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Get over the winter blues with a pilates session

Feeling down this winter? The seasonal funk affects lots of people, but pilates can help you cheer up!

WASHINGTON — You know it's tough when your overall mood is as low as the temperature! For some people, the shorter and colder days of the winter months can seem to drag on forever.  

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a real condition, a depression that peaks around this time of year.  

According to the Mayo Clinic, the symptoms may include:

  • Feeling depressed most of the day, nearly every day
  • Losing interest in activities you once enjoyed
  • Having low energy
  • Having problems with sleeping
  • Experiencing changes in your appetite or weight
  • Feeling sluggish or agitated
  • Having difficulty concentrating
  • Feeling hopeless, worthless or guilty
  • Having frequent thoughts of death or suicide

So it's a great time to jump start your body with a workout that can boost your mood along with your health.

Club Pilates Instructor Sarah Mullen Hannett says, "By practicing pilates, those exercises will elevate your cortizone levels, your endorphins, and by doing that it will decrease the anxieties that people experience during those feelings of depression during this time of year."

The Club Pilates classes also have a focus on better breathing techniques, which is something that participants can use on a regular basis to help reduce everyday anxiety.  The workouts feature a machine called a 'reformer' that offers a full body, low impact workout.

Hannett stopped by the Great Day studios to explain the atmosphere of the Club Pilates classes, "We have 12 reformers in our classes so it's a really nice community setting, it's so neat to see when we open a new studio that these people just meet each other and a month later they're exchanging names and information."

Credit: WUSA9

SEE ALSO: GREAT DAY WASHINGTON CLUB PILATES SEGMENT

Hannett recently opened a new Club Pilates studio in Reston, Va.

"Our studios were founded on the idea that Pilates is for everybody and every-bodies, so men and women of all ages," adds Hannett.

The workout is also beneficial for people who have orthopedic issues and other physical limitations.  Club Pilates offers a free intro class to get started.

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