My "7 to 9" Routine Gets Me Through Cold, Dark Day
I consider myself to be proudly pro-winter, but just because I like the cold weather doesn’t mean I don’t have to adapt to the dark winter months. The early sunset (before 5 p.m.!) does, at times, get to my mental and physical health, and morning wakeups in the winter can be challenging. I need to take charge of my own day (and warmth) by making sure I don’t just get up from bed in the morning to head to the couch or the office.
To make the most of the cold days, I try to start every winter morning off with a very basic routine that I find keeps me feeling much warmer all day long — and helps me combat those winter sunshine blues, too. I call it my “7 to 9” routine — a lot like the influencer-famous “5 to 9 before your 9 to 5,” routine, except way less punishing.
It’s an annoying tip, I know, but it really works: I start my day off first thing with a workout and, instantly, a hot shower.
The Morning Routine That Keeps Me Warm All Day
Here’s how it works: I try to make sure my alarm goes off as close to the sunrise as possible without being too mean to myself, so sometime between 7 and 7:30 a.m. all winter long, and I try my best not to snooze it. (Try is a very key word here.)
As soon as I get out of bed, I instantly put on my workout clothes and get in, at minimum, a 30-minute workout, no matter what it looks like (I’m currently healing a broken foot, so right now it’s a lot of chair cardio and upper body), and after that, I do a cooldown stretch.
Yeah, I know. There’s nothing revolutionary about a morning workout. But I find that in the winter, getting a workout in as soon as I wake up is way more crucial for me physically than it is in the summer. Not only does it increase my energy levels and helps me take advantage of what little winter sunlight I get — it also warms up my muscles and my body from the relaxed state it was in while asleep, making the shift from warm, cozy bed to moving around all day much less difficult.
I then immediately hop into a hot shower. (I like them very hot.) I struggle with this. It’s always tempting to jump from one ultra-productive thing to the next and get sucked into my tasks for the day, but if I don’t take a hot shower right away, I end up feeling colder after the workout than I did before.
The hot shower is crucial because it “seals” the effects of the workout, for me — it completes the job of warming me up from the inside out — and, for my mental health, makes me feel like I’ve started the day doing two things that are for me and for only me.
When the days are super short and the sun sets at 4 p.m., it’s nice to know that I’ve taken advantage of the daylight I had, and that I can lean into the darker nights by relaxing after work, rather than working out in the pitch dark.
It’s also so opposite from how I feel in the summer. Though I usually work out in the morning no matter the season, in the summer I have the opposite problem. I don’t have central air in my apartment, so in the summer I need to exercise and then let my body cool down, and take a cold shower, because the worst thing in the world is to get dressed and ready while still sweating and heading out the door into the blistering morning heat. In the winter, it’s actually so much more pleasant to exercise in the morning because I’m warming myself up, not fighting the sweat altogether.
Whether or not it’s a placebo, the combined effect of the exercise and the hot shower make my blood pump much easier, making my toes and fingers much warmer all day long. And while it’s super annoying to read another story from someone saying that they just love to hop out of the bed to work out in the morning and shower, know that I don’t “love” it — I just know that I’ll feel so much better when I do.
Further Reading
We Tested (and Rated!) All the Sofas at Ashley — Here Are the Best to Suit Your Style and Space
I Just Discovered the Smartest Way to Store Paper Towels in Your Kitchen (It’s a Game-Changer!)
