Seasonal Affective Disorder: Intersections of Winter and Mental Health
By Holly Madden
Photo Credit: Levi Bare on Unsplash
Winter is beautiful. But it’s the season that many people struggle to connect to. It’s also the season that more people experience mental health lows, including diagnostic depressive episodes. In some of the countries closest to the Arctic, suicide rates rise during the darkest, coldest times. This is not surprising to us as many of us feel a physical or mental low during this time of the year marked by shorter days (and usually cooler temps).
This time of year, also unsurprisingly, many feel more exhausted or fatigued. We live in this beautiful harmonious relationship with the sun. We depend on Vitamin D and warmth to accompany our daily lives. This fills us with energy, strengthens our physical body, increases are immunity, and elevates our mood. No wonder we struggle in the winter! Some people are incredibly more sensitive to these changes than others. What needs to be heard is that it’s okay, this time of year, to feel the need to be more isolated, to struggle to go to events or even daily activities, to long to be in bed early or get out of bed later, and to move our bodies less. These are natural, ancestral responses to a season that is supposed to be spent hunkering down, living off of the labor of all the months before, resting more, and prioritizing rest, warmth, and physical safety. Consider your own ancestors and reflect on how they would have experienced the winter before this age of electrical heat, light and grocery stores. If this is not a practice you are used to, may I encourage you to try. We have so much to learn when we consider where we have come from. Too often, the advancement of modern living is no longer dependent on our life-saving practice of storytelling and passing along story to the generations. We have lost these valuable pieces of who we are. But it’s not too late!
In my lineage, many of my ancestors came to America from many Norther European countries including Ireland, Scotland, Norway, and Sweden (to name a few). These cultures knew winter in the dark. Taking time to be present with my imagination and all that I have gathered from these cultures, I can imagine lots of fires, family staying close, stews and soups made from the yearly harvest, energy spent keeping farm animals well through blizzards and cold, and nights spent watching the Northern Lights and leaning into the magic of their beauty for the hope needed to continue. I do not have stories I can cling to, but I have these images in my mind that connect with me when I peer out through my window and softly falling snow, or awake before dark to prepare my family for the day, or innate empathy when I talk to someone who shares strong feelings of grief, loss, despair, isolation, or even hopelessness in the midst of winter.
Katherine May, the author of the beautiful book called, Wintering, writes:
“We're not raised to recognize wintering or to acknowledge its inevitability. Instead, we tend to see it as a humiliation, something that should be hidden from view lest we shock the world too greatly. We put on a brave public face and grieve privately; we pretend not to see other people's pain. We treat each wintering as an embarrassing anomaly that should be hidden or ignored. This means we've made a secret of an entirely ordinary process and have thereby given those who endure it a pariah status, forcing them to drop out of everyday life in order to conceal their failure. Yet we do this at a great cost. Wintering brings about some of the most profound and insightful moments of our human experience, and wisdom resides in those who have wintered.”
I’m going to borrow this term, “wintering,” from May’s profound wisdom to talk about the low that is often experienced with the winter months. I want to pause to name that there is a radical difference between feeling down, tired, fatigued, having less energy, or experiencing a low mood from experiencing a depressive episode, suicidal ideation, or other diagnostic mental illness. There is also a radical difference between Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and a trauma response. Depression and Trauma responses should be treated with therapy or other professional help.
So why this offering when so many feel the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder?
Because we often entrust responsibility of the care of others to those who have not themselves wintered (or know that they have.) Many carry the weight of their surviving outside of the seasons, not always recognizing the way they intersect. Winter may hold for us unique triggers, as trauma occurred in these months and we associate (sometimes without knowing we do) the crisp cold winter air with the grief we weathered after losing a loved one in January, or the moment you sense the oncoming snow with the anger felt after hearing the news of an unexpected diagnosis. Other times, we experience our continued emotions of grief, anger, or struggle more intimately in the winter during the times of more isolation and thus more time within ourselves. And still, even for those who love these months, we may not recognize the ways we naturally have coped which have allowed us winter well.
Life is seasonal and we exist in intricate interconnected relationships with everything on this planet. The way we winter matters. And the way we show up for those in their winter matters. Below are some beautiful, practical ways we can show up in the winter:
-Talk about wintering. When we are brave enough to talk through seasonal lows, suffering, struggle, mental health, and chronic pain/illness, we bring awareness and solidarity. Compassionate visibility saves lives. We do not have to be experiencing it to talk about, so in a season of personal summer, practice empathy.
-Invite but Understand. For some, being around people can be supportive in a season of struggle, while others need to have time by themselves or time in their own space. Extend the opportunity to say ‘no,’ by validating the need to be alone or to stay home in this season. You may follow up a no with an offer to come to them, but again, extend an understanding that it’s okay to say no.
-Be Vulnerable- sharing our own stories can be a powerful way we build a bridge between someone in their winter and who they perceive you to be.
-Encourage Intentional Movement- Movement is one of the post accessible healing tools we have. As a leader, look for ways to carve out space for movement. Offer accessible yoga classes in your building, lead weekly nature walks and invite others to join, or create some accountability around movement. As a friend, propose time together spent on a morning walk.
-Time in Nature- Look for ways to personally connect with the natural world. Talk about these connections or find ways to bring people into a natural space to experience these connections. Wonder and Awe is not found in what you you look at but in the way you look at something. You can find yourself captivated wit joy over a simple winter sunrise, the melody of a wintering bird, or the breathtaking view of snow on water.
-Promote Creativity- In childhood, we learn that we are each creative in our own way. But as adults, may abandon this belief for the belief that we are all good at different things. I will forever cling to the truth that creativity is part of our wiring. It’s birthed in imagination, is a form of communication, is therapeutic, and is a way we connect with ourselves, with others, and with the world. Make room for creativity. Normalize the need to create across all ages.
-Check In- When the text thread has grown quiet, make a genuine effort to check in. This is not a checklist task, but a heart connection. Whether it be a phone call, a carefully worded text, or an in person visit, come into this space with care and no agenda.
-Share Soup (or other warm meals)- with those who may be struggling. The action of providing food is deeply spiritual as food is a basic need and to be fed is to experience care in a deeply vulnerable way.
-Heal in Sunlight- Since winter lows are significantly impacted by shorter days and less time in the sun, make time to sit in the sun. Schedule meetings in a location where you can sit by sunlit windows, go outside when sunlight is out an temps regulate, and when all else family, you can look for SAD lamps or lighting that provides Vitamin D. Shift plans or location to be in the sun- and verbalize your body’s need for sunlight. This practice is contagious when people connect the feelings of a rising mood with the sun.
Our mind, body, and soul- each impacts the other. Winter is a time for rest, and slowing down, but it is also a time for gentleness and grace- for yourself and for others.
May we gather the wisdom of winter from those who have wintered. And may never forget the profound privilege of community- to receive community and to be community.
***If you are feeling hopeless or struggling with symptoms of depression or suicidal ideation, please seek help. You are so incredibly deserving of hope, of help, and of healing.