In my latest installment of “How to Cure Your Seasonal Depression,” may I suggest…taking a walk?
I don’t mean to go all Rachel Hollis on you. This is exactly the type of prescriptive, “yeah, duh” instruction that I (kindly) asked my therapist never to give me during our very first session together.
But I am not your therapist, and I don’t purport to be any kind of mental health expert. This is just a silly little newsletter that you can easily delete or unsubscribe to (please don’t!), and so I am going to give you some free, unsolicited “yeah, duh” advice.
I’ve been talking to a lot of friends lately about how we’re all feeling stuck — wanting to start new projects, switch careers, find partners, move to new cities. But, bleugh! What, and how, and why, and where? Maybe that’s the undercurrent of this entire newsletter: overcoming indecision, restlessness, paralysis.
Here’s something wonderful I’ve discovered: A good way to get unstuck is to just… move. Literally! Something else wonderful that I’ve discovered: Winter walks are awesome — like, so, so much more awesome than summer walks.
July in Philadelphia is disgusting. Step outside for more than five minutes on a 90-degree day with 80-percent humidity and mosquitoes eating you alive, and you’ll want nothing more than to crawl your delirious, sweaty ass home, strip naked, and melt into your couch like an over-easy egg on stale toast.
Picture this instead: It’s 9 a.m. on a brisk, bright 35-degree Sunday morning in January. You throw on some leggings under your ugliest gray sweatpants, pull up your thickest wool socks, stuff your hair under a beanie and start walking. Icy air fills your lungs, and you suddenly feel… awake! Alive! You make your way across cobblestone streets and down to the riverfront. You’re just steps away from the city, but your surroundings are still and silent, apart from the subtle sounds of the water rocking beside you.
I’ve been doing some version of this routine every day for the past 20 days. (Please clap.) I’m hesitant to call it a “resolution” (see: Fear of Goals and Commitments), but it is a nice little Thing that has been keeping me sane during our second Pandemic Winter. More importantly, I find that once my body is in motion, I tend to stay in motion (said my tenth-grade physics teacher, or whoever). After my walks, rather than crawling back into my warm bed or watching six more episodes of “New Girl,” I start to write. I apply to an essay contest. I organize my closet while plotting the next chapter of my novel. My mind is suddenly focused, crisp, buzzing.
Maybe this is news to absolutely no one other than me. Yes, I’ve heard once or twice that exercise increases endorphins, and endorphins make you happy. But I’m not talking about exercise, necessarily, and I’m not really talking about happiness, either. There is something specifically…rejuvenating (?)…about walking outside in the cold — without a distance or a speed goal in mind, without a podcast, or a companion. It sharpens my senses and jolts me out of whatever funk I was in. (Provided it is not dark outside, I am in a safe area, and there are no crowds of men lurking around. Being a woman rocks!)
So, there is my off-brand Winter Optimism for you. Maybe your stuck-ness is stickier than a walk is able to cure. But I don’t think it can hurt.