So we have got to talk about the other seasonal depression and that is summertime depression.
I know a lot of people tend to think of seasonal depression associated with the wintertime and the winter blues.
To be clear, seasonal depression is NOT an actual diagnosis. It's more of a general term to describe when different depressive episodes tend to perk up or peak up for us. And summertime is definitely not immune to depression or depressive episodes.
So if you struggle with depression spikes in the summertime, even when the sunshine is out and bright, you are in the right spot.
I'm gonna be sharing five different strategies to help you cope with summertime depression in this video post today.
If you prefer to watch the video, click this image here:
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Get Up
If you are reading this post, I'm gonna assume that you are sitting down or in bed and I want you to actually get up and move your body.
Get Up and MOVE around a little bit.
Movement creates energy and gives signals to our brain and our mood that we need to motivate or activate something else, rather than just keeping things as is. That right there will help to jumpstart a little bit of a mood change or mood shift in your dynamic.
I would highly, highly recommend you make use of this coping strategy in the summertime, especially if you are a student and you are not actively in school or have an obligation or commitment to wake up at a certain time every day.
Physically get up and stay up for a little while. I would try to make it at least 20 minutes and then check-in before you go straight back into bed.
That should be plenty of enough time to at least give you some motivation and energy to keep going about your day or to motivate yourself, to take some other actions which will really, really help with your depressed mood.
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Brush Your Teeth
Y'all know how I feel about dental hygiene. I think it is super, super important. I think that it not only makes a difference in how we physically feel but also when our teeth and our mouths look good and feel good, it just helps kind of boost your mood a little bit.
Now you don't have to have perfect teeth. You don't have to brush your teeth perfectly every single time, but I'm sure that your dentist and especially your dental hygienist will appreciate you making an effort to brush your teeth. Try to make it twice a day.
Join A Group
The third thing that I want you to consider doing is to join a group. Now, y'all know I am partial to therapy groups, especially for teenagers.
**I'm licensed to practice in the states of Connecticut and New York, so the members of my Teen Growth Therapy Groups have to be physically located in those states at the time of these groups. (*I don’t make the licensing laws, but I still gotta follow them).
I also really like making these videos + posts for y'all, especially right now. There's a huge value on mental health and mental health treatment/support, which means that there are a lot of therapists that are overbooked, *myself included.
It's one of the reasons why I started offering therapy groups even before the pandemic because creating connection, solidarity, and understanding with other people can really help validate our own experience.
Joining a group can also help kind of reality check a little bit that maybe we are making more progress than we realize. It's really really cool when you can offer support or help or guidance to other people and see that reflected back for us, too.
There's actually this concept of the 200% rule, when you give or do something to somebody else, it can actually improve your mood by 200% because not only are you getting the satisfaction and like good energy boost of doing something kind or good for somebody else, but when you can see that reception reflected back to you and seeing the impact you're getting that 100% back too.
Joining a group, whether it is an actual therapy group or something more low-key like:
⚽️ joining a sports team
🎨 signing up for an art class
👬 reaching out to your friends and making an effort to hang out in person if that is possible and doable, but even a virtual, online hangout can be effective and helpful too.
Just feeling connected and part of something where they're expecting you to show up and they're going to notice and feel when you aren't there, it's gonna help to motivate and improve your mood or depression over the summertime.
One of the things that I think causes a spike in that feeling of disconnection for teenagers, in particular, is not having that built-in friend time throughout the school day. Now I know schools’ primary focus is education. I know I get that, but let's be real. You also get social time with your friends and your friend group.
So making an effort to maintain or continue some sort of community or social interaction is gonna help to improve your depressed mood in the summertime.
Eat Something
When it comes to emotion regulation, you've gotta take care of your basic self-care needs.
These include, but are not limited to:
💤 Sleep
💊 Taking your medication as prescribed. If that is something that you struggle with, talk to your prescriber, I'm sure they have a lot of good strategies around that.
🧘♀️ Focusing on one thing at a time
🤸♀️ Moving your body.
🍎 And of course, taking care of your Nutrition, which is where eating something is hugely, hugely impactful.
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I am somebody who, if I do not eat throughout the day or if I do not eat nutritionally, definitely negatively impacts my mood. It's one of what I call my emotional vulnerabilities.
So if that is something for you, which I think it is for most of us, I mean, food helps to fuel us and give us energy, which is usually what's lacking when we're feeling depressed.
Eating something can make a difference, though, of course, you wanna make sure that you're not overeating or eating in a way that is triggering or upsetting to anything in your process.
If you struggle with knowing, you know, what to eat or how to eat linking up with a registered dietician or a nutritionist, especially one who understands the mood and relationship connection to food is gonna be really, really key. But you can also talk to a mental health therapist who specializes in this area as well.
Visualize Your Future
One of the things that can make us stay feeling depressed is not being able to see or notice our future.
When we're not connected to our future, or it just seems so obscure or unachievable from what our ideal future self could be, what we're working towards, it can keep us feeling depressed.
So taking some time to visualize your future is going to actually help you shift your depressed mood. And the more that you visualize it, the clearer the steps that you need to take to get you one step closer to that ideal life.
Doing this may help to motivate you to start making some changes or taking some action.
If you'd like to walk through how to visualize your perfect day, I've got a great mindfulness video that you can practice with me right here: https://www.mallorygrimste.com/counseling-blog/yourperfectday
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