Seasonal Depression: Winter Blues Or Seasonal Affective Disorder?
When it gets cold and dark outside, do you start feeling low or irritable?
When the weather is gloomy and miserable, does your brain and body shut down?
Or when the sun sets early in the afternoon, do you feel your mood drop?
If so, I’d like to ask what you know about seasonal mood changes and seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
There seem to be only 2 possibilities I see.
You either know you’re likely to experience a certain “depression” in any season, and you’ve either got it or you don’t when it comes to a depressed existence…
Or…
You probably know it takes a set of “external circumstances” for you to feel depressed and you’ve noticed this seems to line up with the changing seasons…
…and that, as a psychologically and emotionally intelligent person, you then experience your own set of common symptoms of “Seasonal Affective Disorder.”
Learning How To Treat Your Seasonal Depression
Here’s the deal…
If you’re someone who always struggles, then you probably have what psychologists call a “nonseasonal” depression.
But maybe your experience seems to be seasonal and you’re thinking about working with a depression therapist on why it is you get into this annual pattern of feeling seasonal affective disorder symptoms.
You might really want to explore what your individual experience is of what 11 million people in the U.S. go through every year. If so, then I hope you get a lot out of this article.
First, Understand The Cycle Of Seasonal Depression
When someone has SAD, their experience of all the negative thoughts that need depression treatment isn’t just a matter of getting to a day or a month and “feeling better.”
This person lives in a set of “internal” experiences that are triggered by the changing seasons. These internal experiences involve the circadian rhythms (sleep-wake, light-dark) AND the lesser talked about circannual rhythms (yearly or seasonal).
For people with SAD, these experiences always cycle back around… and disturb their biological rhythms.
Typically, winter is a rough time but it’s even possible for someone to feel this way during summer—because it’s deeper than just having the “blues” at this or that time of the year.
Also… some women may naturally and automatically understand what Im talking about because SAD is more common among women than men.
Next, Let Depression Therapy Comfort And Help You
Thankfully, some people with SAD get depression therapy and build a skillset or support system that can they rely on.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, therapy is one of “four main categories that may be used alone or in combination” to treat SAD.
Altogether, the 4 recommended categories are: therapy for depression, light therapy, medication, and Vitamin D.
(Quick tip: if you try light therapy in the mornings, make sure you turn on some other lights in the room too… otherwise, the lamp can make you feel like you’re standing alone in a room full of darkness around you.)
So, some people with SAD are able to treat their pain in a way which helps them endure and move forward into a place of more managed signs and symptoms of depression.
And isn’t that what people mean when they say “how it’s supposed to be” anyhow? Yes!
But as you may know, some people still struggle after that. In fact, I’d say the research shows one big reason why…
Therapy works best for someone treating SAD if you also explore how to understand specific emotions and responses going on inside you—and then connect those things with outside cycles going on in the natural world around you.
Explore Your Relationship With Nature To Heal
Not every client in therapy for depression with SAD “necessarily” gets to pay attention in a deep and psychological way to how they connect or not with nature…
… so it becomes more likely that when the depression comes back—just like the changing seasons—it’ll be overwhelming.
Part of what you may be missing, as the University of Essex shows here, is a natural connection with a “green area” or “green space.”
That’s because scientists also discovered if you’re depressed and you interact with nature then your psychological improvement is multiplied 5 times.
So let me share an interesting angle on this…
There’s a simple “frame” of mind you can learn and apply to your thinking that can mean the difference between the recovery you want and continuing seasonal affective disorder symptoms.
Best of all, this frame is not something hard to learn because it’s something you’re born with.
Truth is, any person who’s open to connecting with nature can develop this frame. And you can quickly start improving your mental health 5 times more by coming up with ways to put this one frame into action in your everyday life.
So what is this frame of mind?
It’s the frame of mind biologist E. O. Wilson called “biophilia,” which is your human instinct to connect with nature and to love connecting with other living things.
You’ve had it inside since you were born, and you only need to figure out how to tap into it.
Depression Therapy Can Heal The Seasonal Cycle
If you’re reading this right now and you’re saying to yourself, “OK, I think it’s time I explored my seasonal affective disorder symptoms and I got myself some depression treatment,” then you need to do yourself a huge favor.
You need to take action, and contact a depression therapist like me immediately.
Therapy for depression will help you walk out your front door and manage your seasonal depression symptoms.
And I’m not kidding. If you really commit to depression therapy, you’ll get helped somehow.
If you add learning how to connect differently with nature, plus you cultivate new psychological frames… you’ll probably sit at home and eventually feel just the smallest sense of improvement.
And I hope when you finally unlock your door, and walk back out into the world, your experience of seasonal depression will be very different.
Please reach out to me if you’d like to work together on treating this.
Find out more about Depression Treatment.
About The Author
John Younes, JD, MA, LPCC, NCC is a trained counselor who owns a private practice in Denver, CO. In general, he specializes in depression treatment and anxiety treatment using existential and cognitive therapy practices.
And one more thing: if you’re thinking about suicide and are in immediate danger, please call your local emergency number… so for Denver, Colorado, call 1-844-493-8255 or text TALK to 38255. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.