Moving through Midlife | Helping Midlife Women Move Better and Feel Better

165 | Slowing Down in January: Embracing Winter's Pace for Better Health

• Courtney McManus

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January invites us to embrace a slower pace rather than an overwhelming reset. By honoring nature's rhythms, we reflect on past habits, adopt intentional goals, and cultivate a healthier lifestyle throughout the winter months. 

• Embracing a relaxed January instead of a rush for new resolutions 
• Seasonal rhythms promote rest and introspection 
• Intentional goal setting allows for sustainable habit changes 
• Morning routines can set a positive tone for the day 
• Mindful eating enhances digestion and prevents overeating 
• Slower workouts foster better form and strength 
• Self-care practices reconnect us with our needs 
• Eating seasonally aligns our diet with winter nourishment 
• Grounding in nature improves mental well-being 
• Encouragement to listen to one's body and align with personal rhythms

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Courtney:

Welcome to Moving Through Midlife. I am your host, courtney, a personal trainer and movement specialist who wants to help you move through midlife with more grace. Each week, we will discuss ways we can show up better for ourselves and our children without the burnout, children without the burnout. We will focus on overall health through habit stacking to help increase energy, provide movement snacks to help you move more throughout the day, while also moving your body more, and learn from professionals on moving through midlife with ease so that you can feel confident with aging. Gracefully, grab your earbuds and join me on a leisurely walk while we discuss moving through midlife. Welcome to 2025.

Courtney:

It is a new year and maybe you are feeling that this means that you need to really start re-energizing yourself or refresh. I keep seeing all of these different things that you know obviously, the new year, the new you, but I'm also seeing restart, refresh, all of these things that are going to try to draw you into something different than where you were. And I understand that this can come because we have just come off a holiday and many of us have overeaten, maybe we got out of our routines, and it can be this want or this need to just kind of regroup and start fresh and new. But I want you to take a different approach and hear me out first, because this does not mean that we're going to lose healthy habits. It just means we're going to lean in a little bit differently. So what if, instead, we slowed down in our January and we embrace winter's pace? For better health, it is important for us to take the cues from nature and during this time, this is a time to rest, reflect and move at a slower pace. This doesn't mean that you have to abandon your healthy habits. It's about adapting them to the season you're in. If you look around you right now, you are going to see that the trees are bare, animals might be hibernating and our daylight hours are shorter. So when I look at this, one thing I know and you may even feel this you want to sleep a little bit longer, and that's okay. That's a good thing. Now is a time to give your body that opportunity to rest and sleep in if it needs it.

Courtney:

We are, even though some of us are fighting against it. We are a part of nature. We should be getting our rhythms from nature. We should be spending more time in nature. All of these things are going to help us live a healthier life. It's not the next supplement, it's not the next diet, it's not all of those things that we are being pushed to consume and use. It really is more about getting back to who we are and who we are meant to be, and a lot of that has to do with aligning ourselves with the seasonal rhythms that are happening all around us.

Courtney:

Instead of restarting everything full force, why not take this time to reflect on what worked last year and begin to set intentional goals for new sustainable habits goals for new sustainable habits. One thing that I always work with my clients and with my community is focusing on one thing each month. If we can practice a habit 80% of the time, we are making a greater impact than if we were to go in and try to change 10 things all at once and only be consistent 30 or 40% of the time. So let's look at slowing down this month and really paying attention to what feels right, and if we can do that 80% of the time, then we're going to be setting ourselves up for greater success. So today, I'm going to share with you a few tips that you can start to implement in your day to help you slow down this January, down this January. The first one has to do with your morning routine. If you wake up and you are rushing through your morning, you're setting yourself up for a fight or flight type position. Now, when we wake up, our cortisol is naturally going to be higher at this time of day. So that is a good thing.

Courtney:

Our cortisol. We need some. It's that Goldilocks theory Too little is bad, too much is bad. We need just a right amount of cortisol, because cortisol is a hormone and it helps to control your metabolism, it helps to regulate blood sugar and blood pressure and it also helps to decrease inflammation. What occurs is many of us get stuck in this fight or flight because we are constantly on the go and moving too quickly. Then we're also drinking coffee, which is also going to be a stimulant, which is going to increase cortisol, which, again, like I said, is not a bad thing, but too much can be a bad thing in the past. But you can also go to formfitonlinecom act slash cortisol dash checklist and you will be able to access a checklist on your cortisol and you can check through there to see where you are. Is there and this is not everything that creates a cortisol. This is not something that shows you every way your cortisol increases, but it's all the common ones and if you look at that checklist and you see that you've got a ton of checks, then that is something that you can start working with.

