Beating Your January Blues With An Active Lifestyle
January is a hard month for a lot of us in regards to not only the cold and gloomy weather but the New Year expectations and obligations we have to deal with.
New jobs.
Tax season.
The desire to get a fitter body.
It can be easy for us to feel overwhelmed by all of this.
I resonate with the January Blues so much.
However, this is the perfect opportunity for all things that provide stress relief and even resilience to stress.
Resilience to stress is something that is commonly found in exercise.
According to research, exercise has been used as a powerful antidepressant, an anxiety and stress relief mechanism, and also something that helps you build resilience to stressors we encounter in our day today.
As a result of exercise, we ruminate a lot less on life stressors. They become more manageable.
So in this post, I wanted to talk about exercising the January Blues away.
Let’s dive in!
If you’d like to listen while you read, here’s a YouTube video I made on this topic:
Exercising And Beating The Blues Away
January is when the blues come in full swing. This is why I am a huge advocate of exercising the blues away.
As a reminder, exercise has been shown to aid in reducing stress, improving well-being, and reducing the severity of depression.
With that being said, here are some tips I recommend to exercise the blues away:
- Just start. If you’re not physically active, start with a few short exercise sessions per week, then add to it. 15–30 minute sessions 3–4x per week is a good place to start.
- Find the right time to work out. This can be in the morning before your work obligations or in the evening after your work obligations. This can be mostly weekends instead of weekdays. Give yourself some proper “you time”.
- Have a Hype Trigger. Working out is typically an active habit to build, so sometimes it’s important to have some sort of trigger that hypes you up. This can be motivational workout videos or pre-workouts like ours. ;)
- After you build that momentum from the previous tip, strive to get at least 3–4 weekly hours of physical activity in. This will help with depression & anxiety. It should be moderate-intensity: running, weight lifting, boxing, etc.
- Whenever you feel bouts of stress or a poor mood, do some physical activity. Push-ups, pull-ups, yoga, whatever you can do to break a sweat.
In addition to these, here are some things you can do outside of the gym that will help you with the blues:
- Eat the rainbow. Eat your fruits and vegetables frequently around this time for bodily health (immune health, cognitive health, etc).
- Get some Sun. Even if it’s hard to get Sun in the winter seasons, make sure you go outdoors to get a breath of fresh air. Sunlight helps produce Vitamin D in your body, which helps with immune health, bone health, and well-being. If you don’t go outdoors regularly, supplement with Vitamin D3. 1000–3000IU is a good amount (1–3 soft gels).
I hope they help.
I want to thank you all for reading.
If you have any questions or even insights that you have used to exercise your blues away, please let me know.
I would love to hear from you.
Until next time!
PS: If you would like an extra kick in the ass on your fitness and mental health journey, you can sign up for our Fitness for Mental Health email list (and get our mental health eBooks to go along with it). You can sign up here!
Check Out Our Fitness For Mental Health YouTube Channel!
