Hey Team,

Well, it’s finally here! Fall is upon us after a long extended summer. The leaves are changing colors; there is a crispness in the morning air, and frost is appearing on my windshield. The temperature has dropped at least 20 to 30°, and my grass is starting to turn.

One thing about the changing seasons is, change itself. As we continue the annual progression, it is also an excellent opportunity to change our patterns.

What do I mean by patterns? In our lives, we have a set routine that we walk through each day. Often, the changing season creates a new routine for us to make. For example, when winter strikes, we might have to get up earlier to warm the truck, scrape the windshield, or shovel snow.

The change in season creates an excellent opportunity for change in ourselves. With this natural progression, we have a good chance to develop new patterns that allow us to be successful and healthy in our lives. Today we will touch on five ways to feel great this fall.

So let’s dive in...

1.     MOBILITY! Other times we overlook that our lack of mobility requires us to use more energy. For example, if we lack hip extension while walking, it shortens our stride length, and we have to take more steps at a higher cost. Another example would be the lack of knee mobility or requiring us to stand with the knee bent. This bent knee posture requires us to use more muscle activity and leads to more fatigue. So one of the best strategies to feeling great this fall is to improve our overall mobility. Common areas that lack mobility for individuals over 50 are the neck, low back, hip, and ankle. Improving mobility to these joints today will significantly help you feel awesome tomorrow.

2.      NUTRITION! Another overlooked area of our lives is improving our overall nutrition. But this sounds daunting. So much nutritional information is available on the Internet, on television, from friends and family, or others. But it gets down to the simple facts. We will feel better overall if we eat more vegetables, less sugar, and less processed foods. So one way to help with your nutrition today is to add a vegetable to every meal. Preferably the vegetable choice would be a green one. Most green vegetables have many vitamins, minerals, and fiber that keep us at top performance.

3.    MENTAL STRESS! How do we improve our mental stress? I have many daily demands in my regular life; work, family, money, and health. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with our daily tasks. Two strategies have been proven to help people with their mental stress. The first is practicing gratitude. What are you genuinely grateful for today? Who are you thankful for today, and why? Each morning, writing down what you are most grateful for will assist your mental stress and help you appreciate the positives in life and stop only looking at the negatives. The second strategy is planning. Often we get overwhelmed because we have too many things to do and not enough time. What are things that you can accomplish today, this week, or this month? Making a plan and setting time in your day to execute that plan will give you a greater chance of accomplishing the things that are needed or wanted. This also helps relieve some of the day-to-day mental stress.

4.     LISTEN! After a fun summer of working outside, going for walks, possibly water skiing… Once things calm down, it is easy to start noticing different pains in your body. Listening is critical because your body tells you it’s necessary to take care of these aches and pains. Do you have shooting knee pain? Do you have shoulder pain that doesn’t allow you to sleep on one side? Or what about a stiff back the more you walk around the grocery store? All of these injuries are telling you they need help. They continue to compound the longer you wait to take care of them. Fall is an excellent time to review these aches and pains and make positive steps to crack these from becoming significant injuries.

5.    DRINK MORE WATER! It seems funny to have this as one of the top ways to start feeling great, but it’s true! Any time we go through a day and realize that we have not had enough water, overall, we tend to get headaches and feel rundown. What is the impact of being optimally hydrated? Well, it’s more energy, less fatigue, and fewer aches and pains. Water is essential to all of the joints, muscles, and tissues of the body; therefore, when deprived, the body panics. This panic leads to increased aches and pains, and headaches. So try it today; significantly increase your water content. How do you do that? Get a large jug you can carry around daily, such as an empty milk jug. Start purposely drinking water to overly hydrate yourself, and you’ll be surprised by the impact!

Overall, this change in the season is an excellent opportunity to start changing our patterns. Today we presented five great tips to help you feel fantastic! Please take advantage of them now. What can you apply today to better impact your life and the people around you tomorrow? More energy, fewer aches and pains, and an improved mood will help your life.

Feel free to contact me or leave a comment on this post today if you need assistance finding the proper direction with any of these five great tips. Thanks for reading.

See you next time, Team.