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Beating the Winter Blues With Movement · Your Strongest Body

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You are listening to your strongest body.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Betsy Foster, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and certified nutrition coach.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I've worked as a personal trainer for over a decade, helping people build strength, speed, muscles, as well as a deep appreciation for their bodies and confidence that helps them live their life to the fullest.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness, nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Hello, hello, welcome back to another episode of your Strongest Body.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being here.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: As always, I'm Betsy, your host.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Today we are talking about beating the winter blues with exercise, and now I want to say two things quickly.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: We are going to go beyond the obvious, to practical strategies of how to actually make exercise happen when you aren't feeling it, when the weather is not supportive, when generally life feels better warm and under a blanket, rather than getting your workouts in.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I also want to make a quick note here that I am not talking about treating clinical depression, clinical anxiety, other clinical disorders, and I would never begin to offer advice.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: That's out of my scope.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about treating some symptoms of different kinds of winter blues.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: We do know that exercise and movement has a positive effect, a positive impact and may ease symptoms of depression and anxiety.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So that's what I'm talking about here.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: If, for any reason, you need additional medical support or need a clinical opinion, you would seek that out.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: This show is not intended for medical advice, but we are going to talk about how we can help boost your mood with movement.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Now, I think for most people and I don't want to assume, but I think most people know that exercise or movement is useful for boosting your mood.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: We've heard that before and you may have heard that specifically as it relates to this winter blues, this sort of general mood shift that happens with our shorter days, our colder temperatures, dark, you know, darkness for a long time.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Exercise can have a really helpful impact, help improve some of those symptoms.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: You probably have experienced it yourself.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Whether it be around wintertime or anytime, when you have finished a workout, you generally feel better, you have a mood boost, and that is because of the release of these feel-good endorphins and other natural brain chemicals.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: We start to feel better.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: That's a great thing.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not necessarily gonna talk and try to convince you of that.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I believe you probably already know it.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: The thing that is hard here when we talk about those winter blues and exercise is putting it into action.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So we can understand it.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Intellectually, we can have the best intentions and if we don't set ourselves up for success, if we don't put parameters and forms of assistance in place for us to get it done, it's not going to get done.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: We all again I say this with a lot of things we know exercise is good for us.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: We know nutrient dense food is good for us.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: We know sleep is good for us.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think you're shocking anybody with that information.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: It is about how do we take these concepts and apply them to our real life.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: So that's what I wanna talk about today.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be a quick one.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you some practical strategies, things that have worked for my clients, things that have worked for me.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Again, not medical advice, simply strategies for you to figure out ways to increase movement in these winter months to help you feel better.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about number one.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Number one is getting any sunshine.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: So this is harder in different places.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I live in Florida and we get a lot of sunshine year round.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I actually can drastically tell the difference in my mood on the days that we don't have a sunny day here because we have so many of them and I find that to be.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: It took me a while to notice it for myself because before moving here I had been in Manhattan and you spend a lot of time with a lot less sun, even sun just blocked by large buildings.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: And when it got here, and it took until a non-sunny day for me to realize just how much that beautiful sunshine and that warmth I mean, I am a warm weather girly helps to boost my mood.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: But for the person who is trying to get more movement in, finding opportunities to move in, sunlight is going to help us get that needed vitamin D as well as help to regulate our circadian rhythm.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: So the earlier in the day we see and get that sunlight, the better off we are.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Now, if you can find an opportunity to take a walk or get outside and do some movement, I would say do a whole workout or something, but sometimes that's hard to do.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: If you can take a walk or a bike ride or a run in whatever sunlight is available, that is going to be really helpful.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: How do we make that happen?
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I don't think you can plan on it all the time, but are there opportunities For most people who work, sort of a regular nine to five, 40 hour work week.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: The hours when you can get that sunlight are while you're in work, so you can either find strategies around maybe lunchtime where you can get out to take a quick walk if the weather permits.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: If not, you may be finding that your weekend times are when you want to get that sunlight.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Can you also park farther away from work and walk so that you get a little bit more sunlight at that time?
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I don't have the exact numbers here in front of me and I'll do a little research on that about how many minutes are most beneficial.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I am sure they have some stats on that, but again, with a lot of these things, it's like we have some information, but when does it start?
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Is there an amount of sunlight that is not beneficial?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Meaning the lower end is what I'm talking about.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Certainly, excess sun exposure is gonna be an issue, but I'll have to look into that and report back at some point for you on that, because I hadn't thought about that ahead of time.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, sunlight, getting it early, walking around in the day, is going to be really helpful.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Can you get a break in your work day to do that?
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Can you make sure it's a priority on the weekends or days off of work.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Again, it's about finding simple strategies and strategies that fit into your life already.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: The more we create new patterns, the more we try to go outside of our routine.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: We are swimming up against resistance.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: We're going in the wrong direction.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: So how can we set up our river or flow to go in the same direction and then add things moving in that direction?
