GET OUT OF THE HOUSE

It’s not so much exercise that we need in the winter to keep us going, but light. Natural light.

Studies show (and I won’t belabor you with links and names of studies here, those you can easily Google yourself) that sleep improves with natural light. Thinking improves with light. Creative abilities improve with light. Your health improves with light. Everything improves. It’s a win-win situation getting  natural/sun light every day.

I go through a definitive slump in the winter. Poor sleep, less writing oomph, less able to think through a problem. The works.

However, El Nino, the rainy weather blessing for California and the benign winter weather blessing for us here in the Northeast, is passing through. There is dim sunlight evanescing beyond the cloud cover this morning, and I am fighting an almost sleepless night’s inertia to hie myself out into the great outdoors and get some of it. Will it work? I don’t know, but I’m going to try. The outdoors here is great, and in the absence of the usual cold and snow this couch potato should take advantage of it, at least in the name of scientific experimentation.

After walking a couple miles I had definitely worked up an appetite but, I wondered, had the sunlight, trapped as it was behind that lone cloud, been strong enough to permeate into the melatonin producing area of my brain? That’s a good question. I’ll let you know if I sleep any better tonight.

In addition to the fresh air, sunshine, and exercise, I noticed that my brain was twinkling awake. It was telling me about things that should go into my stories. About a contest I was interested in entering, about a change I needed to make in my novel. I took deep breaths of mid-December air that had been mollified by the El Nino winds that perchance blew everyone some good, and thought, wow, this is heady stuff.

This nina is going to take advantage of El Nino’s sojourn in the cold climate of New England and get out of the house more. There’s too much to lose not to.