During the winter months, you’ve likely noticed a sense of slowing down, both in your environment and within yourself. During this season, trees go dormant, days become shorter, and temperatures drop—in parallel to this, you likely feel more fatigued, lonely, and generally lower energy than usual. As an older adult, the winters may also affect you more than they did in your youth, whether that be due to health problems, loss of loved ones, or smaller support systems.
Luckily, there are many ways to boost energy levels during the winter! No matter your situation, these strategies, which are all proven by science, should help to put an extra pep in your step.
Why Do We Feel Tired In Winter?
We’ve established that many people feel more fatigued in the winter—but why? According to research, there are a few key factors at play.
The first, and perhaps most obvious of these factors, is the shortened daylight hours. As the Earth’s tilt moves us further away from the sun, the temperatures grow colder and our daylight hours decrease. While the change may not seem that significant—after all, most of us have artificial lights that can be turned on with the flick of a switch—this shift has pretty substantial impacts on our circadian rhythm, hormone balance, and vitamin D production.
Your circadian rhythm, also called a circadian clock, is your body’s internal clock. It generally follows the night/day cycle, since it’s largely regulated by light and dark, meaning that it’s highly affected by changes in daylight hours. When it’s working properly, it keeps your sleep cycle, digestion, hormone balance, and body temperature regular—but when it gets thrown off, things can get a bit strange. A great example of this is jetlag. If you’ve ever experienced jetlag, you know that for a few days after traveling, your appetite and sleep feel all out of whack—you might find yourself falling asleep at 3pm, and then waking up in the middle of the night to a growling stomach! While the impact of winter on your circadian rhythm isn’t quite this severe, it can still mess with your energy levels and bring on seasonal fatigue.
It can also impact your hormone levels. According to Healthline, the circadian rhythm impacts the hormones melatonin and cortisol, which control how sleepy and alert you feel, respectively. Melatonin is released when it’s dark, while cortisol is released when it’s bright—so, naturally, you feel sleepier at night as melatonin levels increase, and more alert in the mornings, as cortisol production ramps up. Winter changes this. With shorter daylight hours, cortisol production starts late, while melatonin is produced earlier in the evenings. The combination leads to a lack of energy, and an increase in sleepiness. Pair this with a drop in vitamin D levels, which has been linked to increased fatigue by an NLM study, and you get all around lower levels of energy.
Beyond the impacts of the day/night cycle, lower temperatures and worsened weather conditions can also cause a decrease in exercise. While it may seem counterintuitive at first, expending some energy through exercise can actually help you to feel more energetic overall. This is because exercising raises endorphin, dopamine, and serotonin levels. Each of these hormones has a different function, but all of them help to make you feel happy, motivated, and energetic.
Exercise also helps to combat stress—another big factor when it comes to fatigue. Stress can affect you in any season, but its effects are the same; the more stressed you are, the less energy you’ll have. Other “normal” (or non-winter specific) sources of fatigue include a poor diet, dehydration, and certain medications and health conditions, like Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). If you believe your excessive fatigue is due to an underlying health condition, please seek professional help from a doctor or other healthcare provider.
Barring any health or medication related issues, the best way to lessen winter fatigue is to combat each of these root causes. The following tips each target one or more of these key areas. As with any other lifestyle change, they can also be adapted to fit your personal needs.
Strategy 1: Spend More Time in the Sun
Winter brings about shifts in daylight hours, which can wreak a fair bit of havoc on our mental and physical health. While we can’t change the seasons with a snap of our fingers, there are certain things that you can do to increase your sunlight hours, and therefore decrease these potential negative effects. This can also be a great way to increase the amount of exercise you are getting this winter.
Since winter also brings colder, gloomier weather, most people end up spending more time indoors than they do in the warmer months. This can lead to less production of cortisol—the “wake up” hormone—and vitamin D, along with a higher level of melatonin production. To combat this, making sure to get outside each day is key, as this helps to restore your circadian rhythm and vitamin balance in a natural way. As vitamin D production generally decreases with age, this is especially important for older adults.
You may be tempted to take vitamin D supplements as a way to improve your vitamin levels, but according to an article by the American Family Physician, this may not be the best course of action. This article reviewed related studies, and found that there are “virtually no established health benefits” for taking vitamin D supplements without a diagnosed deficiency. In fact, high doses of supplemental vitamin D have been linked with increased risks of falls in older adults. For those with a diagnosed vitamin D deficiency, you should of course continue taking your prescribed vitamins! Just be sure not to exceed your recommended limit—as per the AFP, the recommended maximum intake level of vitamin D is “600 IU per day in adults 70 years and younger, and 800 IU per day in adults older than 70 years”. If you don’t have a diagnosed deficiency, you avoid taking these supplements altogether. Instead, get outside in the sun!
Getting outdoors will mean different things to different people. For those with a high degree of mobility and endurance, you might try skating, skiing, snowshoeing, or another outdoor winter activity—if you have young grandkids, you could even make a snowman or snow fort together! If you have a moderate level of mobility and endurance, try taking brisk walks, hiking on some easy hiking trails, and doing some light yard work or gardening. And for those who struggle with chronic pain or other health issues, taking a quick walk around the block or simply sitting outside for a while can help you to get the sunshine you need.
No matter the activity you choose, remember to stay safe; dress warmly, wear sunscreen, and know your limits!
