| How to Beat the Winter Blues |
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| Dr Joseph Mercola | |
| Wednesday, 09 April 2008 | |
  Even in South Africa, where the winter months are neither particularly long nor cold, people are afflicted with winter blues.Simply existing in a season with so many dark, cold days is enough to bring down a person's mood from a purely emotional perspective, but there are very real, physical reasons why people suffer from the winter blues each year. If, during the winter season only, you are:
It's likely that you're suffering from a case of the winter blues. The winter blues should not be confused with the more serious condition known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. The good news is that there are ways to turn your winter blues around in no time at all. Get Some Sun The fact that the winter blues occur when the days begin to darken and sunlight is less is not a coincidence. Sunlight is crucial to human health, and when we don't get enough exposure to it our moods and physical health will suffer. More specifically, your serotonin levels (the hormone associated with elevating your mood) rise when you're exposed to bright light. You may have experienced this "high" feeling after spending some time on a sunny beach, for example. Similarly, the sleep hormone melatonin also rises and falls (inversely) with light and darkness. When it's dark, your melatonin levels increase, which is why you may feel naturally tired when it begins to get dark outside. It is because sunlight affects the melatonin-serotonin system that it works so well to alleviate the symptoms of the winter blues and elevates mood. In fact, studies have even found that light therapy or phototherapy, which is the practice of using full-spectrum light therapeutically, works to relieve the symptoms of the winter blues and SAD better than antidepressant drugs. Interestingly, vitamin D, which requires sun exposure to be produced in your body, is also linked to higher levels of serotonin, and it has been suggested that getting plenty of sunlight over the summer helps your body to maintain higher vitamin D levels in the winter, and therefore higher levels of serotonin as well. Unfortunately, most of us do not get enough sunlight during the summer, due in part to the large amounts of time we now spend indoors and partly to the fact that the public has been scared into avoiding the sun. So in the wintertime, if you can take a trip to a sunny location and spend some time in the sun, your mood is likely to improve immediately (this means sensible sun exposure – staying in the sun until you are burned is NOT healthy). For those of you who cannot get away, though, there is another option that is widely accepted as the best treatment for SAD and the winter blues: Full-spectrum lighting. Natural sunlight is full spectrum, full-spectrum light boxes replicate the same healthy "ingredients" in natural sunlight. This includes the full spectrum of colour (imagine the colours of the rainbow), as well as infrared and the three ultraviolet wavelengths. No other type of lighting source -- not "regular" or even "natural" light bulbs or fluorescent light bulbs -- contains these requirements. Since SAD is not a common complaint in South Africa, these full-spectrum boxes aren’t easy to come by, but some online suppliers are willing to ship them locally. Because South Africans also have access to sunlight, even in winter, it may help to make a point of spending some time out of doors every day, in the middle of the day. Take your lunch break in a park or on a lawn, or just take a 15-minute walk around the block. Exercise Boosts Mood Exercise is widely known as a natural mood booster, and has also been found to work better than antidepressant drugs to alleviate depressive symptoms. Simply getting out for a brisk walk or heading to the gym for 30-minute workout can do wonders for your mood, and your body will benefit too. Don't feel that you have to stick with a certain routine if you're someone who gets bored easily. Exercise works best when it's something you look forward to, so choose something that fits your personality and fitness level. Dancing, kickboxing, yoga and brisk walking are all great ideas. Exercise will also help to boost your immune system, which means you're less likely to come down with a cold or flu – another reason why many people don't look forward to the winter season. Resist Comfort Food Cravings As the weather turns colder you may mentally feel like you're getting ready to "hibernate" for the winter, and as such start to crave "comfort" foods. Unfortunately, traditional comfort foods tend to be less than ideal from a nutritional standpoint (you know those biscuits and TV dinners aren't healthy!). Stock your pantry with healthy food choices like proteins, raw cheeses and fresh vegetables that will leave you feeling satisfied and well-nourished, rather than on a sugar-high (with the inevitable "sugar crash" soon to come). Follow Your Natural Inclination to Sleep If you feel tired when the sun sets (this is the natural way our bodies were programmed to feel), listen to your body! It's telling you that it's time to rest. Most of us, however, stay up much later than our bodies would like, sometimes six or more hours later than the sun set, which tends to impair the adrenal glands and the immune system. A sound night's sleep can do wonders for you mood and will help you to feel ready to take on a new day in the morning. Optimise Your Omega-3 There are a number of studies that show that omega-3 fatty acids in fish oils are associated with decreased depression. If this subject interests you, I highly recommend Dr. Stoll's book The Omega-3 Connection. He is a Harvard psychiatrist who has done a great job of compiling the evidence supporting the use of fish oils for depression. Change Your Routine Sometimes making small changes in your life is an excellent way to pull yourself out of a funk. The following ideas are very simple, but they can make a big difference in your day and your mood:
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This is the powerful story of the author's struggle with Multiple Sclerosis and how a healer's unusual prescription of mindful altruism - to 'give away 29 gifts in 29 days' - ignited her energy, her happiness, and invited more abundance into her life.
