Tips for a healthy autumn - The Derbyshire Benevolent Trust

The nights get darker, frosty mornings arrive and the trees put on a wonderful show of colour. Many welcome in this cosy season with open arms, but for some the cooler weather means the arrival of colds, low moods, and other physical and mental illnesses manifesting themselves. Here are our top tips to make sure that you keep your health in the best possible condition as the season changes.

1. Eat your greens

As tempting as it is to finish off all the sweets you bought for the kids at Halloween, your body won’t thank you for it. Research shows that the consumption of too much sugar is linked to increased depression, anxiety and low moods. It it therefore super important to make sure that we include lots of fruits and vegetables in our diets during the autumn and winter.

Apples are currently in season and 2022 has been an abundant year for them. There are still plenty left to be harvested – look for local gleaning groups who always need more volunteers to help pick fruit from locally planted trees. Apples are incredibly easy to store over winter by wrapping them individually in a sheet of newspaper and placing them in trays.

Autumn is also the perfect time of year to make veg-packed stews and soups. Be sure to try and include chunky vegetables such as squash, pumpkin, celeriac, carrots and parsnips – all of which are coming into season now so will be at their tastiest.

2. Practice mindfulness with spring bulbs

One of the best ways to take a mental pause is to plant flower bulbs. Planting them now means that your days will be sure to be brightened up in early springtime with bursts of beautiful colour in your garden.

October is the best time to get daffodil bulbs in the ground, whereas tulips can go in in November. But don’t forget about smaller bulbs like croci, snowdrops, hyacinths, irises, and bluebells. If you don’t have any spare ground to plant into, then a ‘bulb lasagne’ can be planted in a tub with impressive results. This is where flower bulbs are layered on top of one another to create an impactful display come the spring. We find that this Sarah Raven lasagne ‘recipe’ can’t be beat.

3. Get a great night’s sleep

The clocks going back an hour in autumn can cause the best of sleep patterns to be disrupted. But a lack of sleep can have serious implications for your immune system which, in turn, can make you more susceptible to colds, coughs and other illnesses. If you’re struggling with your sleeping pattern please do read this article we published earlier in the year about how to sleep better after night shifts. A lot of the information in that article is relevant even if you’re not working shifts!

4. Head outdoors and breathe deeply

As the days get shorter and the weather gets colder, it can be difficult to find the motivation to get outside and top up our serotonin levels. The lack of natural lack over winter makes our energy levels drop and this may result in low moods that can affect our day to day lives. Experiencing low moods is normal, and it is something that nearly everyone will experience at least once throughout their lives. However, if you are suffering with prolonged low moods, your first step should be to reach out to your registered GP for advice.

Whilst we may not feel like exercising, getting our blood pumping and some air in our lungs is a great way to boost our mood. Combining exercise with being outside is a great way to increase both your energy and vitamin D levels. Check out this DBT article from 2021 for some excellent ideas on how to get outside locally in autumn and winter.

In Derbyshire we are blessed with lots of gorgeous areas to walk around so be sure to make the most of the local scenery this autumn and winter.

I’ve not received a password reset email?

Be sure to check spam folders, Some email providers may consider the email to be a spam email and automatically file it into your spam folder.

The email is not in my Spam folder?

Some email providers may have very strict spam blocking in place. If this is happening you can add our email address to your ‘white list’

To do this please follow the instructions in the below links, by choosing your mail provider and adding the email: “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” to your whitelist.

AOL

Add the “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” to your AOL address book:

Click the “Mail Options” menu and select “Address Book”.
Inside the “Address Book” window, click the “Add” button.
Inside the “Address Card for New Contact” window cut and paste “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” into the “Other E-Mail” field.
Make our From address the “Primary E-Mail” address by checking the associated check box to the right of it.
Click the “Save” button.

If the mailing is in your SPAM Folder, you can open the email and click the “This Is Not Spam” button.

