Is It Depression Or The Winter Blues? Five Things You Can Do

How do you know if what you’re trying to cope with during this season is depression or the winter blues?

Despite the beauty of the changing colors, do you dread seeing the leaves fall off the trees? When you hear the high temperature for the day will only be fifty degrees, do you inwardly wince and yearn for warmer weather? Do you find your energy falling along with the waning daylight to the point that getting out of bed becomes increasingly difficult?

If this sounds familiar, you may be experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as SAD. Traditional thinking has been that the lower your exposure to light, the more likely you’ll experience depression. However a recent study debunks that whole idea. Even though the researchers set out to find how having more or less light affected SAD, they couldn’t find any proof if its existence.

Whether it can be statistically proven or not, whether it has something to do with the holiday season occurring during the winter, or whether it’s about how close you are to the sun, if it’s in your experience — then that’s what matters.

So, what can you do?

 

Five things to do if you struggle with seasonal depression..

1) Try “light therapy.”

Try exposure to artificial light via a special box that emits therapeutic light; this is believed to affect your circadian rhythm and increase melatonin which is important in the sleep-wake cycle. Another small but impressive study showed that light therapy was very effective, especially when compared with a group who believed they were getting the same treatment but were not (what’s called a “placebo” group).

2) Get some exercise.

I can’t stress enough the benefits of exercise for depression. You may struggle with fitting it into your schedule, but when you do, it can make a huge difference in your mood and energy level. Yes, you have to get up earlier. Or yes, you have to budget for a gym membership. And yes, you might have to dig deep for that motivation.

But it’s more than worth it; exercise has been shown to be as effective as other kinds of treatment. And the only side effect is you feeling stronger and better!

3) Confront your “shoulds.”

If you tend to over-do, over-plan or over-schedule, that habit can become worse during the holidays. Ask yourself, “Am I doing this because it brings my joy, because I’ve always done it, because others expect it, or because I think I should do it?”

If you often feel overwhelmed, it may be an incredibly important question to ask. If you’re busy focusing on what you think you “should” do, you’re perhaps not leaving time for what you need to do to take good care of yourself, including basics like adequate sleep and good nutrition. This can leave you exhausted and sleep-deprived, which in turn can affect your mood negatively.

4) Practice letting go of shame.

The beginning of a new year is a time many of us assess where we’ve been, and where we’re going — what goals did we meet and what are the directions we’d like to move in the next?

If you focus solely on what didn’t happen this year — the twenty pounds you didn’t lose, the exercise you didn’t get, the vacation with the kids you didn’t take — and let that disappointment be your entire focus, those thoughts can easily lead to shame or bitterness. What is much more helpful is to be compassionate with yourself and try to understand what undermined your goals.

Instead, you can ask yourself, “Is what I’m feeling helpful in this moment? Is it serving a positive purpose?” If not, you can do what’s called “thought-stopping” – literally putting a thought out of your mind by changing your focus.

If you’re looking for something negative, you’ll find it. The opposite is true as well. So, you can choose to look for the positive.

5) Emotionally connect with grief you may have experienced.

When the holidays come with the stress on family and connection, and you’ve experienced actual loss or trauma during that year, the sadness you feel can be real and even intensified. This is not “the blues,” but a deep sense of loss. You don’t have to pretend not to feel it.

I heard someone say, who’d lost a family member that year, “I don’t want to be a drag to anyone. I’m afraid I’ll cry or not be able to be a part of things.” My response was to give her a hug, and remind her how she would feel if someone else was in her spot.

My own parents died right before Christmas of 2007. I remember well how tough it was. It was important to allow myself to feel whatever I was feeling. And allow others to help me.

Please give yourself the same permission.

 

You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

My new book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression has arrived and you can order here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.

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Photo by Pixabay.

Originally published on November 5, 2017; updated and republished on October 30, 2022.