How to SURVIVE Winter in Germany [Mentally]
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- Опубликовано: 8 июл 2024
- Understand how to survive winter in Germany through our tips and experiences. We dive deep into what winter in Germany means and how you can best prepare for it.
📼 RELATED VIDEOS:
What to WEAR for German winters [so you don't FREEZE] 🥶
👉🏼 • What to WEAR for Germa...
⏰ Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
00:54 - Hours of sunshine in Germany
03:30 - When does winter start in Germany?
09:16 - Tips to keep busy during winter in Germany
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- So, for me it's tons of candles, too. There can never be enough. A fire place would be even cooler, if I had one.
- And insence sticks burning (woodsy scents, cinnamon, pine, cedar...).
- Strung up fairy lights (not just for X-Mas, but in generaal).
- Solar lamps that flicker like real fire torches for the balcony. Looks so rustic and cosy!
- Walks in the forest with a thermos bottle full of hot chocolate (can be laced with a shot of rum ;-) ). And warm gloves and scarves. Woolen socks!
- Hot bubble baths after a cold day outdoors, and staying in the tub for an hour just relaxing and maybe reading a book.
- Feeding birds and squirrels on my balcony, which are a JOY every day to watch! So cute, you just can't be in a gloomy mood when you see them.
- Or also taking bird seeds and nuts to the woods for the animals in the wild, just because it makes me happy to know they won't go hungry in winter.
- Snuggling up with a hot water bottle (I'm always surprised how many people from other countries don't even know what that is - it's the BEST invention for cold feet, cold thighs, or just in general to cuddle something warm).
- Supplementing with 4000 I.U. vitamin D each day (in summer I take only 2000 I.U. a day). By the way, it should be taken with vitamin K. It works wonders for my general depression, and makes the "winter blues" on top of that more bearable.
- The rare occasions we get snow here, I'll be out there! Taking lots of photos, which is a passion of mine. Also, nothing is more magical than a night walk through a snowy forest or park on a moonlit night!
- Baking some comfort food, like cinnamon flavored muffins with apples or chocolate in them.
- I do like the colorful X-Mas time, but to be honest, come January I'm glad the hustle and bustle is over, and I'm happy to redecorate with more subdued colors and more white, to really embrace the "barren" part of winter. Instead of it feeling boring to me, it's like a detox and coming down from the sensory overload of the X-Mas time. It's nature's time for hibernation, and we, too, can benefit from taking some time to consciously relax more.
- Sauna I theoretically LOVE. But for me it's too expensive, and now with the pandemic, I wouldn't want to hang out so close to people in a small room and potentially getting infected. I miss it, though!
- For the very crazy ones: ice swimming! I always wanted to try it, but in recent years our lakes don't freeze anymore. Look for Jonna Jinton's channel. She's from Sweden and shows her beautiful life in the even colder winters up there, and she loves ice swimming.
- Coffee and gingerbread for breakfast.
- Faux-Fur bed linens/sheets! Sooo warm, fuzzy, cosy and fun! Makes me feel like I'm sleeping in a medieval castle in soft wolf fur, only without harming an animal.
- Roast your own almonds and caramelize them, X-Mas Market style, maybe even adding gingerbread spice or just cinnamon. Snack them on a movie night at home.
...there are a thousand little things, that can make winter enjoyable, and usually I save (most) of these things for winter to make them feel special and like a more rare treat. In general, though, summer is my favorite season, too. And I do love the colorful autumn, which seems to be especially vibrant this year. 🙂
WOW! Thank you so much for all your great ideas! We literally just pictures them all and they created a very romantic, cozy, and looking forward winter feeling!! We also LOVE fireplaces, but unfortunately don’t have one…not a balcony 🙈. Jen loves the comfort food idea 😅.
Thank you for such an informative comment. Saving it as a reference to get ready for my first winter in Germany ☺️
+1 for the rare occurence of someone making an adequate vitamin-d +k recommendation. The doctors here are 10+ years behind the research and the general recommendations here are guaranteed to "not work", basically.
Great ideas. Just adding 2 or 3 things …
Before you get a supplement check your blood and get informed very well. Magnesium and Calcium also take a big role in this. For me it also does wonders in my general mood.
Actually Christmas or the celebration in former times on solstice is for the sun to come back! The days are getting longer from that on an we have some really cool rituals around that (Rauhnächte for example).
