This Monday is ‘Blue Monday’
blue Mon·day
noun
INFORMAL
noun: blue Monday; plural noun: blue Mondays
- a Monday on which one feels gloomy or dispirited, especially because one has to return to work after the weekend.
"remember that when you're having a blue Monday, just climbing out of bed is a positive start"
- INFORMAL•BRITISH
(in the northern hemisphere) a Monday in January, typically the third Monday of the month, that is characterized as the most depressing day of the year.
"snow and ice brought travel chaos across the UK on Blue Monday"
Origin
late 18th century: originally in German contexts, in reference to a Monday during which people chose not to work, especially as a result of excessive indulgence over the course of the weekend (the reason why such a Monday should be described as blue is not clear). The modern meanings derive from bluein the sense ‘melancholy, sad, or depressed’ (see blue1 (sense 2 of the adjective).
If you want something which might instantly prevent this from happening listen to this.
Monday’s can often be bad for many people. The most amount of heart attacks happen on a Monday morning. This coming Monday is thought to be the most depressing day of the year.
Here’s a few things to cheer you up and also have been proven to help with depression and anxiety.
Writing stuff down. Journaling or just writing even keeping long lists of things to do and thoughts has been shown many times to help with mental health planning and generally feeling better and less anxious
Grab a decent note book and pen this weekend and start scribbling get those nasty thoughts off your chest and start planning. Plan ‘A’ and plan ‘B’
Sticking to plan ‘A’ is really what life is all about. We all need a plan ‘B’ it’s the back-up plan, what is plan ‘B’ really should be is how to get back into plan ‘A’ and make it a success. Never give up on your dreams.
Whilst plan ‘B’ is a good idea knowing you have a way out or ability to downgrade can make plan ‘A’ less likely to occur.
Stick to your guns.
Making either of these plans relies on not being too anxious or depressed. We can ensure we are less likely to suffer from anxiety and depression by following these principles;
Avoid inflammation and inflammation building habits
Increase fish oil consumption
Exercise keeping detailed logs of progression
Being outside which helps with everything really – getting back to nature – an interesting article in business insider explains more about the kinds of effects being outdoors has on our productivity and helping all things human. Roll on the forest wall paper. If you can’t get out for a country walk on the weekend.
People often call this grounding or earthing – there’s probably something in this pursuit which is helpful for mood state and mental health.
I’m certainly enjoying the 2 minutes additional day light each day we’re having. Even though it’s cold it’s certainly lighter. Using the light box in the morning can also help wakefulness and keeping a normal circadian rhythm. Something that becomes disrupted in the longer darker months for many people.
Eat your veggies – this has been shown to boost emotional well-being. It’s really true – eating more veggie has also been shown to increase skin tone which is associated with higher perception of attractiveness. Normally a cheaky Monday morning smile can blow the doldrums away. Packing in the carrots on the weekend might help with this.
Sleep is king – I recently discovered ‘weighted blankets’ I knew these would work cause years ago I used Victorian bed spreads in houses with no heating you’d need a few of them to stay warm. The combined weight of the blankets and bedspreads holds you down in a cosy cocoon. This in turn leads to deeper sleep especially in higher anxiety trait types or children.
Outside of the R5’s, Epson salt baths and proper sleep hygiene which you can gen up on in the sleep report these heavy blankets are a great option.
Socialising – expression of need.
Keeping a sense of play and adventure is hard if you are fatigued. That’s why I wrote about fatigue a couple of weeks ago and you can pick up on that in the blogs. I use adaptogens to help me stay fatigue resistant and they work. The studies are there and the real world try it and see is there too.
Adventure mindset is also hard to develop if you are anxious. Hence the phrase feel the fear and do it anyway. It’s funny how you can see the little anxieties in children and what you do to reassure them and start them on the path of adventure and confidence. I’ve gained confidence by watching my mum in her life. I remember the same anxieties I coach my own children through at the moment.
I’m often impressed by my mum Viv on a number of levels but one key area she’s really good at is making new friends and speaking to strangers….
“We’re not going to get to know anyone unless we go and talk to them”. Her confidence has come with practice. It takes guts to step forwards. If you don’t, you’ll limit your experiences
After all we only have One Life ™ and we have to retain Strength for Life ™ both phrases so important to me and the Amino Man ethos I trademarked them.
There’s a Chinese saying “Man who stands on hill waits a long time for a roasted Peking duck to fly into his mouth”
You gotta get up and ‘be first’ (to get to China Town) especially on blue Monday – that mindset might just offset some of the negative people or feelings that can creep in if we listen to the bad man or woman inside.
When you are tracking your training that can be the one thing which can be going well in the face of many other challenges in other spheres of life. We all need that at times. Something consistent we can always rely upon.
This week dumbbell complexes have crept back into the travel routine. These are great as most hotel gyms the dumbells only go up to 20, 24kg or 30kg max. The dumbbell complex is a series of exercises performance back to back before putting the weights back down again.
Even if you are pretty strong the 20’s will give you a good workout after the 4-6thset listed below.
There’re some really good ones on the end of the routines I posted the other day here’s 3 I did this morning;
Upright row, snatch, push press, lateral raise, squat push press, snatch. 6 reps, twice through. 30 seconds rest. After this some flyes, pullovers and presses then onto;
Curls, upright row, snatch, press, push press, laterals, kickbacks, squat under upright row and good mornings. 6 reps right through. Twice through 1 minute rest between cycles.
Then a leggy one; curls, upright row, lunges, snatchy, step ups, rear lunges, press ups, snatch, squat push press, jump squat.
6-10 reps on each – do something cardiovascular in-between sets. Travelling really is an opportunity to do more rather than less. Progress can be made on most trips. As long as you are fatigue resistant and immune stable.
Avoid the plastic eggs, meats and breads they serve up in the USA – oh and a new tip. A Buffalo platter is NOT wild buffalo meat, it’s chicken and chips in spicy sauce.
You can make these (dumbbell complexes) up. I learned direct of Javorek – crazy little honey eating master trainer from Ukraine. He loves his halva and herbal (adaptogenic) teas. You can pick up Complex conditioning off Amazon It’s a great read. The volume’s too high IMO but you can adjust that. I sat with him as he ate 500g honey and 4 croissants then he probably did 1000 lunges and presented all day. Quite a character. I bugged him all day for his secret adaptogenic herbal tea recipe. I’ll share that with you in another post.
If you have a High volume of training, honey and halva might help you. Halva is an almond paste with honey inside. Like a sort of weird Nougat.
In many ways staying fatigue free is about having an endurance mindset. You can’t have anything underlying physiological compromise for this to be super effective though. If you are pre-diabetic and eat whole grain pasta for lunch, good luck with staying awake in the afternoon grave yard shift. The insulin toxicity can literally put you in a blurred vision semi sleep state.
So good luck this Monday – roll on January.
Keep the spirits high and the adventure mindset active. Remembering nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Sleep tight, deeply and soundly if you are weighted down – worth a try if other strategies are not working for you.
Keep coaching those around you and stay strong and positive.
Warm up and used DB or BB complexes in your routines, your grip strength and endurance will thank you after a few weeks.
Remember plan B is as good as plan A – cause it is plan A just taking a little bit longer.
Get outside as much as you can and keep in touch.
If you want crispy duck get yourself to China town.
Remember we have One Life ™ and we need to retain Strength for Life ™
Thanks Viv, mum, for the ‘go get them’ mindset. X I’m passing it onto the little ones now.
I’ll be sending out another update later next week.
For now,
Matt