Each year in the autumn, I start feeling said. Is there anything I can do to shake the winter blues?
Posted on April 7th, 2010
Posted by admin
I hate winter and cold weather. I especially detest when it begins to get dark early. I get depressed every fall and winter. It is not possible to move to the South now. Am I weird? Does anyone else feel this way? Does anyone have suggestions about what I can do to overcome the winter blues?
You may be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’ve been affected by it for decades, and it got much worse after menopause.
Seasonal Affective Disorder is treatable for most people with either light therapy or medications. Both together don’t usually work better.
Do you find that you are chipper and looking forward to spring in February when everyone else is dragged out from winter? If so, you may very well have Seasonal Affective Disorder.
SAD is not depression, although many of the symptoms are depression like. I like to think of it as a high risk factor for depression though. It comes from an earlier era when people gained weight in the fall, and holed up in their caves with little food to mostly sleep the winter away. Bears do this, they don’t really hibernate.
Ask your doctor for a referral to someone who works with Mood Disorders. Both light or drug therapies are very individual, and require some fiddling to get right.
And don’t just go buy some light online. There are very specific criteria for light spectrums to be used therapeutically. I was loaned one as an outpatient to see if it would work for me. They have come down in cost a lot, and are much smaller now so more convenient to use.
And don’t forget, starting December 22, the days are getting longer!! I better eat some mashed potatoes and have a nap, lol.