Combat Wintertime Blues: Tips for Boosting Mental Health

January is a month that many associate with darkness, cold weather, and post-holiday blues.  Often you hear people talk about “dry January”, which implies someone was perhaps too festive in December, which led to a need for a January of alcohol deprivation.  While we all know alcohol isn’t good for us (and now the surgeon general has doubled down and said it causes cancer), we do associate it with socializing and revelling.  January is the “calm” after the social storm of parties, family get-togethers and recreational travel.

With the cold, dark days, January and even February can feel endless and exhausting.  The lack of Vitamin D coming from the weakened sunrays, the decrease in physical activities outside due to cold and darkness, and an evolutionary pull to hibernate indoors can lead to Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. The symptoms of seasonal depression include negative mood, lethargy, sleeping more than usual, social withdrawal, decreased sex drive, increased appetite and weight gain.   Like our mammalian kin, we feel a strong pull to hunker down, conserve energy and wait for spring, and our good moods, to return.

Our modern world doesn’t wax and wane with the sun’s exposure, so despite our lowered energy, we are expected to continue performing at work, home and socially.  The question is--how do we “fight” our natural tendency to hibernate?  Here are some tips that might help minimize the season’s impact on your mood:

1.  Focus on maintaining a healthy sleep regime.  Go to bed and wake up around the same time, plus or minus an hour or so.  Try to move your silenced cell phone as far away from the bed as possible, to reduce the temptation to look at email in the middle of the night.  

2. Try to time your exercise routine to correspond to the sun.  If you like to walk and have a flexible schedule or work from home, move your exercise time so that you can walk or run outdoors, to maximize exposure to light rays.  (If you cannot get outside for a walk, at least try to spend 5-20 minutes outside collecting Vitamin D).  Whatever you do, definitely pursue exercise that requires at least 20 minutes of strenuous cardiovascular exertion. This is the magic exercise formula for releasing serotonin (the neurotransmitter associated with improved mood). 

3. Plan a weekend sunny get away.  If you can afford it, plan to go to a place where you have white sand and clear blue water.  However, a trip to an exotic island may not be realistic for your budget, but it doesn’t have to be.  Any weekend getaway where you will be able to spend more time outdoors while exploring in an unfamiliar place will ignite that human drive for novelty.  Where there’s novelty, there’s dopamine (the neurotransmitter associated with thrill-seeking and adventure), which is an antidote to a negative mood.

4. Fantasize about an exotic getaway.  Again, trips to the Virgin Islands may not be in the cards for your budget, but there’s nothing wrong with planning your dream trip for when you win the lottery!  Get on the travel websites, imagine yourself there, figure out where you’d go and what you’d do while you are there.  Many of my patients have shared that planning an adventure cheered them up, almost as much as the actual vacation itself!

5. Fight the urge to stay home and isolate.  We have all had that sensation of wanting to “bail” on social plans when it is cold and rainy outside.  Make a commitment to go and stick with it, regardless of how you feel when it is time to go.  Once you get out and see your friends, the oxytocin will flow (neurotransmitter that creates warm feelings of love and fondness) and help override your seasonal blues.  

6. Plan ahead.  If you know you are someone who struggles with winter blues or SAD, don’t let it sneak up on you again next year.  Make a plan with a good friend or partner, so that you have something to look forward to that will get you through the tough times.  Some clients of mine will sign up for a winter 5K in a sunny place, so they can train for it, then get the sunshine pay-off.

7. Own it.  All mammals are designed to get sluggish and low energy in the wintertime.  This is nothing for which to be ashamed--it’s literally built into our DNA and has kept our species from going extinct, even during the ice ages!  If you have winter blues or SAD, tell a loved one, partner or friend that you are struggling and ask them to urge you to go out and do things in the winter--even if you initially say no.  Your job is then to say yes!

8. Get a light box.  There are a lot of different options out there for SAD, but you want to be sure you have one that has the firepower to give you what your body needs in the least amount of time.  The clinical recommendation is a light box that emits 10,000 lux (light intensity).  You can purchase a light box with just cool white light, or splurge for the full-spectrum version.  If you get a consumer one that emits fewer than 10,000 lux, you will need to spend more time under it in order to get the same positive effects.  The recommendation is that you use the light box first thing in the morning for 20-30 minutes with the lamp positioned 16 to 24 inches from your face.  Do not look directly into the light, but your eyes should be open the whole time.  The lamp is best positioned over your face or on the side of the face, but the clinical prescription means that the lamp should be closer than normally feels comfortable. Try to get into a morning routine with the light--drinking coffee and reading the paper (or email) while you bask in the fake rays.

9. If all else fails and you still feel blue, speak with your doctor about finding a good therapist and/or taking psychiatric medication just during the winter months.  Many of my clients will go up on their medications during the winter and reduce the dose as the sunlight returns.

In summary, everyone will experience the winter blues from time to time, and up to 10% of the population experiences full-blown seasonal affective disorder or SAD for several months of the year.  It is important to note that SAD is not a choice or personal weakness, but a normal physical and psychological reaction to a reduction in Vitamin D and sunshine.  This involuntary hibernation once helped our species conserve energy and timed the reproductive season to correspond with warmer weather and more abundant food resources.  Unfortunately, this evolutionary left-over is a source of suffering for many people, but research has shown this to be particularly true in women.  Using some of these different tools will help you make it through the dark months, with the knowledge that, “the sun will come out again”…but not tomorrow!