How To Survive the Winter Blues - Part I
As the colder months draw near, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, it’s not uncommon for us to experience winter blues, or SAD from time to time. Over the next three weeks we will share ideas to bring into your daily routine that can offer additional support to see you through. Here are the first four:
Choose home-made food. Support your immune system by choosing more home-made food, incorporate more fruit and vegetables, and reduce processed sugars and carbs. Choose food from a plant not made in ‘a plant’. Think of meat as a condiment in terms of size proportions and opt for vegetable options two days a week if you can - no meat, dairy, or eggs. Forks over Knives is a great documentary to explore more. Take your own food from home into work for lunch one day a week and work up to more days, your body will thank you. Dr. Mark Hyman’s recipe book - What the heck should I eat? - has some ideas to get you going. If you are struggling to get going Splendid Soup or Sakara are good options to explore.
Choose nutrient rich foods. Opt for organic over conventional where you can, and read the ingredients on products, if there is anything in the list you can’t visualize, i.e. you can imagine it as a plant, vegetable, or animal, then move to the next product to get your list as close to natural products as you can. You’ll often hear comments like, “organic is a scam”, “we don’t need to take vitamins or supplements as we get that from our food”, “I’ve eaten this food all my life and I’ve been fine.”, “It’s all psychosomatic and based on marketing trends anyway.” Firstly, no matter what, trust your own instincts, you are the only person who knows your body. Deep down, in your subconscious, you will know if you need additional nutrient support and that will be irrespective of social trends, of family, friend, or colleague opinions and commentary. Ask yourself if you’ve come to your conclusions on your own or have other people’s opinions influenced you. Then, as you weigh up your own needs consider how your life in 2019 is different to generations gone by:
The population is bigger than before, food supply chains are under constant pressure to keep up with the demand of year-round choices. Yet, we have all grown accustomed to having food when we want it and how we want it. Those expectations have created pressures on the food industry that they have responded to - getting food to you faster, making it tastier, and making it more convenient. To do that food has to be produced and processed in multiple ways, and it needs to stay fresh for as long as possible. The knock on effect of this is the amount of nutrients in the food we consume now can be less than in days gone by.
Pressures to keep prices low for consumers, reduce operating costs, yet continue to increase shareholder value and grow business revenues continue to exist, and that can have an effect on the nutritional quality of food. In New York City for example, a typical organic freshly made smoothie will set you back $10-$12 a go, in many parts of the world and even in New York people will comment how expensive that is. The options can be, swap out the organic for conventional, add in some filler, and more water, and reduce the cost to $4 or $6, the overall nutritional value will come down and the price meets expectations of perceived dollar value. Hard earned cash can still be viewed as having more intrinsic value than the wellbeing of our bodies.
The trend is turning, there are growing populations of people willing to part with more cash in order to eat purer foods that will have more benefits to their bodies and offset and prevent health decline in later years. Have you noticed the increase in vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options becoming more mainstream? Not all options are equal mind, although that’s a story for another day, however it’s all relative and what your beliefs are will determine what food choices you make, and how much you’re willing to pay for them. If you’re a car person, you’ll like this analogy - you’re unlikely to be unwilling to buy less than premium oil for your car, you’ll choose the top range oil to ensure the engine runs smoothly and purrs for as long as possible. Bodies are the same, for a while they’ll run well with sub-par food and nutrition, after all your body is an incredible design and works to keep you going for as long as it can, but in time if it’s been receiving ‘sub-par oil’ for a while your body will start to give you a few signs that something is not quite right as it tries to get your attention.
Food grown in fields can be in overworked soil - you know how you feel when you’re overworked? Soil can be affected in the same way. Fallow fields and crop rotations happen in different ways compared to how they used to generations ago. Food is also produced in ways that don’t involve fields and more chemicals are used in foods than ever before. Foods are harvested extra early, often 6 months before they reach supermarket shelves and have travelled by plane on long journeys. At every step the nutritional value in those foods declines little by little.
