STEP INTO SPRING!

The new season is well on its way, but if you're still feeling worn out | from a long winter, how do you gently boost your energy levels?

- SALLY SAUNDERS

Competitive tiredness is a thing, and in the last few months of winter, it seems to become an Olympic sport. Standing at the school gates, in the queue at the supermarket, just chatting on WhatsApp, the level of exhaustion is plain to see. After a few months of winter, tiredness can really hit you,' says psychologist and wellbeing expert Dr Stephanie Fitzgerald. 'A lot of the things that make us feel good and energised and ready to face the day, we can lose track of in winter. So, often our diets may not be the best, we're tired from Christmas, and we might curl up and lose connection with others.

'Perhaps you normally go for a nice walk with friends, or go to the gym - all these things that make us feel good and positive and energised can often go on the back burner in winter because we focus on staying in and staying cozy.

'Now, getting cozy can be helpful and restorative to some degree, but in another way it can actually be quite demotivating. And once we're demotivated, it can feel harder to get going again, particularly when it's still a bit dark in the evenings and it's still a bit cold and it just feels easier to stay in. It can feel quite effortful, I think, to keep our energy up in winter.'

And, sometimes, our best intentions can also come back to bite us: New Year resolutions, we're looking at you.

'During winter, our bodies and our brains are asking for rest and reflection and connection, and so it's a really beautiful season to pause and take some time for ourselves,' says Fitzgerald. 'But we tend not to do that, because in our society when January rolls around we're told "New year, new you" and so many of us crash into the new year with very high-energy activity, like a whole new fitness regime or a whole new diet, and it's all at complete odds with what our brains are asking for at this time of year.