​Snowflakes fall. Evergreen boughs cradle mounds of snow. Familiar tunes tickle the ear. The nights are long and velvety dark, lights strung up all over town shining bright in the cold air.

Yet, December brings the stress of overstuffed days and nights, the kind of busyness that can sap the spirit out of even the most joyful person. In the midst of the tension of the season, often one of the first things to go is exercise. Yet carving out a small slice of your day to move your body gives you a significant return on investment.

A good workout that gets your heart pumping and makes you sweat also releases endorphins, decreases stress, and increases oxygen to the brain. This is all terrific for keeping your energy going through demanding days. Being outside boosts mood, decreases depression, and quiets the mind. A great way to find calm in the midst of the storm.

Not motivated? 
You just need to take the first step. Go for a walk - beneficial for your feet, your joints, your brain, your lungs, your heart, and your mood. (See my post Walk: A Win for Your Body and Brain.) Walking on a snowy trail is gentle on joints and connective tissues, and the birdsong and quiet are a bonus. When I’m really tired at the end of a work day and the thought of the cold is not enticing, I tell myself, “I’m just going for five minutes, for some fresh air.” Once I get out there I don’t want to stop, I just want to keep walking and drink it all in. This strategy works every time.

Don’t have time?
Decrease your normal workout time by a few minutes, and increase intensity. You’ll get the sweat, increased heart rate and oxygenation, but still have time for other items in your day. One way to do this is with Tabata workouts. Four minutes is all it takes, not counting warm up and cool down, with eight rounds of 20 seconds on (at almost all-out effort) and ten seconds off (rest). You can play around with the timing to suit your needs, but the idea is to get the intensity and also the rest in between. You can use specific exercises or apply this on a stationary bike or a run. These definitely kick your bum in very short order. 

Ice and snow not your thing?
Find a cleared sidewalk (in Steamboat, the Core Trail or even the sidewalks around the hospital), or take a class indoors at the gym. You can even get a great 30 minute workout right in your living room with streaming classes at essentrics.com. 
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Regardless of what you choose to do, I hope that you will find physical and mental relief and peace by moving your body every day, especially during this busy wintry season. 

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​Cooler nights. Darker mornings, with frost making an occasional appearance. Colors all around: gold, orange, crimson, purple. Fall is here. And in Steamboat, that means another long winter is soon to follow. 

I love summer. I love open windows, sandals, and the fact that it doesn’t take me an hour to get dressed before leaving the house. I will miss my after-work and weekend hikes perhaps most of all, feeling the lush grasses and shrubs brushing my legs, forearms, even the tops of my shoulders. I will miss looking up at the green aspen, smelling the sap of pine, spruce and fir, warmed from the sun. I’ll miss standing on a rock in the creek, gurgling amber liquid swirling around me.

The good news is that there are still after-work winter walks. Though the lush foliage will be buried under several feet of snow for months, walking is still a win-win. I walk to clear my head, to get my blood pumping the sludge out of legs that’ve been standing all day, and to feel movement in my entire body. My digestion and respiration certainly benefit. But there are even more perks to walking.

In the book Built to Move: The 10 Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully, by Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett, the authors explain how walking is a game-changer: 

• Better movement and less pain, because of tissues stretching, moving in ways that are the antithesis of a sedentary “C” position, and joint lubrication.
• Improved feet, because these are your foundation, and when you walk you load and unload the bones, muscles and connective tissues in the feet to build strength and resilience.
• Improved circulation, not just of your blood, but your lymph, which relies on movement and muscle contraction/relaxation to make its way through your body.
• Improved sleep, because walking calms anxiety and lowers depression, both beneficial for sleep. Even 30 minutes of walking a day has been associated with decreasing depression.
• Better brain function, because walking enhances blood flow to the brain (sitting for long periods of time results in less blood flow to the brain). Studies have shown that walking even benefits creativity.
• Decreased stress via improved mood. This is because moderate physical activity (like walking!) has been shown to decrease stress hormones and boost endorphins.

The Starrett’s advocate 10,000 steps per day (one mile is approximately 2,000 steps). This includes incidental steps. They are also clear that even if you aren't hitting that 10k mark, some is better than none.

I’m using time for my barometer, rather than a step counter or Garmin. In addition to my incident steps, my current goal is to get in at least an hour total of running and/or walking each day. My body and brain like this - it feels good. Whatever the season, I hope you’ll join me in walking more. 

​Exercise feels good and we know it is vital for our physical health. But just as important, exercise benefits our mental health. Check out this dynamic and informative Ted Talk by Wendy Suzuki: The Brain Changing Benefits of Exercise.