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So that's one option.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: That's just a really good starting point and that helps too with that sort of when we're thinking about that need for sleep and it gets darker earlier.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: But let's say you feel like you haven't exerted enough energy in the day and then you're having trouble falling asleep at night.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Finding that sun exposure and that movement earlier in the day is going to be helpful.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Other ways you can get in to a gym facility.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: That is going to be something that is super helpful in that you can work out whenever they're open.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: You can work out so you are not limited to darkness, you're not limited to temperature.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: You're going to be able to go in be an appropriate body temperature use equipment.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: That's going to be really helpful.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I find that if you can opt for a gym or a sports club that has access to a hot tub, sauna, steam room.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: That is going to be awesome for these months because it can serve as a little reward or treat post-workout Finding classes at a gym where it's already scheduled and you can limit the brain power needed to think about what you're going to do, and just show up and have somebody tell you what to do, following a training program, working with a trainer.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Again, we're trying to take away these barriers that make it hard for us to work out.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: If there is any argument for there's no perfect time of day to work out, I think in terms of winter blues, it can be really helpful to have that work out earlier in the day so that you get more of the advantage, more of the benefits of those mood boosting chemicals earlier in the day.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: You can take it with you for the rest of the day.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Again, if that's not going to be useful for you or impossible for you to make happen, and if you're going to do less workouts, if you do them in the morning but you have better adherence to your plan if it's later in the day, then go with later in the day, but if there's ever a time that you're thinking like I do want to work out in the morning, this might be the time to do it.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Remember that you're going to deal with darkness and cold.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I invested in a big, warm, woolly coat.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I invested in some leggings that go all the way down and not my shorts though I really like to work out in shorts.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: So, you know, some days, if it's just too cold, I'll do that, investing in layers so that you can fit that in.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: This is a good time, too, to have or invest in some home workout equipment.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be a lot, but if you have things that are available to you in your home, so that that lure of staying in your bed for a few extra minutes, you don't have to give it up and you can squeeze your workout in at home, that can be really helpful at this time of year, and you may find that you have seasons in terms of how and where you're working out too.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: So you may have a gym membership and you realize that getting to the gym in the winter months is just far harder for you.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Figure out a way to maintain that membership if you want to go back later in the year and focus on workouts at home.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: You can also use training cycles to take advantage of this time.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: So, rather than doing a lot of workouts that are high intensity as it relates to cardiovascular or metabolic conditioning, things that require one, sometimes a lot of mental you know presence of mind and working yourself up to being interested in getting it done Like the level of difficulty from a psychological standpoint can be very hard, as well as it can be hard on your whole body you could opt for doing winter workouts that are far more strength based, far more, and not saying that's not hard, but you could decrease reps, increase weight, have an opportunity to build more muscle and then, as the weather gets nicer, you have a little more energy, you have a little more sunlight and you have a little bit more time outside.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: You can bring those other elements back into your training or shift into more of a phase of high intensity interval training or sport performance style training.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: You can use the parameters presented to you a little bit like I've spoken before in other episodes.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: When an athlete plans their off season, pre season, in season, post season, they have different kinds of training modalities they're using to meet the needs of their body.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Is this a time for you to build and then perform or body comp change later when you feel like you can.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: This is also a time of year where people are usually consuming a little bit more food, a little bit more starchy, carbohydrates, dense foods that make you feel warmer, comfort foods make you feel warmer.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: This can be an awesome opportunity to take advantage of that.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Move a little bit more weight, build a little bit more muscle and then, when you shift your eating habits in the spring and summer to a little lighter, you can start to see some of those physique changes.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: If that's something that interests you, you can kind of think about it in terms of ways to take advantage of the challenges.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Here.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: The challenges can be like you don't want to be running a lot because it feels too cold.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be outside.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: You feel like you're eating a lot more.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Instead of those as being barriers, they can be useful tools in a different kind of training.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be thinking about how you can make that happen.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Being realistic with yourself is also a huge part, so you may not have the same amount of time that you had before.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Especially with the days getting shorter, especially with temperatures dropping, can you still make the most of the time that you do have and can you find ways to work in little.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: More movement here and there at various times, at sort of sporadic times, can be helpful.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Can you employ a buddy to do this with you?
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Can you find an indoor recreational league to join?
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Finding ways to make some movement happen and I would say every day, even not the rest days, can be really light movement.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: But the more you can keep that pattern going, the more you can reward your body with movement, the better you're going to feel and the more you're going to be able to possibly improve that positive outlook.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: At least feel as good as you can when it's so cold and so dark.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: It's a hard time year and I live in a place where it doesn't get that cold and it doesn't get that dark.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine if you're somewhere much colder.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: But think about ways in which you can practically apply some of these strategies to your real life, day to day.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: All right, that's all I got for you today If you are not on my email list, so this episode comes out.
• 16:59
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• 17:11
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• 17:25
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• 17:28
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• 17:31
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• 17:41
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• 17:43
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• 17:45
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• 17:53
  Speaker 1: All right, if you're loving the podcast and you feel like rating and review, that would be so helpful.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Until next time, I want you to go build your strongest body and I'll talk to you later.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Bye.