Whether you are driving or taking the bus, transportation in the winter can be a pain. With the luxury of a car, the bitterly cold winter days aren’t as difficult to avoid – and we all know of the bitterly cold days living in Wisconsin.

However, if you are forced to rely on the bus for transportation or you have simply made that choice, knowing how to stay warm while waiting is essential.

Here are three simple steps for bus riders to avoid being miserably cold.

First of all, plan ahead and decide what the shortest possible time is that is necessary to spend waiting outside for your bus. It is important to arrive at your bus stop five minutes before the listed arrival time of your bus; sometimes buses are early and they don’t wait.

To find out ahead of time where your bus might be and when it will come, you can call the Metro Bus Customer Service Center at (608) 266-4466.

Wearing the right winter clothes seems like an obvious step to staying warm but it is shocking how many shivering, coatless people you will find waiting for the bus. Dressing appropriately for the winter cold means that you are wearing a hat, mittens, a scarf, warm boots and a warm jacket. Thick clothing and lots of layers are ideal.

Doing cardio at the bus stop might look a little silly, but moving your body and jumping up and down helps to generate some heat. If you don’t wish to flail around in public, you can also generate heat using a yoga move called the chair pose.

Standing, waiting for the bus, to get into chair pose, bend your knees with your thighs as parallel to the ground as you can get. If you do this with your legs together you will stay warmer, then press your thighs into each other as hard as you can to generate lots of heat.

After following these three steps, waiting for the bus in the winter should be much more enjoyable and those bitterly cold temperatures won’t seem as miserable.