Gmail

Add the From address you want to receive mailings from to your Gmail Contacts List:

Click “Contacts” along the left side of any Gmail page.
Click “Create Contact”.
Copy and paste “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” into the primary email address dialog box.
Click “Save”.

If the mailing is in your SPAM folder, check the box next to the mailing and click the “Not Spam” button along the top.

Hotmail/Outlook/Live

Add the From address you want to receive mailings from to your Hotmail Safe List:

Open your mailbox and click “Options” (upper right hand corner).
Click the “Junk E-Mail Protection” link.
Select the “Safe List” link.
Copy and paste “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” into the dialog box titled “Type an address or domain”.
Click the “Add” button next to the dialog box.

If the mailing is in your “Junk E-Mail Folder”, open the email and click the “Not Junk” button.

You should also check that the mailing’s email address is not in your Blocked Senders list. You can find your Blocked Senders list by following the directions above and going to “Blocked Senders List” instead of “Safe List”. If you see the mailing’s from address on this list, select it and click the Remove button.

Mozilla Thunderbird

Add the From address you want to receive mailings from to your Thunderbird Address Book and configure your Junk Mail Controls to white list your address book.

Add an address into your Personal Address Book:

Click the “Address Book” button.
Make sure the Personal Address Book is highlighted.
Click the “New Card” button.
Under the “Contact” tab, copy and paste “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” into the Email dialog box.
Click “OK”.

White list your Personal Address Book:

From the main drop down menu, select “Tools –< Junk Mail Controls..."
This will launch the Junk Mail Controls window that has two tabs: Settings and Adaptive Filter
Under the Settings tab, update the “White Lists” module by selecting Personal Address Book from the pull down menu and then check mark the box next to “Do not mark messages as junk mail”.
Click “OK”.

If the mailing is in your junk folder, right-click the mailing and choose “Mark –< As Not Junk".[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title="Netscape Mail" tab_id="1498728551530-a54d18f1-2c51"][vc_column_text]Set up a filter to redirect the mailing you want to receive into your inbox:

From the Edit drop down menu, select “Message Filters”.
Click “New”, and give the new filter a name (e.g. “Whitelist”).
Change the drop down on the left to “sender” and the one in the middle to “is”.
Copy and paste username@domain.com into the box on the right.
Make the bottom two drop downs “Move to folder” and “Inbox”.
Click “OK”.
Make sure that your new filter is located at the top of the Message Filter list so it is run before any spam filter.

Outlook 2003/2007

Add the address you want to receive mailings from to your Safe Senders list:

On the Tools menu, click “Options”.
On the Preferences tab, click “Junk E-mail”.
On the Safe Senders tab, click “Add”.
In the Add address box, copy and paste in username@domain.com and click OK.

If you are using a different version of Outlook you can add the mailers From address to your Address Book. This can be done by opening the email, right clicking the From address, and selecting “Add To Contacts”. You can also access your Address Book via the tools drop down menu.

Yahoo

Set up a filter to redirect the mailing you want to receive in your inbox:

Open your mailbox and click on “Mail Options” (upper right hand corner).
Select “Filters” under the Management column.
Click the “Add” button on the Filters page.
In the “From header:” row, make the drop down “contains” and put the mailer’s from address username@domain.com in the box.
At the bottom of the page Click the “Choose Folder” pull down menu and select “Inbox”.
Click the “Add Filter” button.

If the mailing is in your Yahoo Bulk Folder open the email and click the “Not Spam” button. You should also check that the mailing’s email address is not in your “Blocked Addresses” list. You can find your “Blocked Addresses” list by clicking “Mail Options” and then clicking the “Blocked Addresses” link under the Spam column. If you see the mailing’s from address on this list, select it and click the “Remove Block” button.

Others

The most common way to whitelist an address is to add it to your address book, white list, or safe list. There is no universal way to whitelist an address, so if this is not an option, you will have to consult the help section associated with your email application. They should have instructions on how to whitelist an address there.