The Fall of Autumn

We have officially hit that time of year.  No, not pumpkin spice time or boot and fleece weather; we are in the period when the dropping temperatures meet the drop in daylight and hibernation doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.  Why?  Because for some of us the daylight is really what drives us and motivates us to get moving in all things, but especially with exercise.
 
When people ask me what is the “best” exercise, I always ask them what it is that they like to do.  If we like something, we are motivated to do it and do it consistently.  And consistency is the key to any healthy lifestyle, including exercise.  The next step is to make a plan and stick with it!  Put exercise in your planner as an appointment, put it on your to do list or, if you are me, go first thing in the morning before you have had a chance to talk yourself out of it.  Once it becomes a habit, you find you miss it when it isn’t there.
 
But no plan is perfect… no person is perfect… and no exercise is perfect.
 
So here we are a month into autumn and as expected I feel myself starting to fall off the wagon.  I knew it was coming… it comes every year like clockwork (yes, please expect more puns and plays on words… it is just too easy with this topic). 
 
The other day I reminded a friend that time is a consistent measure, but he reminded me that perception of time is the reality (think about a treadmill minute).   The 24-hour day is based on the earth around the sun.  For lack of a better term, it is man-made and not driven by our own internal clock or circadian rhythm.  One of the things that drive our internal clock is the presence and absence of daylight.  Think about trying to put a young child to bed in the summer when the sun is still visible in the sky.  Sure, maybe they are fighting going to sleep, but in reality they and their own physiology relate sunlight with wakefulness and darkness with sleep.
 
Darkness and sleep… ahhhh; so now here we are in late October.  At my current place on the map, sunrise is about 7:35am and it will extend out to about 7:48am before we lose an hour on our return to Standard Time.  By the end of the year that “extra” hour of moved daylight in the morning will be gone and sunrise will be after 7:30am again (I’m not really that good at knowing these things off the top of my head, thanks timeanddate.com for a really cool chart!). Add the shift of daylight with cooler temperatures and it is just hard to get out the door in the morning for a run. It isn’t “just me,” it is my physiology and my circadian rhythms that are altered.  Sleep and wake cycles drive us throughout the day as our body responds to its own physiology more readily than the numbers on the clock 
 
While complaining about it is nice and the extra sleep in a warm and comfortable bed is a bonus, the key is back in the second paragraph.  Altered weather and daylight, changes in physiology can be overcome. For me early morning runs have become either late morning runs on the weekends or after work runs during the week.  Another option is switching up the type of workout; take advantage of a strength training or yoga class indoors during the dark early morning hours.  Those are great cross-training activities that can pay dividends when the spring brings better weather.  Instead of going out for a meal, go out for runch (running lunch) and make the afternoon more productive.  Make a new plan. Find something new that you like and do it.  Don’t let autumn knock you off of your exercise perch.