8 Ideas For Chasing The Winter Blues Away

Depending on where you live you may be affected by seasonal affective disorder or depression.

It has been unbelievably and uber gross. It has been raining for weeks and it's not going to let up anytime soon. Now I understand why some people get seasonal depression. Short days, dark days and cold days don't make for a great recipe. Some times I even wonder why I bother getting out of bed. The thought doesn't last long as I have responsibilities, like many of us do.

Continued negative thinking sours your mood even more and makes your day longer and gloomier. You can't alter Mother Nature, so stop fighting it and join it!

Here are some ideas to help you avoid seasonal affective disorder.

1. Take up knitting, crocheting or some other craft
2. Baking
3. Exercise
4. Go for walks or join a walking group
5. Meet up with a friend for coffee
6. Join a winter sport for example, curling
7. Eat a balanced diet
8. Go south - take a vacation

Some of these things may be hard to do especially leaving a warm house in cold, wet weather. Even a short walk to a nearby library will make you feel better and get your blood flowing.

Keep moving and keep busy. The busier you are, the faster time flies and soon enough the days will start to get longer and there'll be more light.

Turkey Dinner Recipes and Dessert

I follow Juan @FitCoach2007 and @TheHungryCuban (mind you they are one in the same) over on Twitter.

I love that he is so passionate about living healthy each and every day and his recipes are fabulous. He also include videos for many of these delicious dishes.

If you strive to eat healthy and be healthy every day, I recommend bookmarking or subscribing to Juan's blog or following him on Twitter.

Here's his yummy The Complete Thanksgiving Dinner Recipes. Don't keep it just for Thanksgiving. Christmas is around the corner.

Plantar Fasciitis: Update

It's been about three weeks now since I made my self-diagnosis of plantar fasciitis and I'm so happy to report the pain in my heel is at 98% no more. I say 98% because now and then I get a twinge of pain.

The second day after I found the exercises, I was doing them like 20 times a day and I was amazed when I did my very first calf stretch how much it eased the pain. Someone described the pain like walking on a very badly bruised heel and they were dead on when they said it. It was exactly how it felt.

They are several types of exercises that would help and I chose to do only one and that was with the arms slightly outstretched, facing a wall, chair, table, counter etc. and with one leg back, heel down to feel the stretch in the calf. I would stretch my calf with the painful heel first for about 30 seconds to a minute and switch over to the non-painful heel so both legs would benefit from the stretching.

Since it's so much better, I now stretch the calf muscle several times a day as I don't want the pain to come back.

Pam of A Pain In The Heel has a blog dedicated to plantar fasciitis. There are a lot of great information and video exercises that can help cure plantar fasciitis.

A recent blog post I read from her asked Are Crocs Rx good shoes for plantar fasciitis and sore feet? Find out on her blog as I'm sure you will find it interesting.