Physical exercise - great for increasing circulation, the strength and mobility in our muscles and joints, and helping to improve cardiovascular health and maintaining body weight, has corresponding effects on the brain. Chemicals like dopamine and serotonin are released, which improve mood. Anxiety is lessened, aiding sleep. Exercise supports both existing brain cells (neurons) as well as the environment to develop new neurons. Exercise has even been shown to lessen depression.

All of these benefits are immediately accessible when one begins to exercise. It is a regular exercise routine which extends these benefits, having a greater and longer-lasting impact on our lives. With brain health, there is a protective factor with exercise: the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, areas of cognition, are bolstered, staving off conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s. 

Exercise does not have to be costly or time-consuming. The general goal is 30 minutes, 5 times per week, but benefits can be seen if exercise is broken down into smaller time frames or crammed in on the weekends. A gym membership is not a requirement. Walking outside, exercising in your home, even turning household or gardening chores into purposeful movement can result in benefits for both body and brain.

Learn More
Scientific American Article: Exercise Helps Your Brain as much as Your Body
HelpGuide.org Article: The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise

Originally published May 9, 2024

Ever notice that some mornings you don’t exactly roll out of bed? You might hobble, slide, or ask your partner to hire a crane. As you move through the morning, although the initial foray to the kitchen took ten minutes, you begin setting PRs so that by the time you’re ready to hit the shower, you’re doing laps around the house in less than 30 seconds. 

Why is that? Why do we start out so stiff and subsequently loosen up so nicely? It’s because of The Fuzz.

Gil Hedley famously dubbed the build-up between our tissues The Fuzz. When we are still for long periods of time (as when sleeping), The Fuzz accumulates, resulting in stickiness and limited mobility between our tissues which normally slide smoothly. Daily stretching can address The Fuzz. However, when we are injured and don’t use the affected body part for a couple of days, The Fuzz builds up until we may need help from a physical therapist or massage therapist to restore range of motion.

This is one reason why Essentrics® leaves you feeling more mobile and energized. You are warming and stretching the body’s tissues so that they slide, you can move more easily - and you have done away with The Fuzz for the day. This is also why massage can help decrease pain and improve range of motion - manually working the tissues eliminates The Fuzz.

I’ve included Gil Hedley’s amazing video The Fuzz Speech here. The Fuzz Speech is one of my very favorite videos because he does such an excellent job of explaining this concept. 
Word of warning: the video includes shots of cadaver tissue to illustrate his point. 

​Originally published July 28 2022

​Twyla Tharp is my kind of person. Her daily habit for years was to rise at 5:30 am, hail a cab outside her New York City apartment, and head to Pumping Iron Gym for two hours of weight lifting and stretching. 

She’s also a proponent of getting better as we get older. Big movements, taking up space with the body, creating, and engaging, all contribute to this remarkable human being continuing to lead a vital life.

If you are not familiar with Twyla Tharp, neither was I until just a few weeks ago. I happened to run across her book “The Creative Habit,” a New York Times Bestseller, and checked it out because it looked interesting. I have since discovered that she is one of the most influential dancers and choreographers in our time. In 1973 she created “Deuce Coupe,” the first “crossover ballet” to combine modern and classical in one piece.

In “The Creative Habit,” Ms. Tharp discusses how consistent practice and process is a foundation for her work. In addition to her gym routine which set her foundation for strength and agility, she described the initial stages of her creative process. For example, with each new idea for a project, she’d start a large box. In would go her initial project notes. Then CDs of music, videos, and those were followed up by in-depth research, so that she had a wealth of material to draw from when she choreographed the final dance. This consistent process of using the box provided an organized structure for her brilliant creations, like the Tony-award winning “Movin’ Out,” a musical set to the tunes of Billy Joel. The final box count for the Billy Joel project: twelve.

Twyla Tharp is now 81 years of age, and literally going strong. In this Twyla Tharp Video: Shut Up and Do What You Love, you can watch her cranking out push-ups as a part of her current morning routine. She also continues to choreograph - her latest work is a retelling of two pieces created in the ‘80s. Twyla Tharp: New York Times Article Oct 2022

What can we learn from her? She’s got some ideas in this Twyla Tharp Video: Lessons from Keep It Moving. 

My big picture takeaway is that consistently moving and strengthening the physical body, using the mind to engage, cultivating a spirit of resilience, and continuing to make what we like to make with whatever form our creativity takes, all contribute to us getting better as we get older.

Originally published January 26, 2023