Winter gets me down. It's been true for as long as I can remember. When I was ten my teacher told us to write a poem about winter. All of my classmates wrote about happy snowmen and super-fun ice skating. I wrote about how my soul shriveled up and didn't really come back to life until spring. I had a really hard time with it in college, when I was on my own and feeding myself for the first time, and living in a place with harsher winters and stiffer responsibilities than I was used to.
It was a big drag.
It was even worse when we moved to Scotland. I just republished an old blog post about it, but it was written in 2004 so you'll probably want the TL;DR: SAD + PPD = bad news. The bad-news-ness was an unexpected blessing, though, because it spurred me to rent a light box. And weirdly but unmistakably, I could feel my shriveled soul unfurling when I sat down in front of the light.
This is on my mind tonight because I saw a link to this article earlier this evening. If you are a SAD sufferer, I have some tips to share that have greatly decreased my own suffering:
- Buy or rent a light box. It's like magic for me.
- Consider fish oil and vitamin D supplements. Fewer side effects than antidepressants and they do good things for my neurotransmitter levels.
- Eat clean, even when surrounded by Halloween candy and leftover pumpkin pie. There is a clear association between the state of my diet and the state of my mind.
- Make time to exercise, even when you think you can't make time to exercise.
That looks kind of stupid now that it's written out. I mean, DUH: eat well and exercise regularly. Even though it's not rocket science, I have to push myself to keep up with it as the days get gloomy. But I don't want my kids to remember the shriveled-soul version of their mom when they think back on childhood. If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. (Though let me lobby again for a change: I remain a fan of "If Mama ain't happy, the rest of the family cuts her some slack and perhaps gives her a footrub.") That's why every winter I am going to work on amping up the happy and damping down the angst.
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