Winter can be a challenge, but there are still opportunities to grow and support creativity. Discover 15 Winter activities and habits to boost creativity.
Winter is a unique season when it comes to creative living. As one of the most disliked seasons, with many people experiencing the winter blues (seasonal affective disorder), creativity and well-being can be negatively affected. However, despite these winter challenges, there are creative ways to turn the challenges into opportunities to grow and boost creativity.
In Zen practices, winter is an important time for intensive meditation training, using cold and other challenges to train the mind. In many famous creative lifestyles, winter is a time for reflection and creative retreats.
Challenges and obstacles are a natural and important part of creative living. By avoiding them, we avoid opportunities to grow. If you have trouble staying creative and healthy in the winter, these habits and activities are a great place to start and make winter a more creative season for you.
Winter Journaling
Reflect – On Yourself, On The Past Year, On Your Goals for The Next Year
Journaling is a great daily creative habit to practice year-round. With a long list of health and creative benefits, journaling can help in many different areas or types of creative lifestyles. However, winter might be the best season to both start this healthy creative habit and dive deeper into it.
Winter tends to be a more solitary season. With people spending more time inside and less time focusing on healthy activities, it can be a shock to the system psychologically and physically, especially if you deal with winter blues.
To support self-care and lean into this cold dark time of year and come out energized, healthy, and creative, start a journaling habit that can support a whole year of growth and well-being.
Tips
- Start small and keep your expectations realistic.
- Don’t try to be perfect. It’s ok to have a messy journal.
- Experiencing a creative block? Try a creative prompt to get you started.
- Try different kinds of journaling to find what works best for you.
- Examples: Gratitude journal, sketch journal, idea journal, project journal, meditation journal, dream journal, etc.
- For productivity journaling, write down your most important tasks (MITs) for the day and review your progress in the evening.
- Make a template to speed up the process.
- Best Notebooks for Creatives
- Buy a Creative Enso Journal and start your own Creative Enso journaling:
- Meditate for 10mins+
- Draw your Ensō circle
- Free write (1+ pages)
- 3 Grateful Things
- 3 MITs (Most Important Tasks)
- 3 MIHs (Most Important Habits)
- Mix things up occasionally
- Use this time of stillness to reflect:
- What have you learned from the previous year?
- What were your challenges this year?
- What can you do better next year?
- What are your goals for the next year?
Embrace Hygge
Learn the Danish Way to Make Your Creative Lifestyle Cozy, Comfortable, and Full of Joy
Hygge is the Danish lifestyle concept of coziness, and there’s no better time to start embracing it than in the Winter. With colder weather and the negative effects of the winter blues, you can support your creative well-being with warm feelings of wellness and contentment.
Hygge comes from a Danish word meaning “to give courage, comfort, joy” and is used in Danish and Norwegian as “a form of everyday togetherness,” “a pleasant and highly valued everyday experience of safety, equality, personal wholeness, and a spontaneous social flow.”
Hygge Tips for Creativity
- Build relationships and spend quality time with friends and family
- Get comfy and be present in the moment
- Take breaks and relax
- Keep things simple
- Cook warm hearty foods
- Ignite the senses and inspire comfort with calming scented candles
- Decorate your creative home with nature
- Surround yourself with things you love
- Indulge in the good things in life
- Get outside
- Spend more time reading and learning
- Put down the phone
Tips
- Read more about hygge and other lifestyle concepts from around the world from these inspiring lifestyle books from creative cultures.
- Surround yourself with home decorations that help you be present, joyful, and thankful.
- Learn How to Make a Creative Space
- Stick to a calming neutral color scheme.
- Engage all the senses when decorating for comfort.
- Get inspired by more interior design books for creative homes and creative workspaces.
Read Books
Get Cozy With a Good Book to Inspire Your Creative Mind and Learn Something New
We spend a lot of time inside during the Winter, which makes it a great time to start catching up on your creative reading lists, learn new skills, explore the lives of famous creative minds, or get lost in your imagination exploring distant and fantastical worlds.
This Winter, get cozy with a good book and create an atmosphere that supports your imagination and boosts your mood to overcome winter blues and spark creative thinking.
