Fitness: 5 ways to stay healthy in winter.

The days may be getting shorter, but that doesn’t mean you should go into hibernation - in fact, just the opposite. Here are five ways to help you stay fit and healthy winter:

Challenge

The gym will become your fitness base during the coming months, so think about setting yourself a winter challenge. This could be something ambitious like training for a competitive event in Spring or something more modest like running for 30 minutes non-stop on the treadmill. It might be losing a few pounds in November prior to the Christmas onslaught or maybe learning how to swim properly. It could be adding some new exercises to your programme using the exercise ball, BOSU ball and free weights or it could be taking up yoga or Pilates. It’s not the challenge itself, but the focus it gives you, that counts.

Outdoors

Research says that we can get up to four times more moody on cloudy days, so getting outdoors is a really important part of your winter health plan; it’s all to do with the positive effects of the negative ions in fresh air. If possible, you should factor in at least fifteen minutes of fresh air a day - more at the weekend. Running and cycling are great, but to be honest just putting a few layers on and walking round the park  - or the block - in your lunch break is all it takes to give you the fresh air and sunlight that is essential to maintaining good health. Talking about fresh air, you might also like to think about turning the heating down a little and keeping a window open in your bedroom when you go to sleep.

Relax

Much of the language we use around winter ailments is aggressive - we blast bugs, we combat colds - but one of the most powerful things you can do for your immune system is just to relax. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that stress reduces the efficiency of your immune system, which makes it more difficult to resist the diseases that winter inevitably brings. That’s okay if the stress is short lived, but it’s pretty damaging if you spin your emotional wheels for longer periods of time. How to relax? Well we all have  our favourites - meditation, tai chi, yoga, sauna, massage and of course exercise itself are all popular relaxation mechanisms - but just taking the time to scan your body, feel where the tension is and release it, is a quick and simple way of getting started.

Rewards

When the days are short and cold, the thought of quitting your exercise programme can be very tempting - but the satisfaction is always short-lived.  Depression and increased fatigue are very common after stopping regular exercise - particularly aerobic exercise.  The reason for this is pretty straightforward. Regular exercise produces natural uppers called endorphins. Your body and your brain like endorphins a lot and when you, rather selfishly it has to be said, shut off the supply, they get very grumpy - and so, therefore, do you. It’s called withdrawal. Next time you’re thinking of giving up, try treating yourself instead. Research shows that people who reward themselves regularly - little treats are all it takes - are two to three times more likely to work out regularly and therefore stick with their programme.

Skin

When the temperature starts to drop, the central heating goes on and the air starts to dry out; so too unfortunately does your skin. The skin is the first line of defence against winter ailments and, as part of a healthy regime, it pays to make sure you keep it well moisturised during the winter months (that includes you blokes). Daily Omega 3 fish oils will help to keep your skin supple, so will adding a few drops of jojoba or almond oil to a warm bath. And don’t forget the lip balm. You also need to make sure that you keep your skin hydrated from the inside, which means drinking as much water as you do in the summer. Because skin is a barrier to germs it also a collecting point for them, so it makes sense to carry a small bottle of antiseptic handwash with you and to pay particular attention to wiping down exercise machines in the gym with the spray provided at our hygiene stations.

And for those of you who would like to know more:

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) syndrome has a number of symptoms including depression, mood swings, loss of libido, irritability, anxiety, irregular sleep patterns, lethargy and a craving for carbohydrates and sweet things - which may be one of the reasons we tend to put on weight in winter.

As is so often the case, the root of the SAD problem lies in our conditioning. Working indoors in artificial light is only a relatively recent occurrence - in the old days the vast majority of people did manual work outside - and it’s something our bodies are not designed to cope with.

Nowadays it’s perfectly possible to wake up in the dark go to work and come home in the dark - all of which leads to light deprivation, which has a profound effect on our body clocks.

We know that regular exercise is a powerful tool in dealing with the depressive symptoms that SAD produces but there is an increasing body of evidence that suggests that light therapy may also be helpful.

SAD.org.uk says: “Lack of light causes an increase in the production of Melatonin (the hormone that makes us sleepy at night), and a reduction of Serotonin, a lack of which causes depression. The exposure to bright light therapy reverses the process.”