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By this time in our winter season, most of us are becoming a bit weathered, so to speak. The holidays have come and gone, the New Year is old news, and the novelty of a Canadian winter is wearing thin. Even if you’ve made peace with the high snow-banks, short days, and low temperatures, you have to admit February is generally a month when many of us stay inactive indoors.

The dull days of frozen February provide little motivation to be active in a country where inactivity is already an issue year round. A survey conducted by the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute in 1999 shows that 64 percent of Canadians are still not active enough to reap the health benefits of a physically active lifestyle. Even children are sitting still; expending 400-per-cent less energy than their counterparts did 40 years ago.

We need to move - even amid the February blahs. In order to feel better and be healthier, we need to move our bodies. A study at Duke University found that intense bouts of exercise effectively reduce feelings of depression, tension, anger, and confusion. As well, according to countless other studies, even short spurts of moderate exercise can improve our outlook on life and make us less anxious. A gym membership is not required. Plenty of other opportunities, both practical and fun, can get us moving everyday - someone has to shovel the driveway, after all. Someone has to walk the dog. The point is exercise and activity need not be a rigid chore. Just get moving.

Inactivity leads to disease. But if that isn’t enough to motivate you, think of the lymph system. While mainstream medicine often ignores the lymphatic system, natural health experts say that its vitality is crucial to the health of the immune system, which will keep winter colds and flu at bay.

The lymphatic system includes a vast network of vessels and various lymphoid tissues and organs throughout the body. This system works to collect and eliminate toxic waste and bacteria from the tissues. It also returns filtered and cleansed fluids to the bloodstream. In fact, our bodies are designed to move about 50-percent more lymphatic fluid than blood. Unlike the circulatory system, in which the heart acts as a pump, the lymphatic system relies solely on muscle movement and breathing to flush and filter waste-filled fluids. Without movement the lymph system becomes clogged, backed up, and "blah."

Movement keeps our lymphatic system - our primary defence against bacteria, viruses, and fungus&healthy. Movement is a good preventive against a long list of diseases that can be attributed to a sluggish lymph system, including allergies, menstrual cramps, arthritis, prostate disorders, breast lumps, cancer, cellulite, sinus problems; the list goes on.

Movement affects every organ and cell in your body. So jump up and down, chase the cat, run up some stairs, or wave your arms around. I promise you’ll feel better. Take a walk, play a sport, or set up a routine of movement that you will like and stick to. Put some action into the month of February. You’ve got nothing to lose but the blahs.

Former editor of alive and Canada’s Healthy Living Guide, Sandra Tonn is a freelance natural health journalist, holistic health consultant, and natural health speaker in Vancouver, BC. E-mail sandra_tonn@telus.net.

Source: alive #256, February 2004