Quick List of Ways I Manage Seasonal Depression
This read is for you if you or someone you know suffers from seasonal depression. I wrote a whole piece on S.A.D which you can read HERE. Essentially, it’s when the weather or change in seasons has an affect on your mood often with darker days and gloomy weather leading to depression. Winter is a tough month for folks with Seasonal Affected Disorder because less hours of daylight and severely change chemical balances causing what you may have heard called “the winter blues”. Today I wanted to write a quick piece on the things I’m doing to try to work through it and keep my winter season joyful and avoid another rut of depression.
S.A.D LAMPS
Light is a key ingredient to helping to lift your mood. They idea behind light therapy is that the light can stimulate your brain to produce less of the sleepy hormones (melatonin) and more of the happy hormones (serotonin). I am trying one out for the first time this year but I know friends who whip them out every year around this time. The one I’m trying is THIS one. It’s only been a couple days but I live in a basement and have one window with limited period of sunshine. I really like it so far because it’s small and I can move it around the house so if I’m gaming in the office I can set it up or I can set it up near me if I’m sitting in the living room on the couch. It also has different hues and I find warm light really comforting so I can adjust the warmth as well as the brightness. I’m still playing around with the timer setting but I can at least tell you there is one! I haven’t quite figured it out yet, I just threw it on the table and started soaking in the light.
2. SUNRISE ALARM CLOCK
This goes along with the same idea as the SAD lamps but it’s specifically meant to recreate the light of a sunrise. My bedroom has a teeny tiny window that doesn’t give off much light so it’s been really tough to wake up when I’m so cozy and warm in bed. I work retail too so often I wake up and leave before the sun is up and come home after it sets so I don’t get much natural light. This light helps me to wake up more naturally and try to beat the annoying alarm. The short version of why this might help is that it can send signals to your brain that it’s time to wake up - light - equals wake up, dark equals sleep. So it brings you out of those deep sleep cycles naturally. When I can beat my alarm, even if just by a couple minutes, I often feel much more energetic and less groggy. Makes that snooze button less appealing and I get more time to myself. I bought mine a while ago but I didn’t splurge on the Phillips one (it’s very highly rated) and the one I got I think is THIS one. If not mine is very similar. You can set an alarm to time up with the light and it’s a gradual light so it slowly gets brighter over time and you can choose how long the “sunrise” takes. I usually just set mine to silent and time it with my alarm so that I usually wake up a little bit before my actual alarm goes off, just before it hits peak brightness! I don’t have a plug to allow me to do this, but if you have a window, try putting it in the window and you can pretend it’s the real sun!
3. EAT 30 MINUTES AFTER WAKING
This is one that was really tough for me for a while and had to make adaptations to make this easier but in order get energy for the day, your body needs fuel. I also did a course on preventing burnout and eating 30 minutes after you wake up is a really good way to help reduce stress. Getting out of bed is hard enough so eating a full, well balanced breakfast isn’t always realistic. I had some good talks with my therapist about how there’s no such thing as a “breakfast food” - food is food and your body doesn’t know if it’s morning or night. I mean think about how different people around the world have different types of food in the morning - lots of places of rice with eggs and other things in the morning but we always think of rice as a “dinner” think in Western society. That helped. Sometimes it needs to be as simple as a bowl of cereal because it’s quick and easy. I also swear by these fruit bars by Sunrype that have 2-3 servings of fruits
4. GET OUTSIDE
This is always a little harder to do in the colder months but I’ve been really trying to get outside while there’s sunshine. Sometimes it’s just to go out there on my breaks at work because that’s the only chance I have. Sometimes on my days off it’s walking to the grocery store, or a nail appointment or a dentist appointment so that I can not only get sunshine but I can get my body moving a bit.
5. VITAMINS - ESPECIALLY VITAMIN D
Daily vitamins are a great way to help try to boost what the sun isn’t giving us. I usually take a daily multi-vitamin but I remember my doctor saying specifically that everyone should be taking Vitamin D. Your body produces Vitamin D when it’s exposed to sunlight so taking a supplement is a great way to still get that - Vitamin D is great for you and your immune system - it’s flu season people!!
Of course this is a non-exhaustive list and it’s not going to cure anything. However it may make the hard days a little easier or reduce how long those dips into depression last. These are just little ways I’m trying to keep myself leveled but I also take medication every day and this helps when my depression is feeling a little heavier than usual. Got tips or tricks? Leave them in the comments and share with us so we can all show seasonal depression who’s boss!