Living Well

Fighting the Wintertime Blues

Cold winter days do not have to mean dealing with the depression that comes with seasonal affective disorder. Columnist Ann Brennan shares how she fought back and now enjoys Maryland winters.

It is cold outside. It is the kind of cold that has many of us avoiding the outdoors at all costs, moving from car to house or office as quickly as possible. And if we are exercising at all, it is in our homes or at a gym.  For most of us, the winter months can mean putting on weight and losing the conditioning we have built up over the rest of the year. Worse still it can mean depression and moodiness brought on by seasonal affective disorder (SAD).  According to Medicine Net, “your mood is influenced by a complex web of relationships between sunlight, melatonin (the sleep hormone) and serotonin (the hormone associated with wakefulness and elevated mood). As darkness falls, your melatonin levels naturally increase. And as the morning …

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Living Well

Staying Mentally Fit Through Exercise, and Reaching Out for Help

Staying fit and healthy does not always refer to our bodies. Our mental health is just as important.

As a fitness writer I have the opportunity each week to speak to dozens of athletes. One of the questions I ask most often is why, “Why do you run?”  Though I sometimes receive something along the lines of, “to fit into my skinny jeans,” more often than not the answer is some variation of, “I run for my sanity.” This is the answer that is most true for me as well. Just this morning, after reading the Grand Jury Report about Jerry Sandusky, I had to go for a run. I had to run the stress and sadness out.  An hour on the roads did that for me.  I came home still not happy that children have been the victims of such horrible acts, but able to cope with it. Whether it is the endorphins that are produced when we run or the ability to spend an …

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P Patch: Pioneers, Peeves and Passions

Greenbelt Museum Offers a Walk Through Our History

The museum house reopens this Sunday and takes visitors back into our city's early days.

Greenbelt Museum's historic house reopens this weekend to resume its Sunday hours, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., offering a walk through the frugal lifestyles and history of residents from 1937 to 1952. In our video, museum director Megan Searing Young touches on the highlights. For the full tour and historical reminiscence, visitors can drop in on Sundays without reservations or can book a group tour in advance. General admission is $3. Adults 55 and older pay $2. Children under 12 pay $1. Friends of the Greenbelt Museum are always free.

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Holiday Blues -- Don't Let It Stop You

Getting down this time of year is more normal than you might think.

Ever get the blues this time of year? The holiday joy is for some often a little less cheery than other times of the year. But it's no wonder. "Around the holiday season people seem to get down and get the blues," said Julia Frank, a case manager and counselor with the Greenbelt Assistance in Living program. This isn't the same as clinical depression, though the symptoms can mirror it. Some of those symptoms include fatigue, a lack of or too much sleep, guilt, a lack of interest in pleasure, increased stress, grief and sad, blue or depressed feelings. Frank said there are lots of different causes for these feelings. Here are some of them: "You tend to remember those people during the holidays," Frank said. "It's compounded by the fact that…

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