This is how I spend my time in winter.

How do I spend my time in winter?

I am a true creature of habit so I have no intention of changing my basic routine in winter. According to a recent NHK segment, the healthiest lifestyle is one in which you go to bed early, get up early, do some exercise and don’t eat sugar and processed foods. I was happy to find that I follow this routine to a T.

Having said that, it is, of course, much harder to get up early in winter because it is so cold and dark. However, I have been doing this since I was about 12 to train as a violinist so it is not too hard a discipline for me. The exercise I am doing these days is yoga. I discovered a fantastic channel on youtube called ‘Yoga with Adreine’ which has (I guess) hundreds of videos of all different lengths for a ll different people and their varied needs. So, for example, there is yoga for waking up the body in the morning, yoga for ‘the winter blues,’ ‘yoga for manual laborers’ and so on. I and my wife are enjoying this practice so much I think we will be spending a lot of time together learning things and improving our health. Sadly, my wife seems to be getting stronger and healthier much faster than me! It would not be an exaggeration to suggest she is superwoman personified!

Winter is also a time to spend with friends in a warm place eating delicious food with excessive amounts of calories. Although I do have such friends whom I love very much I actually do not like warm rooms and because of my super healthy eating habits (lost 42 kg!) I am not going to be able to pig-out on Costco stollen (German fruit cake), Costco cookies and egg-nog which I have enjoyed so much in winter for soooo many years. In life there is always a trade off! I hope all you wonderful students have a truly happy and productive winter season.