Choosing What to Read
- Discover the latest creative books from this Winter reading list 2022/2023
- Read scary stories and mysteries about famous creative minds
- Read stories and biographies from the lives of famous creative minds
- Create your own reading list
- Follow curiosity
- Set a reading goal for learning something new
- Join or create a book club to collaborate with others
- Read what inspired and influenced other creative minds
Tips
- Separate Your Fiction and Nonfiction Reading – Studies show fiction reading is better for nighttime and can aid in better sleep.
- Set the Mood – Decorate your space with candles, tea, and other elements to relax into your reading.
- Start a Book Journal – Track what you read, how it made you feel, and what you learned from it to inspire creative thinking.
- Immersive Yourself in the Book – Put your phone on silent, use smells associated with the book, and play atmospheric music associated with the book.
Better Sleep
Realign Your Circadian Rhythm With the Changing Season for Better Health, Rest, and Creative Thinking
Sleep is an important habit year-round, but after the shifting daylight hours in the fall, your sleep schedule and circadian rhythms can be disrupted, leading to fatigue and even depression. Especially in the colder months of winter, when we usually get more sleep, it’s important to have healthy sleep habits to be productive and healthy.
This is because wintertime means less sunlight, and less sunlight means your body produces more melatonin. More melatonin can make you more tired and make it harder to wake up in the morning. And it’s not just the shorter days that can affect sleep in the winter. The air is dryer, colder, and bad winter habits (overdrinking, flu, etc.) can further hurt sleep quality.
Tips
- Stay Hydrated – As tasty as pumpkin spice lattes, hot cider, and other winter drinks are, you need more water to support better sleep.
- Be Mindful of Screen Time at Night – Set time limits on your screens and create a habit of no screens before going to bed.
- Sleep on Problem Solving – Studies have found colder weather and that sleeping on problems can improve memory and divergent thinking for better problem-solving.
- Get Moving – People tend to exercise less in the winter, but this can lead to poor sleep quality.
- Improve Your Sleep Space – Use a humidifier, better lighting, sunrise alarm, and more to make your bedroom relaxing and restful.
- Take Cozy Naps, but Not Too Much – Research shows small naps can significantly boost creativity.
- Meditate Before Bed – Meditation practices like progressive muscle relaxation can help you relax and fall asleep better.
- Read Fiction Before Bed – Winter is a great time to get cozy with a good book.
- Research has found reading fiction at night is better for falling asleep as non-fiction causes more thinking to keep the mind awake.
Creative Winter Cooking
Fill Your Belly and Your Mind With Winter Recipes and Foods That Boost Creativity
Winter cooking is all about warmth, joy, and healthy nutrients lacking in the cold. With the creative and health benefits of cooking, you can find many recipes to help support your transition into the colder months with heartier, cozy, and comfort foods to warm your body and soul.
Seasonal Winter Foods and Spices (USDA Seasonal Produce Guide)
- Beets
- Apples
- Cinnamon
- Clementines
- Brussels sprouts
- Nutmeg
- Pears
- Winter Squash
Although many cooking styles are practiced year-round, some are unique to the season, like grilling in the Spring. Besides using unique seasonal ingredients, practice creative cooking techniques that pair with Winter activities and habits.
Creative Winter Cooking
- Winter is a great time to bring out the slow cooker for braised and hearty dishes
- Try new ways of cooking (roasting, soups, baking, dutch oven, braising)
- Eat/cook more warming foods – What brings you joy?
- Bring people together (Pot lucks, theme dinners, etc.)
- Experiment with winter flavors and spices to combat winter blues
- Eat the rainbow – Cook like a painter, and make your plate colorful and enticing
- Cook with ingredients that boost Vitamin D
Best Creative Winter Recipes
- Roasted Veggies
- Hearty Frittata
- Slow Cooked Hearty Warm Soups and Chilis
- Pies (Pumpkin, Apple, Pecan)
- Mulled Wine, Eggnog, and Apple Cider
- Spicy dishes from around the world
- Filling Casseroles
- Savory Pot Pies
- Seasonal Cookies and Baked Goods
Tips
- Visit a farmer’s market
- Try the Blindfolded Baker challenge to have fun and collaborate with loved ones.
- Use creative boosting ingredients.
- Get inspired with the perfect recipe from these creative Winter cookbooks.
- Visit creative food and drink festivals in the Winter.
