The January blues, aka post-holiday depression, seasonal depression, winter blues, or what I like to call temporary insanity, can be a common occurrence after the festive season comes to an end. It's natural to feel a little down after the excitement and celebration of the holidays but add in the shorter days, some extra weight many of us carry into the new year, and temperatures as cold as a witches tit, and it's no wonder we're collectively depressed. As we inch closer to Blue Monday, the …
How Do you Celebrate 30 Days Not Drinking?
Here’s a funny/not funny quagmire I found myself in recently. I quit drinking for 30 days. That’s not the dilemma. No, the dilemma was, how do I celebrate the milestone once I get there? Initially, during week one of not drinking, I had it planned that on Day 30 I would uncork a nice Ripasso and celebrate: by getting totally inebriated. My train of thought was that I’d drag my ass through 30 miserable days of teetotaling, hating every moment I had to deny myself a nice glass of wine to unwind in …
Operation Darwin, A Pandemic Battle Plan for Sanity
Well this is it, the second wave is officially upon us. It's time to suit up in your best leisure wear, tie your hair up in a scrunchie and cue up Ride of the Valkries. We are heading into the final months of 2020 and if this year has taught us anything, it’s that if it can get worse, it will. As I mentioned previously, we need to treat our mental health like a full time job this year because it is. This hasn't been just another run of the mill year after all. Between the pandemic, …
Chasing Happy When You’re Sad
Finding happiness when life is running smoothly is easy. Being happy when you're sad, or when life is treating you like excrement on the bottom of it's giant cosmic shoe, is an entirely different story. It also begs the question, why on earth would you want to be happy when you're sad? Aren't you just suppressing your emotions by pretending your life doesn't suck a million lemons right now? The answer, as you might expect, is not black and white. Happiness is an emotion, and like all …
When is a Race Not a Race? When It’s Fun!
This post is brought to you by the makers of MOTRIN® This past weekend, I joined 10,300 of my closest friends in Ottawa to run a 5K race. Obviously, I don’t really have that many friends, but since running is largely a solitary pursuit, it always feels good to join a community of runners all chasing down a common goal. I play a lot of head games to motivate myself to keep running, but when I’m in a race I rely on the people I’m with to push me through. Sometimes it’s friends, sometimes it’s …