Become aware of stress levels. You, magnificent soul, are busier than you have ever been before. Do you know anyone that doesn’t have a mobile or smart phone? If you do you are in the minority. We are constantly switched on and tapped into the world around us, being bombarded from all corners of the planet with data and information that we consume, analyze, react and respond to at rapid rates. Our lives are jammed packed with responsibilities, needs, wants, and desires, and we place expectations on ourselves and allow others to place expectations on us too. As a result, our bodies have to move, think, and process quicker and we put pressure on ourselves, with higher expectations to do more, have more, and achieve more - that leads to stress and your body’s cortisol levels rise to states where they are permanently on. (That’s part of the get ready to fight or flight mechanism we all have.)
Reducing stress in our lives is not always as easy to do as it is to say. Give yourself chance to run a stress inventory, do you feel stressed? What is the first thing that comes to mind that causes you stress? List all of the things that you feel create stress for you. Write them down. As strange as it sounds, the act of writing a list of all the things that you believe cause you stress can actually alleviate the perception of stress by your body. It’s not uncommon to feel a release or slightly lighter having written something down.
As you do this, write your list down rather than typing it into your phone, the act of writing with a pen or pencil is the important part. Your brain triggers and processes differently when you use a pen or pencil to write. Just keep writing, write literally everything down that you feel causes you stress. Your brain has a funny (or not so funny actually thank you very much) way of tricking you into believing that your stresses are MUCH greater. Anticipation of something is often far greater than reality - in almost all cases, and when you write your list you force your brain to really admit to what is causing you stress, not just imagined or perceived stress.
When you have your list, look at your list and choose the number one stressor for you, is there a way to make an adjustment to that one thing? If not is there a way you can change your mindset about it and perceive it differently? Even in the most dire situations perspectives can shift everything to reduce the stress your body feels. Can you identify one good thing about the stress you are experiencing? We all start from a place of exploration and curiosity and that leads us on a journey of discovering more, evolving, and growing. Stress is part of our lives to help us grow and evolve, it can be beneficial. When it’s chronic and we’re overly stressed that’s when it’s detrimental to our health and that’s when it’s time to find additional professional help and support.
No matter what, be kind to yourself, you are your greatest advocate, remind yourself you are doing the best you can. When you are under stress your body is working harder for you, if it feels good to you, particularly during the winter months adding in some multivitamins and minerals could be beneficial and here are a couple we’ve found to be helpful - Mary Ruth’s Liquid Sunshine, and Liquid Moonlight. As always though, we are all different, and what works from one person doesn’t always work for another. Trust your instincts, read up, ask a nutritionist, medical professional, or seek additional help if you’re just not sure what your body might need
Switch out caffeine. We know it’s a hard one but caffeine dehydrates and adds a weight that your immune system has to deal with. It’s not as straight forward as just stopping, find something to replace it with. These options can feel like a treat, Moon Juice blends, and stress relieving and magical sweet rose tea. Adding in variety can help as you look forward to something new or different to try, come December if you celebrate Christmas why not treat yourself to a T2 tea advent calendar for a daily surprise. If you just can’t drop your coffee always opt for a glass of water with lemon. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking coffee over in Italy you’ll notice many coffee boutiques automatically serve a glass of water with each espresso. Here in the U.S. espresso coffee drinks tend to be much larger than our European friends, so consider adding a large glass of water, or even two for every cup of coffee you have.
What now?
Having read these four ideas, pick one (or all of them if that feels good to you) and introduce it into your routine this week. See how you get on with it. Notice what happens, how do you feel? What resistance comes up? Is it hard? That’s ok, it means you’re growing and evolving yourself into a new state. Changes in our routines can take time, and they feel uncomfortable to begin with. Remind yourself why you’re doing this - to move through the winter feeling and being as healthy and as vibrant as you can and to treat your body gently with kindness and thoughtfulness.
Check back next Tuesday for further tips on beating the winter blues…
Please note these are not medically advised guidelines, or paid for product recommendations, they are inspirations and ideas we have established through practice, observations, use, and or conversations. As always, we recommend you trust your own instincts, conduct your own research, and if you feel you need or want medical advice seek that. Step forward gently, release fear, trust your instincts, and go with love. We wish you well.