Courtney:

Okay, so, taking a few extra minutes in the morning and this can be as simple as five minutes you will hear me talk about five minutes, how five minutes can make your life healthier in different ways. You can work out in just five minutes a day. You can just wake up five minutes earlier in the morning and it's going to help you be able to take a breath a little bit you know more of a breath in the morning and help you move through your day a little bit better. So in that morning, those few extra minutes, those five extra minutes that you give yourself in the morning, you can be doing something like deep breathing, you can journal or you can sip that warm beverage. All of these things are going to help keep your cortisol levels lower. Because you're giving yourself just a few minutes. Make sure that you're not rushing straight into your screens or your to-do list. This time should be all about you and what you can do for yourself to feel good, to rest, to relax for just five minutes. If you do want to have some ideas, go back and listen to episode 17, and it's mom's morning routine where I kind of go through some different things that you can practice. And it's mom's morning routine where I kind of go through some different things that you can practice.

Courtney:

The second thing that I would recommend you focus on slowing down this month is your eating habits. The first thing you want to make sure that you are doing is always sit down when you eat. It's going to help you to naturally slow down eat. It's going to help you to naturally slow down. Sit down when you eat and chew your food more thoroughly. This can be really hard and this is something that I have my clients do, where they'll have like five almonds and they want they're going to eat those almonds as slow as they possibly can, just to kind of test yourself to see how slow do you eat.

Courtney:

One thing that we are doing when we slow down our eating is we're improving our digestion right away. It allows the body to determine what is being eaten. So I am not going to give you the science about this and I apologize because I just don't feel like looking it up right now, but I know that there's like a gland or something back in the back of our throat so that when we're eating, it identifies the food that we are eating whether it's a protein, a fat or a carbohydrate and enzymes are created to help digest and get the nutrients out of whatever it is that you're eating. So when we are eating quickly, sometimes there's a miscommunication that is occurring so we may not be able to digest the food as well. We may not be able to digest the food as well by slowing down our eating, making sure that we're doing everything nice and thoroughly. It is going to help improve the digestion and nutrient absorption, which is everything that we need, you know, especially with the nutrients, it is so imperative that we're getting everything out of the food that we are eating. It also is going to help you prevent overeating. It takes about 20 minutes for our stomach to recognize that it's full. So the longer that you take to eat your breakfast, that you take to eat your breakfast, it's going to provide or I'm sorry any meal. It's going to provide the opportunity for your stomach to say, hey, I'm full, so that you stop eating. People who do this alone can decrease their weight. So if you are interested in losing weight, try this one thing and it can make a huge effect on your weight loss, because you will notice that you naturally start to eat less.

Courtney:

Another way that you can focus on slowing down is slowing down your workouts. There are a few reasons we want to slow down our workouts. One is, if we are rushing through a workout, we tend to not notice our form, and when you're not paying attention to your form, you are increasing your risk of injury. Form. You are increasing your risk of injury. The other thing is, when we tend to move quickly through movements, it is using momentum rather than using muscle, and it is imperative for us to work on building strength and we need muscle for that. So slowing down movements is going to help you really fire on those muscles more and get them more involved in the movements that you are doing. It's also going to help build the strength, like I mentioned, and mobility, even through intentional movements, so that you're really working on lengthening muscles. So if we go nice and slow into a deep squat, we're working on lengthening those muscles further than what we would do if we did short and fast movements. When we do exercises this way, we end up activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps to promote with recovery. Again, there's another thing to also make sure that you're focusing on is if you're working out, recovery is actually more important than the workout itself, so make sure that you are taking time to recover after an intense workout.

Courtney:

I know this is one that gets overplayed a ton, but self-care is imperative and we don't all have to do it the same way. I am going to say that warm baths are a great one, but, listen, it's not for everyone and it's not for everyone at every stage of their life. It's not for everyone and it's not for everyone at every stage of their life, but there are some things that you can think about that are going to help with self-care. So one thing about warm baths is you can naturally go into an Epsom salts, which are going to help with muscle relaxation, but here's the thing. So Epsom salts is just magnesium, but here's the thing. So Epsom salts is just magnesium.

Courtney:

Another way you can do this if you're not going to take that warm bath, to kind of help relax those muscles, take a magnesium supplement at night. It's going to help with anxiety. It's going to help with relaxing the muscles, it will help with blood pressure regulation. It helps with so many things, and most of us are not getting the recommended amount of magnesium in our diet. So adding a supplement is not going to be a problem. It's something actually I would encourage everybody to do, because it shouldn't bother you. Now there are certain types of magnesium that are recommended. You could do a quick Google search and find out which one you might need based on your issues, things that you're struggling with. So then the other one is meditation or mindfulness, to clear your mind and reduce stress. This can be done. It does not have to be done first thing in the morning, it can be done right before you go have to be done first thing in the morning, it can be done right before you go to bed in the evening. Just sit quietly in your bed and kind of rehash the day. Another one would be grounding practices. This is one that I also love to do. I think it's a great one to set yourself up for.

