Me, personally, I’m a summer person. But we have a lot to look forward to come the winter months. We have autumnal landscapes, stepping on crispy leaves, wrapping up warm, bonfire night, toasting marshmallows around the fire, fireworks, spooky season, Christmas markets, hot chocolate, mulled wine, Christmas lights, secret Santa, Christmas themed training, and snow if you’re lucky. We have all of this to look forward to! How could you not be excited?

Well, amongst the seasonal cheer, the days become colder and darker. Our deadlines start piling up and often for no particular reason, we can start to feel a bit “bleh”. Have you ever felt this way? There’s nothing that you can pinpoint, but your motivation has hit the gutter and you’re laying in bed at two o’clock in the afternoon dreaming of a cool OJ beside the beach. Whilst you’re having an existential crisis, your housemates are jumping for joy over Christmas films and planning their trip to the Christmas market and you’re wondering how you can feel so down. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s valid.

Scientifically, we do receive less naturally occurring vitamin D and serotonin in the autumn and winter. The sun naturally releases them and with less sunlight hours, this can impact our mood, appetite, sleep and motivation. We probably spend more time indoors due to the wet, cold and grim weather outside. More time stuck indoors can lead to more time scrolling on social media, comparing.

It can also be a time where we again mourn the loss of our nearest and dearest who are no longer with us and aren’t able to share the festivities this year.

There’s nothing worse than knowing exercise will improve your mood but not having the motivation to move. Or knowing your veggies will probably help that sick feeling in your stomach, but all you want is that tub of Nutella. You’re not alone, but you’re also not stuck. If you’re feeling this way, chances are there’s also someone in your class, team or office are feeling this way too.

If you’re like me and already dreaming of summer months, we need to start living in the moment. If we spend six months of the year dreaming of the other six months of the year, we’re basically wishing our lives away. Sometimes life can be pants and things happen that are out of our control. For that very reason, we need to make the most of what we can control. And when we’re feeling down, it can be really difficult to notice the good things and the positivity that is around us.

Firstly, I’m of course here to tell you that you have your cheer family waiting for you in the gym. Even if you feel like you don’t have best friends on the team, or feel like you wouldn’t be missed because you’re not in the point stunt group, or on the front row for jumps or have a speciality tumble pass; you deserve your spot on that TEAM. Emphasis on the team. It takes at least four people to put up an average stunt. You take out any one of those people and the stunt would not make it off the floor. YOU MATTER.

Now I know, trust me I know, how hard it is to get dressed for training once you’re home and settled, laying under that fluffy blanket. And I know that you know that exercise makes us feel good; from interacting with other humans, getting those serotonin and other happy hormones flowing, pushing our bodies to achieve some pretty awesome stuff – it makes us feel good. Even when you’ve had a tough day and your tired, trust me, you’ll feel better once you’ve been to the gym. And if you feel like things are getting too much at the moment, tell your coach. Ask for a quiet word away from the team. They want you to be at your best and they’ll help you get there. As talented as our coaches are, they’re not psychic, but they do care. If they know what’s going on, they can keep that in mind when coaching you and put things in place if necessary.

I also think it’s important to have things in our diaries or calendars to look forward to each week. These can be small or big, but they keep us present and ensure we live every week throughout the year, we’re not just living for that summer holiday. So, I’m going to share some autumn/winter friendly ideas in and outside of the cheer gym.

• Organise a social event for your team. For example a bowling evening, Christmas meal, watching a pantomime or comedy night.
• Go on a woodland walk and look at the autumnal colours before they fade away.
• Date night! Go for a nice meal with your significant other, your best friends or even a family member, share the love!
• Go watch a new film in the cinema, or have a movie night at home making your own popcorn. Not a fan of popcorn? Make some smores – a biscuit (I recommend digestives), a couple of pieces of chocolate and a toasted marshmallow (if you’re not boujee enough for a firepit, you can toast them with a kebab stick over your hob. Just make sure you’ve soaked the sticks in water first, so they don’t set alight).
• Check out your local Christmas market and Christmas lights.
• Christmas themed training session. Get planning your outfit now! Are you going to go in a Christmas jumper, dress like a reindeer, a polar bear or a Christmas tree? Or are you going to recreate The Nativity? Get creative but make sure it’s training friendly.
• Bake your own gingerbread people and if it takes your fancy, some mulled wine.
• Organise a Secret Santa with your team. You can either put a £5 limit or make it so you can only shop in the middle of Lidl (or Aldi).
• If you get snow made sure you find somewhere to go sledging. I feel like we don’t know how much we enjoy sledging until we find a prime sledging spot.
• Does your local town have any seasonal events? Here in Manchester we have Lightopia, but also in my local garden centre they’ve lit up the grounds in lovely colours and I imagine this is common throughout the UK.

There I’ve named about fifteen ideas, and hopefully you can think of some more. Think back to when I mentioned having something each week to look forward to. Having a day trip or an evening activity like this per week will give you something to look forward to all whilst making memories. And here’s about four months’ worth to go through. Many of these activities you can do independently, with friends, family or teammates. Let’s take control of these winter months and make them count!

I hope you’ve found something useful in this month’s blog post. As always, if there is anything in particular that you’d like us to cover, drop us a message on any of our socials. If you would like to feature online, tag us in your photos and use the

hashtags #CFHTT and #UpsideDownTime

Ta’ra,

Rach x

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