By Coach Cheyenne

Let’s talk moods. Everyone has their highs and their lows. I deal with this every day. I work
with the people that have the biggest mood changes…teenagers. According to dictionary.com,
a mood is a noun and is a state or quality of feeling at a particular time. I read this and thought,
Yes! because I see ‘at a particular time’, which means that a mood can change.
We all have down times and there are a several reasons that may cause them: hormones,
stress, a significant change in your life, diet, sleep habits, lack of exercise, and medications are a
few.
A good way to try to keep our moods on the positive side is to look to the reasons above. Are
you going through a tough time in your life? Do you have too much going on (stressed)? Has
anything changed in your life lately? What have you been eating lately? Have you been
sleeping enough or has your sleep schedule changed recently? Have you been exercising? If
you are taking medication, what are the side effects?
I’d mainly like to talk about exercising and diet. Exercise makes you feel good, and I
consistently convey this to the students that run for me and who are in P.E. classes at school.
We talk about how your brain releases a chemical when you exercise called endorphins.
Endorphins are natural mood enhancers. I tell the kids that there’s been many times that I
have felt tired or even sad before I go in to workout, and then I feel happy after the workout.
One 8 th grade boy said, “That’s probably why a lot of our generation is sad or
depressed…because we don’t exercise. We just play videogames or watch youtube videos.” I
told him that was a very intelligent observation! That can be translated into adult lives, too. In
a world full of Netflix and social media on our phones, we spend a lot of time just sitting instead
of moving around making those endorphins. While we are watching Netflix or on our phones,
we are eating snacks like chips, cookies, pop, etc. (junk food). Most junk food is high in sugar or
trans fat. It might taste good and it might make you feel good for a little bit, but the coming
down afterwards is tough on your mood. It makes you feel sluggish, sad, and even aggressive.
Drinks that contain the artificial sweetener called Aspartame (diet drinks) can slow down your
body’s production of serotonin which helps regulate your mood.
If you’ve ever done a nutrition challenge with our gym, you should know the good feeling that
comes with eating healthy food, and you should also know the feeling of eating something
unhealthy after eating healthy for so long. You feel like crud!
The good news is that we can do something about our “bad” moods. We can exercise and be in
control of what we eat. If you need help with any of these things, let us know! We’d be glad to
help!

Facts about exercise and diet:
 Exercise helps chronic depression by increasing serotonin (which helps your brain regulate
mood, sleep and appetite).
 Exercise increases your mood by releasing endorphins.
 Exercise helps get your sleep patterns back to normal.
 Exercise helps you stay focused on your activities and that can help you feel a sense of
accomplishment.
 Exercise helps release stress.
Mood boosting foods:
 Protein (beef, chicken, fish)
 Foods full of vitamins and fiber: Veggies
 Nuts
 Fruit
The last “cool” thing about your mood is that you have a choice! You can choose to feel like
crud or you can choose to feel like a million bucks, all with the choices you make.
“There is a choice you have to make, in everything you do. And you must always keep in
mind, the choices you make, make you.”- Coach Wooden