We often hear about the dog days of summer, but what of a January in Saskatchewan.
Coming on the heels of what is always a hectic holiday season, one where we all tend to over indulge in foods which are not necessarily on the list of best choices for better health, the first month of the year might be best called the ‘bear days of winter’, since those great beasts tend to over eat for a month or so, and then crawl into a den to sleep away the winter.
It sounds like a pretty good approach to January, and I suspect many of us thought about simply turning off the alarm Monday and crawling back under the covers rather than embarking on another year in the office.
It is always a challenge when the sun is not up until we are into our second pot of coffee in the morning, and has dipped out of the sky before we trudge home after work each day, to get in the mood to do more than cocoon on the chesterfield and watch hockey, or read the latest edition of the local newspaper.
But we should try to be active.
And that is the thrust behind January being Active Living Month in the city.
It’s not that Yorkton lacks in things to do, even in January.
While some, such as hockey and curling come with a definite higher cost, and restrictions regarding when participation is possible, there are plenty of low cost options, and several opportunities which are flexible in terms of when one can undertake them.
The list of activities is truly a long one (see many outlined in related article this issue), but it is not the specific thing a person chooses to do that matters.
It is simply good for our individual health, and that of the broader community, to get out and get moving.
This is not a new idea.
ParticipACTION, as an example, is a national non-profit organization, originally launched as a Canadian government program in the 1970s, to promote healthy living and physical fitness. It shut down due to financial cutbacks in 2001, but was revived on February 19, 2007 with a grant of $5 million from the Canadian federal government.
Active Living Month is simply another initiative with the same general goal.
So for those who want a reasonable New Year’s resolution, even if you set it a few days late, just get up off the chesterfield a night or two a week, and do something active.
That can be a walk around the block on a crisp January day, a round of winter disc golf at Patrick Park, cross country skiing at Deer Park, or an evening of badminton at the Gloria Hayden Centre, or steel tip darts at the Legion. Again it’s not so much what as just being active. Try it, you just might find you develop a healthy new habit in 2016.
