in winter is physical rest, we are nudged by the weather to stay indoors, to remain in the warm and cosy dens we have made ourselves to shelter away in. however physical rest is actually split into two aspects, passive and active.

Passive rest is the one that most people think of when they hear the phrase “have a little rest” its sleeping, napping or sitting still -maybe with a nice cuppa and several biscuits? Passive rest is important, it helps the body recover from being active, burning calories and such like.

The lesser familiar aspect of rest is Active rest, when you are still moving, still using your body but in a gentle manner- no long runs or weight session, but softer movement gentle walks or stretches.

For me one of the best ways to incorporate both active and passive rest is to go for a walk in nature. We don’t have to crunch mile upon mile hitting personal bests.

Bundling up warm in cosy clothes and taking a gentle stroll around the woods or along the river side will invigorate your body whilst also getting the body moving from its stationary behaviour encouraged by both weather and modern civilisations patterns. If you pack along a thermos or stove and pack of biscuits you can still have a nice sit down to enable the passive rest- alternatively you can plan the walk to include a café or pub to get the sit down- personally I prefer to pack my own items so I can stop when the inclination takes me or if I find a nice secluded spot to stop.

The added plus of going out for a walk is the joy of returning home to the warm house after the time spent out in the cold, if you’ve planned ahead you might even have left something delicious cooking in the slow cooker to greet you as well encouraging even more of the rested feeling to come through.

There is also the urge to not be as productive and throwing out so much “stuff” in this season, our ancestors would of been repairing items, conserving energy, laying plans and intentions for the coming year but not concerning themselves with their “key performance indicators” they would be moving slowly with the season, relaxing whenever possible and resting their bodies in readiness for when the weather and sunlight improved to be of more use.

We should try to emulate this in our own lives, allowing ourselves the slowness of winter in readiness for the coming spring, to appreciate these dark evenings and colder days knowing that the seasons turn and soon we will begin to feel the surge of spring time when we may well wish we had a little more time to rest and relax like we have had the opportunity to do so these winter months.

I feel a disclaimer is needed- I am not advocating that we should bot do anything at all through the winter months, sadly we live in a civilisation which prevents us from taking the winter time off of work, no relent from working our day job to pay bills, however we can be intentional with how we spend our time away from work to ensure we are still having enough time to rest ourselves and winter in an appropriate manner.