Learn to love the Canadian winter

When winter lasts longer than two or three months, you want to make each sunny day count. The lack of sun combined with the harsh cold and short days are enough to get one depressed.

One of the biggest secrets for surviving the long Canadian winters is to be active, to perform outdoors activities such as ski, hockey, curling, skating, jogging, walking or even having a family picnic. Don't be surprised to see people jogging on the streets at minus 25 degrees Celsius!

Yes, the weather is super cold and if we take in consideration the wind factor, then we see it dip up to minus 30 degrees Celsius regularly.

In spite of the Arctic temperature, life goes on. People still need to go to work, kids must attend school, groceries need to be done, etc. People adapted their lives to the climate and services were created to help them cope with the winter conditions.

Public transportation respects the schedule, the snow removal system in the city of Montreal is good, the underground city in downtown offers plenty of venues for those looking to be active indoors.

Although in other parts of the world such cold will disrupt the normal course of life, in here it is a norm.

At school, children are exposed to the cold for 20 minutes or more on daily basis, according to their age group.

All kids must be properly equipped for winter (snow pants, thermal socks,waterproof boots and hat) as they are not allowed to be outdoors otherwise.

When the sports arena is too far to go to or closed for one reason or another, folks get creative and make their own skating rink in the neighbourhood's park.

The daily exposure will help them acclimatise faster and boost their immunity. Most of the parents tend to think that being outdoors and playing in the snow would get the children sick, therefore they bundle them up too much.

Usually the main culprit for colds and flu is the indoor circulation of germs, viruses and bacteria. Being indoors is more harmful than playing outdoors as the air circulates through the air vents and gets recycled over and over. Basically the soup of germs gets served to everyone breathing in that closed environment.

By wearing proper clothing for winter (dressed in layers) children and adults can benefit from the outdoor winter play. Breathing fresh air enables the body to build a stronger autoimmune system and a higher resistance to allergies.

What about you? Do you like spending time outdoors during winter?

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