Courtney:

Success in the morning is just going outside barefoot, walking on the grass and feeling that sensation. I will say you know, darn it. The other day I did this. I ran out to the mailbox and I was barefoot. I stepped on a bee. Oh my goodness, I got stung in between my kinky toe and that next toe. I got stung right there by that bee. My whole foot swole up. It was terrible. So be cognizant of what's around you before you go outside and stand barefoot. But it really can be a wonderful thing. The other thing that you could do is just go outside and look at the don't look at the sun, but you know, just kind of go outside and look around you, let those eyes relax. Well, that's one thing that I talk about. We spend so many times staring at our screens that our eyes are like in this bicep curl the whole time. So getting outside and looking at something far away is going to help relax our eyes. So just going out in the morning and looking at something far away in that natural sunlight is going to help relax our eyes, help our body get what it needs, especially first thing in the morning of that sunlight, so that it kind of really helps set us up for success with our circadian rhythm.

Courtney:

Another tip is in regards to more of a winter adapted habit, and this is where you focus on eating seasonally. So instead of eating cold salads or cold smoothies, look for things that are warm and nourishing. You could have lots of roasted vegetables. This is a great time for thick, comforting soups. It doesn't mean that they have to be unhealthy. A lot of thick soups don't require cream. A cream is a wonderful thing, but you can create that creaminess just by blending with an immersion blender, just by blending certain vegetables into your soup. It's going to create that same mouthfeel that cream would produce With those warming foods.

Courtney:

Another one is look at warming drinks. I recently posted on the blog a hot chocolate smoothie recipe, and it is a warm smoothie, very healthy for you. Lots of good things, but instead of doing cold milk, I used warm milk and then created the smoothie that way. Warm teas are amazing. Think about drinking more teas. Teas are so good for you. Green tea the antioxidants are amazing for you. There's lots of health benefits for drinking green tea, so that would be another one that I would recommend you focus on in these winter months. All of these things are going to help with slowing down, and slowing down is great for your health. It helps to reduce cortisol and stress, promoting better immune function.

Courtney:

We have just come off the holidays and we are also in a time when illness is huge. I will tell you that I have been sick. I had a fever, I don't know if it was flu. Flu is definitely going around in my household, but it did not last very long. But unfortunately, right after I had that fever, I turned around and got food poisoning. So I have been down sick myself. But all of these things can help with your immune function, making sure that you're slowing down and taking the time to rest and recover, what our body needs and also what we need.

Courtney:

At this time we as women, and many of us being mothers, we do not give ourselves much grace. It is imperative for us to reconnect with our needs and emotions. We have come off a season of moving very quickly. As much as the holiday is meant for fun and relaxing and comfort and tradition for many of the women in the household and mothers, we are the ones that are creating that environment for everyone else. It does not mean that we are always experiencing that as well. It's many late nights, it's lots of running around, it's a lot of stress on not only physical stress of, you know, extra cooking, extra baking, extra shopping, extra doing everything for everyone else. You know, if you have families that you care for, you might be feeding grandparents and children and everybody's coming to your house and you're also trying to keep the spirit, the magical spirit for everyone, and that can be very draining everyone, and that can be very draining. And we then turn around and now we're racing to try to get in, you know, the best shape of our lives or whatever it is that you might be striving for in the new year, and it's, it's just too much. It's. You need some time to just breathe, reconnect to who you really are and what you really want.

Courtney:

It doesn't mean that this is not a time for you to try to positively change. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying take a softer approach to it, slow down, do it a little bit differently, see if your body enjoys it a little bit more. And yeah, that's basically it. So take this month to slow down with me, practicing the seasons, do what feels right, listen to your body. It does guide you along the way. If I tell you nothing else, I will say this over and over again. If you could take a few minutes every day to listen to yourself and what your body needs rather than listening to everyone else out there. It will guide you. It will guide you, I promise you. And understand that slowing down does not mean doing nothing. It means, instead, being intentional and aligning with the season's rhythm.

Courtney:

Intentional and aligning with the season's rhythm Try one slow living habit this week and notice how it impacts your health and your mindset, and then feel free to join us over in the FormFit community. It is Move Better, feel Better over on Facebook. And then, just if you could make sure to subscribe to this podcast, leave a review they help me tremendously and then tune in in the next couple of weeks where we will be talking about other health focused insights. Hope you all have a wonderful day, make sure to keep moving and happy new year. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found something to take away to help you practice healthier habits, move more or handle the midlife and aging with grace. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave us a review to help us reach more. Moms just like you Head to movingthroughmidlifecom to join the free community or learn how you can move more and feel better in your daily life.