And during Jan & Feb you can always have Vorfreude for Fastnacht/Karneval - at least I do. Comming from the south we have more of a whitches, forest elves and trolls thing going on with scary traditional masks and Schabernack.
Wow thanks i'm going on Amazon now to look for these things
Hello.... I know, everybody's gonna hate me, but I enjoy Oktober - April😊
Each year I live in fear of hot summertimes where I just can't go out because it is way tooooo hot.
In wintertime I can go out, use the right clothes, inside it is "gemütlich"....
The fact that we have studies about how long and which parts of your body exactly have to be in the sunshine, only to SURVIVE says a lot about the german winter :-D.
I am British expat living the last 40yrs in Germany, and the best thing you can do in winter, Is to go on holiday to a much warmer country. Like I do. And if possible for 3-4 months.
Not to judge or anything but do you still consider yourself english 😂 after 40 years. Love and health 😂😂
Yes 100%@@shyakaprince7603
Winter depression is a real thing. I go back to my country for a month every year to reduce it 😀
Jen, I feel you. As a German I have the same feeling! „ oh no winter.. do I have to...really😳🥴? It does not come easy like adjusting to summer does!
I feel you, Jen! I am from The Netherlands, same type of climate, and really.... The first months of the year are AWFULL. Feels like spring never comes.
This is going to my 3rd winter experience in Germany. Watching the video made me realize how moody things can get, especially in Jan & Feb as Jen mentioned. Well, I have learned from my previous experiences and enrolled myself for indoor fußball. I really like your style of informative story telling!
Oh that is great! We used to play indoor football too! Definitely a cool way to stay busy and fit during winter 🥳
A lot of house plants also improves the room atmosphere in winter.
I have worked and lived for 6 and a half years in Gdansk, Poland. Around the 21st of December it would be dark at 15:15 hrs. Also, it would be overcast and dark for close to 6 months. Now the funny thing, as soon as it is 19 degrees and sunny, the Polish would go en masse to the beach, as you'll never know if you get those days again. On the other hand I've also experienced 30 degrees in summer. and -23 in winter.
This vid arrived at the perfect time 💖
Love your videos!
In the middle of februar you can see daylight comics back again as days start getting longer. Love this.
You two always brighten my Mondays! I can say in Southern Ohio, USA it’s grey here all winter! Sounds like Deutschland.
When I lived in Chicago I had a vitamin D deficiency and told it was common there. Now I live in Nashville which has much more sunshine and less cold.
That was an interesting content for this episode ❤️
Great video and great timing. As an mediterranean, i suffered last winter and now after the time change, i feel the winter depression has started kicking in. Last year my German friend gave me a "tageslichtlampe" as a gift. I was critical at first but it helped me a lot.
Secondly, i think it is in the category of "be social" but i need to tell anyways, i observed that Germans love card games and board games. There were dozens of them i had not heard of. I think playing games help them cope with winter blues.
Thanks for your comment! Didn’t know about the lamp. And yea, great observation about the card and board games. One of my favs is Dominion 😀. -J
I actually like winter. Snow is great (if you are note the one who has to shovel it)! The sound of walking through deep snow is so enjoyable and relaxing.
Yeah, but that's not what you're gonna get in Germany. You get grey and rainy, usually around the freezing point, but never the beautiful sunny coldass days with snow you would get in many parts of the US.
You girls are awesome! My brazilian self is so not ready for my first winter here, I really appreciate all the tips :)
Soon moving in from Greece and I'm thinking the same 😅
Even when it's dark outside, go for a walk anyway.
Blue skies during winter in the US varies by geographical location. Growing up in Massachusetts, most winter days were short and gloomy. In Maryland, winter days were cold but in general less cloudy (NYC is halfway between the two).
Guate’s weather is fantastic. After 10 years in Guate it was just impossible for me to deal with the miserable northeastern winters again. ☀️
I went to college in Massachusetts (originally from the Caribbean) and I was SHOCKED my first winter to discover that you could look outside your dorm window and see bright sunshine and blue skies but FREEZE your tush off when you stepped outside! The clear days were the coldest!