- Find creative recipes from unique cookbooks.
- Find creative healthy recipes from health cookbooks.
Adopt A New Hobby
Beat the Winter Blues, Keep Your Mind Active, and Support Self-Discovery by Trying New Winter Hobbies and Activities
The average person works about 7% less during winter months (American Time Use Survey), especially in December. With winter holidays and more time spent inside, this is a great time to not only adopt a hobby you’ve always wanted to try but also learn more about yourself, boost creativity, connect with others, and beat the winter blues.
What’s something you’ve always wanted to try or learn? What’s a skill that would elevate or support your creative passion or lifestyle? Where does your curiosity lead you?
How to Start a New Hobby
- Start small and build up
- Commit to a regular time
- Set goals and track progress
- Get support – Start a hobby with friends and family
- Cultivate a beginner’s mindset to overcome perfection and failure
Tips
- Find a new hobby through curiosity.
- Explore, question, and research things that spark your curiosity.
- Reclaim your childhood interests.
- What’s a hobby you loved when you were younger but had to stop practicing?
- Try a seasonal winter hobby:
- Knitting, scrapbooking, snowboarding/skiing, gift crafting, ice skating, snow/ice snow sculpting, winter photography
- Make bucket lists of things you want to try, do, and see.
- Try a hobby that’s the opposite of your creative passion/field.
- Surprising yourself and making new connections can support your creativity in unique ways.
- Connect with your community and discover new hobbies through free events.
- Try a hobby of a famous creative mind that you admire.
- Learn a creative hobby from another culture for unique benefits.
Host a Board Game Night
Escape the Cold and Connect With Friends and Family by Playing Games Inside
Even if you like the cold weather and have healthy habits to get outside, chances are you are still going to be spending more time inside with friends and family. And what better way to support each other’s creativity and have some fun than playing board games and even video games in the cozy environment of your creative home?
Playing games with others is the perfect Winter activity to ignite creativity with others when you’re stuck inside. Board games and video games have a long list of creative and health benefits, and the Winter is a great time to play. With games for every age and every genre, there are endless options for finding one that everyone likes.
Creative Benefits of Board Games:
- Board games bring people together and can even build and strengthen relationships
- Board games increase brain functions like memory and cognitive skills
- They trigger the release of endorphins to boost happiness and help reduce stress
- They help improve social skills and self-confidence
- Board games help speed up response time
Tips
- Host a Murder Mystery Dinner
- Get into the spirit of the spooky season by gathering friends together to solve a murder mystery. There are many kits and guides online and other types of roleplay dinners as well.
- Make Your Own Board Games – Put your creative skills and mind to the test to create and test your own board game. Also, a great way to collaborate with others.
- Challenge your mind with a puzzle.
- Make a Regular Game Night – Add prizes, potluck, and other benefits to bring people together and support each other.
- Discover new board games to play to boost creativity.
- How Video Games Can Improve Your Creativity
- 10 Fun and Inspiring Video Games About Creative Living
- 26 Best Video Games To Boost Creativity
Winter Meditation
Winter Is a Time of Stillness Perfect for Reflection and Mindfulness
The changes that each season brings can sometimes seem like the cause of winter blues and other challenges that come up. Instead of fighting change, which only leads to more suffering, practice acceptance and lean into it for growth and lessons from the situation.
Meditation is an empowering habit for all walks of life and has been so for thousands of years. This winter, start a meditation habit to support personal growth and fuel creativity in a way that also supports your well-being.
Tips
- Make meditation a habit by doing it at the same time and same place every day.
- Try different types of meditation. To find what works best for you as well as keep things fresh and spark creative flow.
- Use your breath as an anchor when the mind begins to wander.
- Start a meditation journal to track progress and explore thoughts that may arise.
- Start with guided meditations, move to music, and then practice in silence.
- Build or update your meditation space to stay cozy and warm during the winter.
- Try unique and creative ways to meditate to keep your mind active and fresh.
- Meditate in VR for unique immersion and visualization.
- Use meditation apps to help you build your mindful practice.
- Find unique meditation tools and gadgets to support your mindful practice.
Snow/Ice Crafting
Explore Your Creativity and Others Through the Unique Winter Medium of Ice and Snow
Few seasons provide the opportunity for an entirely new medium of creative expression.