Strategy 2: Embrace Exercise and Get Moving
According to Healthline, it is recommended that older adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week. For many, this can seem daunting. Even with the added exercise you get through going outside, meeting the 150 minute recommendation can feel like an uphill battle. Luckily, exercise has a wide range of intensities, durations, and mobility requirements, making it fairly easy to adapt to fit your lifestyle and needs.
As mentioned in strategy number one, there are many ways to get exercise outdoors; examples include hiking, skating, snowshoeing, walking, biking, and more. However, winter isn’t exactly famous for having swell weather, meaning that you may find yourself stuck inside without access to your usual outdoor hobbies. In these cases, it’s important to know that, while it may not seem like it, your home can actually turn into a fantastic exercise area.
If you’re feeling energetic, there are plenty of online exercise videos that you can try following. For example, a simple search on YouTube for “senior yoga” or “at home exercise for older adults” will bring up thousands of helpful videos. You can also try putting on your favourite tunes and dancing, or try out some resistance training with some heavy books. If you’re feeling a bit stiff or sore, doing some stretching-focused yoga, or keeping things gentle with tai chi and other slow exercises can help you to recover in an intentional, active way. And if you’re just not having a very energetic day, you can try doing some chair-based exercise; things like slow arm circles, lifting one leg at a time, and standing up unassisted are all fantastic ways to add a little bit of extra movement to your day.
Not only is exercise great for combatting fatigue, it’s also proven to improve overall physical and mental health by a significant margin. According to the CDC, long-term benefits of staying active include reduced risks of dementia, depression, heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, falls, and even 8 different types of cancer. It also improves sleep quality, blood pressure, bone strength, flexibility, endurance, and strength. As long as you stay within your limits and avoid injury, exercise is an incredibly positive hobby to pick up.
Strategy 3: Reduce Stimulants and Substances
While you may have gotten away with relying on caffeine to keep you awake in college, the truth is that caffeine and other stimulants do a lot more harm than good. While stimulants can boost your energy levels in the short term, in the long run, it can disrupt your sleep schedule and cause your circadian rhythm to break down.
In a study by the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, it was found that consuming caffeine even 6 hours before bedtime has “disruptive effects on sleep,” and should therefore be avoided. According to the study, consuming 400 mg of caffeine—roughly equivalent to a large cup of coffee, or 2.5 cups—6 hours before sleep still reduced sleep time by an hour. Because of this, avoiding the consumption of caffeinated beverages at least 6 hours before bed is important in maintaining good sleep hygiene. Otherwise, you may fall into the cycle of consuming caffeine, getting a bad night’s sleep, and consuming more caffeine the next day… which will only serve to worsen your sleep the next night.
On the other hand, if you struggle to fall asleep at night, you may be tempted to have a nightcap to relax and soothe yourself to sleep. While a mug of warm milk might do the trick with no issues, having an alcoholic beverage can cause more harm than good. Just like caffeine, the seemingly positive effects—in this case, helping you to relax and unwind—can mask the long-term negative effects. In a 2024 Sleep Foundation article, bedtime alcohol consumption was noted to be linked with decreased sleep quality. Numerous studies have found that drinking alcohol before bed decreases the length of time spent in deep sleep. This means that the duration of light sleep increases, which can lead to you waking up in the middle of the night.
Relying on alcohol to help you fall asleep can also lead to an unhealthy dependance over time. Without alcohol’s assistance, you may begin to experience insomnia, and / or have to rely on caffeine to feel alert during the day as a result of decreased sleep quality. Alcohol can also further disrupt your circadian rhythm by making it less sensitive to light and dark cues. To avoid these negative effects, it is recommended that you avoid consuming alcohol for at least 3 hours before bed—so, if you aim to go to sleep at 10pm, you should stop drinking by 7pm at the latest.
Strategy 4: Reduce Stress and Prioritize Relaxation
Stress can use up a lot more energy than you may realize. While this isn’t strictly season-dependent like some of the other key factors mentioned above, it can certainly contribute to winter fatigue. To understand the effects of stress, think about a time where you were under a lot of pressure; after the situation was resolved, you likely felt a rush of relief, paired with intense feelings of both mental and physical fatigue. When the body holds tension, especially for extended periods of time, it plays a huge part in how alert we feel.
Letting go of stress is often easier said than done. However, as you’ve gone through life, chances are that you’ve developed a few go-to methods of releasing pent-up emotions. This might mean putting on your favourite song and dancing, singing along to the radio in the shower, taking a nice long walk, or doing some exercise—anything that makes you feel better. For tension that you’ve carried for longer, such as past experiences and stress associated with health conditions, certain activities including meditation and therapy can help. Even if you don’t think your problems are that big, taking that time for yourself can be very helpful.
Strategy 5: Improve your Diet and Water Intake
You are what you eat—that is to say, your energy levels are directly impacted by what you eat, since most of your daily energy comes from your food. If you eat too little, or eat a lot of nutrient poor foods, you will naturally have less energy than someone who eats good portions of nutrient rich whole foods. This is true for every season, too!
That isn’t to say that you should be eating huge meals to give yourself tons of energy. In fact, eating large meals can actually make you feel more sluggish, as your body has to divert a lot of its blood flow towards digestion, away from your brain and cognition. Therefore, eating smaller meals at more frequent intervals is a better option than eating just a few huge meals. Going for a quick walk after eating lunch can also help to boost digestion and bring up energy levels.
It is also important to be eating the right kinds of foods, as well as taking in adequate amounts of water. Even mild dehydration can cause fatigue, so drinking enough water can do wonders for your overall well being. Take care of yourself! You deserve it.
