how to deal with seasonal depression (even on the darkest winter days)

WINTER IS COMING! ❄️☃️

And every year around this time, I see a spike in teenage depression.

I have a few surprising theories on why that is, and in this video post, I am sharing how you can cope with seasonal depression so that you can enjoy the wondrous winter wonderland that you deserve.

If you prefer to watch the video on YouTube, click this image here:

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You already know that I've done a number of videos on a variety of coping skills for different situations, including depression, as well as how to talk to people like your parents, if you want help for your depressive symptoms.

But I haven't done one specifically on seasonal depression, and that's because technically speaking, seasonal depression sometimes referred to as seasonal affective disorder or SAD for short, is not an actual diagnosable condition according to the "DSM-5". 🤯

So the "DSM-5" is the manual that we use as mental health providers to diagnose, and assess, and research different mental health conditions.

Now, I wanna be crystal clear here, just because seasonal depression is not a diagnosable condition according to the "DSM", doesn't mean that its symptoms and its impact aren't real.

It took 19 years to update the current version of the "DSM" because it's really created by a bunch of people. So there's a lot of different stakeholders that have their input considered when they're updating this manual.

Just because it doesn't exist as its own separate condition, doesn't mean that I don't believe, or that I don't know that you may be impacted by depression over different courses of seasons throughout the year.

Now, when we consider the wintertime, I happen to live in New England, and we get some pretty harsh winters up this way sometimes. We know in the wintertime, daylight savings makes the appearance that it's darker longer, which means that people tend to go inside, stay warm and cozy, don't go out as often. And that often leads to loneliness and isolation, which we know can increase depressed moods and symptoms of depression.

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So if you're somebody who is prone to experience an increase in depressive symptoms over the wintertime, I've got you.

Here are three different ways that you can deal with seasonal depression:

1. Create + Celebrate Joy

Now, these don't have to be big, extravagant moments of joy. You can pick and choose, or just express gratitude throughout the day.

If you choose to do the gratitude route, I just wanna be clear, please don't lean into toxic positivity or checklist style gratitude.

Gratitude really works when you can tie that care and appreciation for what you are experiencing gratefulness for, to some other meaning.

So rather than saying, “I am grateful for my dog”. You would say, “I am grateful for my dog because she helps me get outside every day.” See how that works?

There are three steps to how I want you to create and celebrate moments of joy:

1 - Set an intention. I want you to meaningfully seek out, or plan, or prepare your moment of joy.

2- Repeat affirmations. We know that positive affirmations can help reprogram and shift our thinking away from automatic negative thoughts or sticky thoughts that just create more problematic situations for us. So if you are stuck in what we call a ruminative or overthinking depressed mood, you want to shift that into a more meaningful, or positive mood, and affirmations can do that for you.

3- Use reminders. Now you can actually set reminders on your phone, or an alarm clock, or something like that, or you can just set out some intentional reminders throughout the day. For example, I know every single time that I see an image of a yellow butterfly, that makes me feel the connection and love of my family. Even when we're not physically together, I still feel that warm, loving connection, and you can do that with your own visual reminders too.

If you're having trouble coming up with ways to inspire or create moments of joy, then I want you to go ahead and think back to childhood when you were younger.

→ What were some of the things that you enjoyed doing when you were bored as a child?

→ What brought you joy?

→ What sort of things did you play?

→ When you played make-believe what did you imagine life being like?

You can get some great inspiration from there. And if you're still having trouble, look back at any old drawings, or writings that you might have hanging around from when you were a kid, you might find some really cool inspiration there.

2. Self Care Maintenance

That's right, you have to maintain your boring daily self-care maintenance.

So that means getting up and out of bed, brushing your teeth, eating throughout the day, showing up to school, doing your homework, doing the things that you really don't want to do, because you know in the long run they're gonna be good for you.

If you do nothing else, I'd love for you to do these four self-care maintenance strategies:

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🤸‍♀️ Move your body, at least once every single day, out of your bed.

🪥 Brush your teeth. Trust me, your mouth and your dentist, and just your overall hygiene will thank you for that.

🧺 Put away your laundry. It's really easy to let it pile up, or just let it sit and fester, and that actually creates more stress and clutter for your mind to process.

🥞 Eat breakfast. Even if it's a delayed breakfast, when you wake up I would love for you to eat something within that first hour to just jumpstart your metabolism, and give some signals to your brain and your body like, okay, it's time to start our day. And you'll have the energy and fuel to do that as well.

If you're looking for more inspiration on how to stay on top of your self-care maintenance, you definitely wanna check out Self Care Bingo for Teens. I created it actually a few years ago, it's still pretty current, and it's still a big hit with the kids that I work with. You can get that when you click the link in the description, as you sign up for the Self Care Bundle. And if you're already part of the Self Care Bundle, go ahead and log in there and download your own bingo cards.

3. Connect With Others

Connecting with others is how we stave off depression symptoms. It helps give us meaning, and connection, and togetherness. And we know that all of that helps improve depressed moods.

So connecting with others was a little bit difficult during the pandemic, and it still might be as we're readjusting to life out in the world again, but there are ways that you can do this from home or out in the world.

You can sign up for a new class to learn a new skill, maybe pottery, or drawing, or karate. There are so many options, and you're not limited if you happen to not be a teenager and you're watching this, there are adult classes too.

They don't always have to be affiliated with your school, though if you're wanting to get some more connection with people who are around your age, or who might be going to your school that may be feeling similarly to you, I really recommend that you check out the after school club scene. There are tons of different clubs and tons of different interests at many schools. And if there's not one that interests you, you can totally sign up to create one yourself. Which is pretty cool 'cause then you have a little more say in how it rolls.

I happen to run several different Teen Growth Therapy Groups so if you're looking for a more therapeutic approach, that's definitely an option as well.

If you happen to sign up for something that's more of an interactive experience, bonus points, whether it's online or in person.

You could even work with a therapist like me.

Now I know as a therapist, it's way common that when you're feeling depressed, you may also have some problematic, consistent, suicidal thoughts.

I've got a plan for you that you can check out in this video right over here while you're working on the health and healing that you deserve: https://youtu.be/So-c6mpg_Ic

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