Snow and ice carving is a unique way to express your creativity in the winter while also engaging in other areas that can boost creativity, including connecting with nature, play, community, befriending the cold, and more.
Even if the medium doesn’t interest you, many states in the US and countries around the world have unique snow and ice festivals to attend where you can marvel at the creativity of others as well as play in unique winter wonderlands.
Tips
- Reconnect with your inner child and play in the snow.
- Build snow forts, snowmen, etc
- Start a snowball fight with friends and family
- Tired of snowmen? Challenge yourself and others to build something else with snow
- Visit a local snow-building/ice-carving competition
- Find ideas on Pinterest and other social media to inspire your winter snow activities and creativity
Skiing and Snowboarding
Trigger Flow, Improve Mood, and Play With the Most Popular Winter Activities, Skiing, and Snowboarding
Each season has unique opportunities to inspire and support flow states. For the winter, it’s skiing, snowboarding, sledding, and other winter sports.
These flow activities are a great way to support healthy habits during the winter. Engaging in any of these winter sports teaches you how to connect with nature as you flow down the mountain or hill. You connect mind and body as you flow with snow. Not only are these winter sports relaxing and inspiring ways to trigger flow, but they support other creative benefits and skills like play, mindfulness, problem-solving, community, autonomy, and more.
Tips
- Pair this winter activity with creative travel.
- Take care of your body and pick places to stay that also offer wellness activities like hot springs, massages, etc.
- Plan creative retreats around skiing and snowboarding with friends and family to strengthen relationships, support play between creative work, and more.
- Look for unique skiing and snowboarding events that bring out creativity. These tend to take place during the beginning and end of the ski season.
- Get into the flow by pairing your movement with music.
- Make creative and inspiring playlists
- Listen to podcasts to learn something new while you ride
- Set goals and go with friends and family that will challenge and support you.
Winter Markets
Connect With Your Community and Experience Local Creativity at Unique Winter Markets
Winter is a shopping season. With the holidays, seasonal sales, and of course, winter markets, it’s a wonderful time to buy something nice for yourself and others.
To add creativity and some fun to this, winter markets offer unique opportunities to connect with your community, experience local creativity, support cultural exchange, and much more. With their roots in European history, Christmas and winter markets have a long tradition of bringing creatives together to celebrate the end of the year and the beauty of the winter season.
Winter markets are so popular now they’re easy to find in practically every community, but it’s also a great opportunity to connect with local cultures when traveling, especially in Europe, where Christmas markets can become citywide.
Best Winter Markets
Best Winter Markets in the World:
- Vienna Christkindlemarkt Austria (Nov 19-Dec 26)
- Nuremberg’s Christkindlemarkt Germany (Nov 25-Dec 24)
- Santurantikuy Cusco, Peru (Dec 24)
- Edinburgh’s Winter Festival UK (Nov 25-Jan 3)
- Feria de Artesania Seville, Spain (Dec 5-Jan 5)
Best Winter Markets in the US:
- Downtown Holiday Market Washington DC (Nov 18-Dec 23)
- The Great Dickens Christmas Fair San Francisco (Weekends Nov 19 – Dec 18)
- Union Square Holiday Market New York City (Nov 17 – Dec 24)
- Georgetown Christmas Market Colorado (Dec 3–4 & 10–11)
- Texas Christkindl Market Arlington (Nov 25–Dec 23)
Tips
- Add personal and unique touches to your seasonal gift shopping by finding crafts at winter markets.
- Don’t just visit your local winter markets. Travel to nearby towns, states, and even different countries for even more unique experiences.
- Connect and follow inspiring creatives that you meet at the winter markets.
- Visit winter markets with friends and family to strengthen relationships and add creative elements like play to the winter activity.
- Sign up to sell and share your own creative pieces at winter markets to meet new creative friends and support your creative passion.
Community Service
Connect With Your Community and Give Back
Volunteering is a great way to take literal actions to help your community, the environment, and more. Joining volunteering activities allows you to meet like-minded people, make new friends, and gain new perspectives to inspire creativity. People who volunteer have a shared passion, and when they take action, it can be infectious and inspiring.
There are many creative ways to give back to your community and help those in need during the winter months. With so many impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic issues, and other troubles in the world, volunteering is of even greater importance, and the number of options is virtually limitless.