I grew up in NYC, but also lived upstate in places like Syracuse. I know exactly what you mean by the amazing deep blue sky and frigid temperatures. I loved those days! But upstate was always cloudy, gray, frigid, and snowy. Getting out for winter hiking, snowshoeing, and skiing definitely helps a lot. My fav winter spot is still Flagstaff Arizona. Lots of sunshine but very cold. Lots of snow (when there is not an epic 10-year drought), so snowshoeing and skiing in the mountains is great.
Thanks for sharing! We visited Flagstaff in summer a few years ago and really liked it 🙂
Very important.
love it when you guys say “Smooothly” . I do sync with your singing 😉 😆
I remember visiting London for Xmas, and it would get dark about 4pm. It was very depressing ! I’m from Australia - winters don’t get too bad, no snow near my house.
Thanks for the videos - i did a cycling tour in Germany in July, and loved to visit Düsseldorf - I rode from Hamburg to Frankfurt (8 days)
I would love to come back to Germany !
A thing I've started doing this winter is going for walks in the park during times that look like *the fucking night*, and it's actually very pleasant. You won't get vitamin D this way ofc, but that's not the only thing you're leaving the house for - movement and fresh air are very important as well. Going outside anyway has fixed many of the problems I had with winter time.
This is going to be my first winter in Germany and as someone from a tropical country, gotta be prepared! 😅
Never forget: we are compensated for short, dark winter days by days that are as long as 17 hours at the beginning of summer.......
I also love the Sauna. We (I and a good female friend of mine) try to go every two weeks if possible. This is how I can keep a good mindset during the wintertime. But we go nearly the hole year (Till the temperature reaches 30 degrees celsius, this is the time when we pause our "sauna-habit") ;)
Living in the South of Baveria we have more Sunny days! Sun and Snow is a beautifull Mixture 😍.
As a young woman I lived for 2 years in NRW. The Winter was horrible ! Almost grey and dark and Fog, no Snow no light no sun. I hated it 😱🥶.
😅 where in the South of Bavaria do you live?
Ich lebe im schönen Allgäu 🤩
Nice 👍 information shared by both of you. I like the voice of Yvonne very much.
Yep, winter in NYC looks mostly like you described, Yvonne. Even when it's cold, the sun is out and the air is crisp. BTW, I find your videos so helpful! I will be moving back to Germany in 2025 after having lived in the US since 1999. A lot has changed it seems, and in addition, I will be coming with my American husband, so I am looking for a lot of infos...Keep up your videos, please!
I live in one of the rainiest cities in the US and we still get 2000hrs of sunlight on avg per yr! Can’t imagine getting even less than that
It's dark as if it's a rainy day, but it's not raining and it's cold. That are the most "depressing" days and that could be so for weeks.
... Until the weather changes and it's snowing or it's sunny.
Rinse and repeat ;-)
From Thailand to Germany...I don't know how I survived here. But I always take 1 Vitamin D per 2 days and going for a walk in the morning still helps!
In January 2021 there was 1 hour sunshine in St Petersburg. It's for the whole month, not per day! That was my first winter there....
And I was totally killed in Stockholm in November when it began to get dark at 3 pm!! What's going on there in the end of December then?!
Wow! So little sunshine! The northern you go the less sun you have in winter. However, the more light you have in summer.
@@simplegermany right, but I don't this much light in summer!) And in between of these "polar nights" I suffer from a fomo syndrome during the "polar day" 🤷🏻♀️ (feeling that I'd better be catching the moment walking every evening until midnight or all night long 😅)
love from Norway😄
Hola !! I love winter !!!! You don't have to go out cause it's nice and sunny !!! you can start " movie night " in the afternoon !!!! no annoying mosquitos disturbing my sleep !!! no annoying flies ( moscas en la casa ) ;-) and all the delicious Winter vegetables ...... !!!!!!! I can't imagine living in a country having the same weather ( more or less ) all day , sunset or sunrise about the same time , isn't that boring ?! ... but April or May I'm looking forward for a warm and sunny day in a beergarden :-)
Hasta la vista !
New York is on the same latitude as Madrid, so it gets the same, rather mild seasonal variations of the duration of the day. It is only that much colder, because europe is much warmer than it should be, because of the gulf stream and north america can get much colder than it should get, because how the mountains and the landscape and all that are laid out makes it possible, that arctic winds can make it really far to the south, to a degree, that just doesn't happen in europe.
