By Steve Noveshen, PT, MPT, OCS, physical therapy

It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s rainy. And that’s what makes it a great time to get some exercise. Here in the Northwest, I’d argue that winter is the most important season to stay physically active. Why winter? I’ll give you three good reasons:

1. Exercise brightens winter moods
   Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of winter depression, runs high among Portlanders, and exercise is a natural mood-brightener. Research consistently backs this up, often finding exercise to be as effective as taking an antidepressant. On a chemical level, exercise lowers stress hormones and releases endorphins, the brain’s feel-good chemicals. On an emotional level, getting up, getting out and accomplishing something good for yourself builds a sense of confidence and general well-being.
   
2. Exercise gives you more energy
   If gray skies leave you feeling too sluggish to exercise, consider this: Low activity and poor sleep quality are related. But the reverse is also true: Getting regular exercise improves sleep quality, helping you fall asleep sooner and get deeper, more rejuvenating sleep. When your body and mind are well rested, you feel more energized throughout the day.
   
3. Exercise curbs winter weight gain
   Winter meals tend to be heavier and higher in calories — and we’re not even talking about what happened over the holidays. This is no time to hibernate. Going for some calorie-burning and muscle-building exercise will help keep your metabolism humming and your weight in check.

Tips for exercising in winter

The best exercise in winter is whatever heart-thumping movement you enjoy enough to keep doing it. For the fun factor, I highly recommend combining exercise and social activity. Being with our buddies is important for our mental health, and especially so in winter, when we tend to be more isolated. Meeting up with friends for walks, workouts or team sports is an excellent way to stay active, engaged and motivated.

Here are some ideas for staying active rain or shine, inside or out:

Get outside when you can

Whenever you can get outside, go for it. A little natural daylight in the winter works wonders for your mood, and the healing benefits of connecting with nature have been widely documented. If the sun peeks out, you might even produce some natural vitamin D.

• Plan your sun breaks: A 100% chance of rain doesn’t mean it’s going to rain all day. Check your weather app for the expected breaks in the rain, and block out that dry spell for a walk outside. On days when the forecast looks mostly dry, plan a longer walk, hike or bike ride.
• Head to the mountain: When it’s raining here, it’s probably snowing up there. In just over an hour, you could be skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing or sledding.

Plan some indoor options

Some days, it’s just not great out there. Make a plan for those days. Having some fun indoor activities on tap — whether they’re part of your weekly routine or your rainy-day Plan B — will help you stick to a regular exercise schedule, weather or not.

• At home: Clear a spot in front of your TV, turn on YouTube, and turn your living room into your gym. Exercise along with free yoga, Pilates, stretching or strengthening videos, or turn on a music video and dance like a rock star.
• At work: Start your lunch break with 15 minutes of activity. Depending on the size of your workspace, you can walk the halls, climb the stairs, or do some squats or wall pushups. Lunch break’s too short? Break up long periods of sitting with short bursts of movement throughout the day.
• Around town: Water aerobics, weight training, salsa dancing — whatever you’ve been wanting to try, there’s probably a class nearby. If team sports are more your thing, indoor soccer leagues are all over the city. I love these options in the winter, not just for the physical activity, but also for the social engagement. We’re more motivated to show up when we’re part of a class or team.

Just keep going

Motivation runs naturally high in January, but maintaining motivation as winter wears on is a bigger challenge. Using a fitness app can help. Or sticking stars on a calendar for each exercise day can be surprisingly motivating as the constellations accumulate.

On days when you’re really not feeling it, remember that if you can just muster the energy to change into your sneakers, you’ve already done the hardest part. Once your workout is underway — and especially when it’s over — everything feels so much better.

It’s just a fact that people in Portland are less active in the winter — we don’t have the daylight, or often the umph, to make exercise happen. But here’s another fact: Doing as much as you can in the winter will help you do as much as you want in the summer. On these long, dark days, the bright promise of an active summer may be the best motivator of all.

Steve practices at our Beaverton location on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and at our South location on Tuesdays and Thursdays.