We only have to wait a few more weeks until the winter equinox on June 21 strikes. The days will start to get longer again as we creep our way back into the warmer, summer months; it still feels like an age away though. When the daylight hours pass whilst you’re inside all day at work and it’s dark by the time you get home, it’s dead easy for the winter blues to kick in. For some the winter blues can get pretty serious, so much so that in 1985 an official diagnosis was given to those affected by symptoms that included tiredness, fatigue, depression, decreased activity levels, overeating (especially carbohydrate dense food) with associated weight gain, crying spells, irritability, trouble concentrating and body aches.

Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD) is a type of depression and tends to occur and reoccur more commonly in the winter months when the daylight hours are fewer. SAD seems to develop from inadequate bright light, with those suffering recording very low blood vitamin D levels. Testing vitamin D levels is now one of the ways used to diagnose the condition. Researchers have found that bright light changes the chemicals in the brain, exactly how continues to be studied. But statistics taken from the American population show that about 20% of adults have some (but not always all) of the symptoms of SAD.A fifth of New Zealand’s population base would be the equivalent of nearly all those living in the South Island. In fact, people living in New Zealand are very vulnerable as the incidence of SAD increases for people who are living further away from the equator. Although for countries like Greenland, Canada and the Antarctic that are geographically further away from the equator than NZ, SAD seems less prevalent where there is snow on the ground.

Light therapy for about four hours per day, ten times the intensity of ordinary domestic lighting has shown to help combat the low vitamin D levels in the blood and improve the other SAD symptoms but how can you help as a personal trainer? Can you help to stave off SAD as well as the other long list of conditions that includes diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, obesity, coronary heart disease? Well, maybe you can. Maybe you can integrate some light therapy into your client’s exercise programme? Maybe you can educate and motivate them through the winter months, keeping their spirits high until the longer light filled days arrive.

Many of your clients will be leaving home in the dark and returning home in the dark; would some of them be able to swap their evening session for a daytime session instead? If your client could take a flexible lunch break and see you for an hour at some stage during their working day, you could potentially conduct their warm up outside, use stairs, walls, courtyards to deliver elements of their workout or move the entire workout outside and have for instance an al fresco boxing session.

Knowing that regular exercise positively affects mood, mild depression, sleeping patterns and weight control; keeping your clients engaged and achieving mini goals throughout the winter could be the key to balancing out the affects of SAD. You could write a specific ‘winter programme’ that replaces a few of their mid week evening sessions with some weekend day time sessions. Maybe swapping a few indoor exercises with some outdoor alternatives. How many can you think of? With skipping ropes, dyna bands, dumb bells, swiss balls, stretch mats, med balls and of course good old fashioned body weight, what could you do in 45 minutes? Making some small changes to way you work with your client could make a massive difference to them. You’d be up for that, wouldn’t you?