Hi! The thought crossed my mine when you mentioned going back to Guata, how you are treated as a couple? Obviously if that is too personal, forget the question!. As always I loved the video!!!!!
Hey Harry, with friends and family we are treated with lots of love 😉. On the streets we don't show PDA and never had any issue.
I have tried to support you now with a small gesture from my side.
Thanks a lot! We really appreciate your support 🤗
hi lady's! german expat here iving in sun valley idaho, winter is by far m favorit time of year bittercold but bluebird snny day's almost every day only imterrupted by big snowstorm so i can ski every day! big mountain state here!
That sounds pretty nice! 🙂 I love it when there is snow and it’s blue skies. I don’t like the schneeschippen, though 😂
I live in Denver, its winter is so warm and skies are always blue, the annual sunshine is 3100hrs and you can count the amount of gloomy day in fact! Im moving to Germany soon, and kinda nervous 😬😬
Well, any degree younmove south, you get longer and longer days. NY is even as far south as Lisboa, so it gets much more daylight compared to Germany.
Winter in NYC is very very cold, but this is because there are normally not much cloud cover.
Yes, no clouds makes it colder but also so much more enjoyable 🤗
@@simplegermany I agree! Do you know a good place in Berlin (or near enough) to get a Sun Lamp? I hear they can help in winter months and I'll need it. :)
Hmmmm….sorry we don’t. Our first guess would be checking on Amazon 😬
@@nomirrors3552 every saturn, mediamarkt etc. should have them
@@karinland8533 Oh thank you!
Tageslichtlampes, vitamin D, and omega 3 will be my best friends through the time change, I expect. My cousins in Europe all miss the sun so much; the pandemic was torture for them, because they were used to coming back to Honduras every summer. I've always hated summer and beaches, but I suspect I will now join the ranks of people seeking the sun like crazy. xD
Can you please recommend some of your favorite tea blends? 😊 thank you fir great video
Fresh ginger with lemon, rooibos tea or green tea 😊
I grew up in New York (Long Island).
I haven't been back since 91. Winters
have changed. We would get snow, would be able to sled and it was cold from November till early April.
From my NY friends, there is not as much snow and the seasons have changed. Not much Spring, then onto Summer. Some Fall. Thank you
Global warming. And yes, there are Sunny Days in NY in winter!
Greetings from sunny Konstanz. And if it is not sunny, 1h drive an you are above the clouds...or 2,5h drive we are in sunny Italy... And don't forget the Weihnachtsmarkt or Aprés Ski although if you not skiing 🙂. Hilarious: selfmade Gingerbreadhouses. And (!) invite friends for play games, cooking together. My personal highlight: Walking on the empty island of Mainau. Same: Museums, Theaters, Bars all empty. No tourists, no nobody. The city is ours! Jen, try this: outdoor cheese fondue. WONDERFUL!
Ooooh all of your suggestions sound great! I have not been to the island of Mainau (will add it to my list of places I want to visit 🙂). Wow, outdoor cheese fondue sounds delicious! - J
I'mma go ahead and ask for some backstory for that amazing thumbnail...
😅 it was during a snow shoe hike and I was tired 🤣
What can I say? I honestly feel the sun will be a thing when I move to Germany, I’m from Dominican Republic and we only do summer and hell 😂
I’ve been to snowy places but my relationship to snow is like the guy from the video named “ un argentino en Toronto” 😂
🤣 that video is amazing! Hopefully wherever you move to Germany won’t be as extreme as the case of the Argentinian in Toronto 😋
@@simplegermany have you guys tried the red light lamps for vitamin redemption? That could work for the low sun light days
My friends in Canadá do that so they don’t get vitamin D deficiency
Hi
Well, if serve of any consolation, I live in Spain and it's very sunny, but I have deficiency of vitamin D.
I have to supplement them once in a while.
Oh wow, that’s crazy :)
I love January, finally an excuse for Board games! 😂 With friends or meet-up groups! Or video games! Mysteries, adventure...Have you heard of Broken Sword video game: a defective mystery game? It's even better to play with friends and to try to figure out either a thief of an expensive painting or a kidnapper of a wealthy person...And what about indoor sports? "Mini" soccer, handball (obviously tennis) ?! 🤗
Thanks for sharing! Have not heard of Broken Sword. Sounds like fun 😊
Do you ladies take Vitamine D in winter?
Yes ☺️