Lessons from the Dog - Make Your Own Fun
Bitter cold. Bleak. Cabin Fever. The months after the holidays can be hard ones, even for those who love the snow and cold. Short days, long nights. Temperatures so low it's hard to spend much time outside, some days 15 minutes is all that our bodies can stand. Winters are a great time to catch up on movies we've been wanting to see, or binge watch a favorite TV show or snuggle under a blanket with a great book. But it doesn't take long before it feels like the walls are closing in on you and you feel cabin fever.
Even the dogs get antsy when they can't get outside and stretch those legs running around the yard. I know my girls have been begging me for walks even after we've taken a short one if that's all we can manage. They go to the toy box and drag out their toys more during these days than any other time of the year. If I happen to be nearby, they'll try to entice me in a game of tug of war or chase. Boredom. That's what they are suffering from. So somehow, someway, they find a way to entertain themselves.
Izzy will chase her tail. Kita will grab Izzy's tail and yank on it. They both run laps around the first floor of the house chasing each other. But if one wants to play and the other doesn't, they find ways to entertain themselves. It's comical really! Kita will pick up a toy, toss it in the air and pounce on it! She also gets the zoomies where she runs up and down the stairs making these funny noises - not quite a growl, or a bark, nor even recognizable as a dog sound! It makes me laugh every time.
It's the dead of winter and it feels like spring is never going to come, this is a good time to take another lesson from our dogs - make your own fun! So what can you do to entertain yourself? If you have some excess energy do some jumping jacks, run up and down the stairs, or a yoga sun salutation. If you need something that will take up a lot of time, work on a puzzle, figure out how to solve rubik's cube, or get a coloring book and colored pencils and work on it.
As a SAD (seasonal affect disorder) sufferer, winters can be especially hard for me. With day after day, sometimes week after week with little to no sun, I can easily get sad or depressed. Knowing that I'm prone to this, I prepare in advance to deal with it by coming up with a bunch of projects to work on. These include a list of books I want to read, movies I want to watch, work tasks I want to do that I never have time for and house projects like de-cluttering and sorting piles of stuff that just seem to accumulate over the year that I never know what to do with. But I also need to do something for fun to help me get through these dark bleak days. I'll pick up some juggling balls and juggle for a bit. I also have some BOP IT games that are fun to play even by myself.
What are some things you do to make your own fun?
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