As the weather gets colder, we look for ways to warm up. Whether you focus on raising your body temperature or activating your muscles, these sensory activities are sure to warm up your winter.
1. Yoga
Our lifestyles tend to be more sedentary in the winter, which doesn’t help us feel warm. Yoga is a gentle way to get your muscles moving. It counts as moderate exercise and can even get your heart rate up if you move quickly through the poses. Rather than isolating individual muscles (like in strength training), yoga focuses on moving muscle groups together to help activate more of your body at once. Whether you’re a beginner or advanced yogi, use our yoga cards to inspire your next moves.
2. Crawling through a Tunnel
If you’ve ever crawled alongside your kids, you may have felt yourself breaking out into a sweat. Crawling forces your body to curl inward, which holds heat in. Between curling your body in on itself and the fast alternating movements of your arms and legs, crawling can generate a significant amount of heat. This is similar to the experience of leaning forwards while you ride a bike. While you can simply crawl around a room, you can get even warmer by going through a tunnel or barrel! The added layer creates more insulation to hold in heat and get you feeling warm.
3. Hop, Jump and Leap
Jumping will activate your whole body as you provide proprioceptive input to your joints and use your core muscles to help you balance. Hop from one Spot Marker to the next. Pull out a Bounce Board to jump up and down. Leap over the Foam Hurdles. Aside from working your muscles, the quick movement of these activities increases your heart rate. By changing up the pace at which you jump your heart rate will slow back down and then speed up again, keeping you feeling nice and warm.
4. Complete the Course
Design an obstacle course with targets that will make you feel the heat! Obstacle courses are a fun way to get active and engage many parts of your system. Jump onto the oozy Gel Tiles and stay on your tiptoes as though you jumped into lava. Grab some Hand Eye Coordination Scarves and wave your hands around like giant fans. Toss a Grab It Ball to a friend like it’s a hot potato. Before you know it you’ll be feeling warmer than ever!
5. Balance Challenge
The Balance Trainer is great for balance activities for all ages! It comes with cards to guide you through different balance and coordination exercises, or see what you can do with it on your own. Similar to yoga practice, holding each pose uses several muscles in tandem, thereby raising your body temperature and strengthening your core. Use more than one to hop from one to the other, further raising your heart rate and body temperature.
6. Snuggle Up
Sometimes, all you want to do when it’s cold is curl up under a fuzzy blanket. Weighted blankets add even more warmth. Our Minky Weighted Blanket is super soft and pleasing to the touch, while the plaid blankets offer more sizes. When you need to envelope yourself more fully, then opt for the Weighted Hoodie Wrap (lightly weighted) or the Bear Hug Hoodie (more heavily weighted).
We’d love to hear other ways that you warm up during the winter! Share ideas in the comments or ask any questions you might have. Our team will get back to you!
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