10 Natural Ways To Mitigate Seasonal Affective Disorder
I live in the Northern U.S.A. where the days get short and cold. Many people get the “winter blues” or seasonal affective disorder (SAD). My symptoms of SAD can include the following in varying degrees of severity: loss of motivation for activities I normally love, irregular sleep rhythms, feeling a sense of worthlessness, and less ability to regulate my emotions. Here are 10 ways I’ve tried to reduce my symptoms in a rough order of effectiveness.
10. Artificial light
I tried this light therapy lamp. By some accounts you’re supposed to spend 30 minutes exposed in the morning or night. I didn’t stick to a routine and I didn’t like the light in my face so it was unsuccessful for me.
9. Gratefulness practice
One way I tried to do this was to think or write about 3 things I’m grateful for each morning before I get out of bed. Sometimes it was gratefulness for friends and family and other times it was gratefulness for a t-shirt I like. This wasn’t game changing, but did help in small ways to reset my frame of mind.
8. Food choices
This year I tried GreenChef’s plant based meal kit. It’s hard for me to say if it made a significant difference, but it has made life a bit easier and diversified my meal options. In previous years I tried eating more fish, like salmon, or taking fish oil and omega 3 supplements. It seemed to help a small amount with minimal changes to my normal routines. In another year I tried focusing on taking Emergen-C daily and found that at the least it led me to hydrate more.
7. Nature
I like hiking, biking, walking, snowshoeing, skiing, and more. All of these activities are great to enjoy nature. A few times I’ve forced myself to go for a hike at a state park and almost every time I feel better afterward. Studies back up this connection to nature.
6. Therapy or counseling
This year I tried counseling through BetterHelp. I found an appropriate counselor quickly and found it to be useful for a few months during peak COVID-19 isolation. The counselor helped to give me quick feedback instead of me struggling to find exercises to help myself. They recommended some breathing techniques for anxiety that I did not know and blue filter glasses for reducing eye strain. The difficult part of therapy is the cost. It was valuable for a period of time, but I won’t use it indefinitely.
5. Socialize
I’ve done video calls with friends and family this year to socialize. They’re fun for a bit though it doesn’t give the same interaction as in person meetups especially with big groups. We’ve tried games like Jackbox, Codenames, Among Us, trivia, and online backgammon. I’ve also socialized outdoors with people at breweries, playing pickleball, hiking, or picnics. Still it feels like I’ve somewhat lost a sense of community; whose importance and challenges I learned about in Bowling Alone. I’ve been remind of the importance of social connections with some of my work on social determinants of health; loneliness is a significant concern in the Medicare population. With COVID-19 loneliness has become a concern for all ages.
4. Sleep
Getting good sleep and enough sleep is critical for many reasons. Tom Brady could tell you a lot about it along with Bill Gates. I’ve used Whoop for the last 4 months to help track my sleep and understand how much of a deficit of sleep I’m in. I still struggle with consistent sleep patterns, but it helps me avoid larger deficits which cause worse emotional regulation.
3. Exercise
Exercise makes me feel better and think better year-round and it’s no different in winter. Winter does change my exercise habits and with COVID it caused me to rent a rower for my condo; unfortunately the rower made too much noise for my downstairs neighbor for me to keep using it. Some of the most interesting for the justification of exercise and mental health I learned from the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.
2. Sunshine
Natural light is something that helps some, though in the northern part of the U.S. it’s not that strong. Taking walks during the middle of the day helps to get some sunshine even when I’m bundled up for the cold. But typically that’s not enough. I like to travel to somewhere more southern, warm, and with sun once a winter if not multiple times. One year I traveled to New Zealand for 2 weeks in January (amazing country btw) and noticed a significant mood bump for the remaining part of the winter once I got back home.
1. Vitamin D
This year has been a forced experiment with COVID-19. It has not been easy to travel and I’ve been cautious about socializing with people indoors in close spaces. I couldn’t rely on some of the techniques that help me so in preparation I started taking Vitamin D in October. It has helped tremendously. In previous winters any negative thoughts might start to spiral out of control sometimes even with breathing techniques or other interventions; however, this winter it’s much easier to get back to a normal state of mind.
