I’m sipping hot chocolate in the comfort of an armchair, waiting for the cinnamon toast and settling into the evening comfort zone to prepare for the monthly review of our family’s debit-credit audit.
It may not be as relaxing as I had hoped it would be.
This is the time of the year, the post-season holiday, when the debits are most likely to overwhelm the credits, and I wonder how we are ever going to pay for the Christmas celebrations.
For many people, post-Christmas traditions include bouts of either depression or anxiety. The mid-winter blues, cabin fever and seasonal affective disorder pop up in much of the media and remind us that we are vulnerable in more ways than we thought to the challenges of winter.
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As much as we might hate to admit it, we can find no magical routes to help us escape from the difficulties that anxiety and depression have in store for us. This is not to say that help is not available. Obviously it is. We simply are trying to point out that a cure-all solution is not on the market.
If you would like to do something to ease the extent to which these difficulties influence daily living habits, the first stop is with your local physician. He can work with you to find the appropriate medication to ease the discomfort and point you in the right direction to get professional counselling and support.
Also, you might consider setting up a regular exercise program. Studies exploring the relationship between physical exercise and emotional disorders indicate that significant relief for emotional distress can be found in an appropriate workout routine.
There are some conditions for the exercise program. The first is that it has to be significant. At least 30 minutes or more are necessary if the program is to work for you. The second condition is that it has to be enduring. For an exercise program to be helpful, it should be used more than four days of the week and continued for a long time. Those who are the most successful have incorporated exercise into their life.
Finally, the exercise has to be appropriate. Aerobic exercises (running, swimming, walking, treadmill) work best for people who are struggling with anxiety. Stretching exercises (rowing, weight lifting, yoga) are more suited to those people who are a little more depressed than they would like to be.
I have lived in the country long enough to know that most people in rural life styles do not think they need to exercise. They see it more as a prerequisite to city life than country living. To some extent they are right. Country people are more likely to breathe the fresh air of a brisk winter’s day than city folk, and they are more inclined to daily physical labour.
But many people living in the country are a touch overweight and that leads me to believe that a few exercise regimes might be considered.
The beauty of exercise programs is that they are win-win for those who participate in them. Not only are they likely to relieve us of some of our emotional distress, they might also help us trim up those waistlines a bit.
Then we can sit back and enjoy cups of hot chocolate with our sweet cinnamon toast while doing our monthly audits, and fear neither the anxiety nor the calories jumping out at us during long winter months.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor, living and working in west-central Saskatchewan who has taught social work for two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com.
