Congratulations! You are relocating from a warm to a cold (if not extremely cold) climate. You might be excited as you will be able to enjoy the snow, go skiing and your children (if you have) will create snowmen. However, are you and your family ready for facing the low temperatures? Here, our best tips (based on our own experience) on how to survive your first winter abroad.
1. Become an onion: Wear plenty of layers!
Wearing several layers of clothing is one of the best ways to adjust to the temperature of your surroundings. Imagine that you go out from your warm and well-heated home at midday and find a chilly temperature outside, which can drop drastically just after the sunset. If you wear several layers of clothes instead of wearing just a thick jacket, you will be able to adjust better to the external climate conditions.
Warm and waterproof materials should be your best friends during the coldest months of the year as well as good quality winter accessories, including high-quality gloves, scarfs, socks and hats.
The most important thing is to avoid feeling cold and the fast temperature changes as the body need some time to adjust and during this period the body is more vulnerable to any virus.
2. Prevent having a cold
How to reduce your chances of having a cold? The following tips can help:
- Wash your hands and disinfect your home: Plenty of experiments show that washing your hands frequently and carefully (at least during 20 seconds) and disinfecting the most common areas of your home are some of the best ways to stop the viruses from spreading.
- Be careful of indoor places: As viruses spread by direct contact, the more people in one place, the higher the risk of infection. The same applies to your house. Don’t be afraid of the winter air and open your home windows some minutes every day so any virus can go.
- Don’t get stressed: When we are nervous, our immune system debilitates, thus it is easier to get a cold or the flu. Why not setting aside some time every day for doing pleasurable activities such as reading, painting or yoga?
3. Think about going to work
A lot of expats do not think about how they will go to work until they do not reach their destination. During the winter period, getting to work can be more complicated due to rain and snow. Therefore, it is worth to check:
- Can you work from home? Start-ups and some big organizations and becoming more and more flexible on the working schedules. If you see that commuting to work might be dangerous during the winter period, why not suggesting to work from home the snowy days?
- Can you avoid driving during the coldest days of winter? Ice and snow can make driving really dangerous, therefore, if you have alternative transportation methods, it might be advisable to use them instead of the car.
- If you need to take the car, have you checked your tyres? Is your car in good conditions?