How to Start Volunteering
- Decide which causes you care about.
- Identify what talents and passions you can use to help others.
- Explore volunteering resources in your community:
- Determine the length of time you can volunteer.
- Team up with friends and family for motivation and support.
Tips
- Volunteer at a toy drive.
- If time is an issue, try virtual volunteering.
- Sign up to serve meals at a soup kitchen.
- Share your creativity by volunteering with arts and crafts, etc.
- Make hats and blankets to donate
- Donate time to teach your creativity or support art therapy
- Use your creativity and creative community to raise money for a good cause.
Creative Home-Improvement
Design a Creative Home and Workspace That Inspires and Supports You No Matter the Season
If you’re going to be stuck inside more during the cold winter days, you might as well make your spaces like your creative workspace inspiring and supporting with some creative home improvement.
There are many ways to decorate and design your home and the different spaces inside to support your health and creativity during the winter months as well as the rest of the year. These creative home improvement projects could be as simple as reorganizing to as big as designing your dream creative space.
Tips
- Get inspired by interior design books for creative homes and creative workspaces.
- Add creative tools to your spaces that can support self-care, boost productivity, and more.
- Add scents, especially seasonal ones that bring you joy and help you relax.
- Rearrange your furniture for gatherings as well as change your spaces to build new connections and spark creative thinking.
- Use softer lighting for warmer and more relaxing environments.
- Add more plants that support creativity and well-being.
- Personalize your creative home and spaces with fun and engaging DIY projects.
- Add warm, vibrant colors to your creative spaces to contrast the cold gray days of winter.
- Create a cozy reading nook and other spaces to support your winter activities and habits.
Creative VR Experiences
Stuck Inside? Use Your Imagination With Technology to Explore New Depths of Experience and Visualization Through VR
Are you tired of being stuck inside during the cold winter months? Do you want to escape into your imagination and experience things you never thought possible?
Escape the winter blues and boost creativity with VR. VR has been blowing up in popularity in the last few years with lighter headsets and more immersive experiences.
Besides being a unique way to play video games, VR opens up a whole new world of creative expression, wellness therapy, meditation, travel, and more. With these unique benefits and opportunities, VR is a great way to beat the winter blues and support the creative mind when you’re stuck inside during the winter.
Tips
- Support other winter activities and habits listed in this article with VR, like Meditation:
- Can’t escape winter? Use VR to travel and experience new perspectives from around the world.
- Increase immersion and support your VR experience with other healthy zen gadgets like a sound bed, meditation seating, Aromatherapy, and more.
- Spark creativity and wellness through the benefits of video games to help you play, learn new creative skills, experience new perspectives, and other types of video games that boost creativity.
Creative Spa Day
Stay Healthy and Happy With Winter Self-Care Habits Like a Relaxing and Creative Spa Day
Whether it’s at home or on a trip to a wellness center, self-care should be a priority during the winter, and what better way to support self-care than with a spa day. Creatives throughout history have taken breaks from their work to enjoy a bath or even work in the bath, like Dalton Trumbo and Agatha Christie. Water is an essential ingredient in self-care, which means you can easily support self-care at home with a warm bath and add to the environment in creative ways to be immersed and relaxed.
How to Make a Creative Spa Day at Home
- Set your intention
- Plan and prepare for what you’ll need
- Create an immersive environment that engages the senses (Music, scents, plants, color lighting, etc.)
- Set spa day boundaries with friends and family you share space with
- Plan healthy, rejuvenating, and creative boosting snacks
- Practice mindful exercises like meditation to clear the mind and stay present
Tips
- Plan self-care retreats like a visit to a hot spring in Colorado or unique retreat programs.
- Use a spa day to build new healthy and creative habits that support self-care.
- Incorporate Winter activities, habits, and seasonal items to bring you joy and add unique twists to your spa day:
- Hydration routines to fight dry winters
- Cold therapy
- Peppermint bath salts
- Setup your space with scents and wellness tools that combat winter blues and inspire relaxation.
- Prepare your space, food, drinks, etc. beforehand so you can spend more time relaxing.
- Turn off your electronics but keep a pen and paper nearby to write down ideas if inspiration strikes.
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
