Combating S.A.D., or How I’m Beating the Winter Blahs

Full disclosure: I’ve never officially been diagnosed with S.A.D., or Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I definitely notice a big shift in my mood and my energy levels during the winter. All jokes about hibernation aside, the oppressive darkness and near constant cold can make it really tough to manage your mental health and sap your motivation for personal hobbies, exercise, socializing, and/or anything that requires you to actually leave your house. I’ve been clobbered by seasonal malaise a few different times in the last few years, but this year has been much more manageable than the ones before it. Although I’ve lost hours of productive time to anxiety, I’ve more or less avoided falling victim to the doom and gloom mentality that leaves me glowering out my windows and longing for summer.

Part of this has to do with the fact that I’ve finally owned up to my negative feelings and begun treating them like a problem to be solved, instead of an unavoidable fact of (winter) life that I need to either steamroll right over or flat out ignore. But part of my change in perspective also stems from a few positive changes I’ve made–or tried to make–to my life and my routine that make the cold and dark feel less miserable and help me appreciate a time of year I usually loathe.

In no particular order, here are a few key steps I’m taking to battle the winter blahs.

1. Keeping busy

There’s a fine line between having a healthy amount of balls in the air and skating on the edge of burnout, and I leap straight over that line more than I care to admit. Over-achieving tendencies aside, though, I have found that staying reasonably productive keeps me from dwelling on how gross winter is and how grumpy I am about it. Whether it’s yoga or writing or working on the wedding scrapbook pictured in this photo, anything that gets me up off the couch and/or out of my head goes a long way toward improving my mood.

Another way I get out of my head is by getting out of my house, for dance classes and occasional dinner dates with my husband and to spend time with my friends. Catching up with other people and focusing on what they’ve been doing has always helped me forget my own problems, and having tea with a friend at their home or yours provides you both with a nice, cozy excuse for ignoring the worst of the winter weather. I also Skype my immediate family on Sunday evenings, and hearing from my sister about how dreadful winter is up where she lives–in the mountains much further north than me–has a way of putting things in perspective as well.

2. Sticking to a schedule

The only thing worse than being depressed and grouchy is being depressed, grouchy, and sleep-deprived. You’d think it would be easier for me to go to bed early because it gets dark so early, but instead I find myself staying up way later than I need to if I’m not careful. I’ve been using the habit tracker in my 2019 planner since November of 2018, and one of the habits I’m trying to be much more proactive about is setting a proper bedtime and sticking to it.

It rankles my brain a lot less to tell myself that I need to aim to be in bed between 11:00-11:30 than to force myself to be in bed with the lights off by 11:00 on the nose. The one part of my nighttime routine that I have gotten really strict with myself about, though, is turning my computer off by 10:30 at the absolute latest. There are multiple studies that emphasize the impact that blue light from screens has on our quality of sleep, and as someone who spends a lot of their evenings on their laptop because that’s the only real time I have to get work done, I’m trying to make sure that I reduce my exposure to blue light as much as possible before getting ready for bed.

Whether you need to get up at a certain time every morning or be in bed by a certain time, I’d urge you to take a good, hard look at your schedule this winter and see what you might change about it to try and maximize the quantity and quality of sleep that you get. As cliched as it sounds, it is absolutely true that everything looks brighter after a good night’s rest, and most of us need all the brightness we can get during this time of year.

3. Embracing hygge

Or, at least, the more Americanized version of hygge. 😉 The latest international craze to sweep (certain) parts of the United States, hygge is, “a Danish word used when acknowledging a feeling or moment, whether alone or with friends, at home or out, ordinary or extraordinary, as cozy, charming, or special.” (Per the website Hygge House – link to the introductory article here.)

The site is quick to include that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on hygge, and that truly embracing the concept involves much more mindfulness than consumerism. However, that’s not to say that you can’t or shouldn’t take the time to spruce up your space so that staying inside and out of the cold feels welcome instead of oppressive. One of the things my husband and I like to do when the temperatures drop and we’re at home all day is light one of the winter-scented candles in the picture to the left and leave it on the counter in our kitchen. The smell of spruce and the very small flame have a knack for making our poorly insulated apartment feel much cozier and homier. So do our trusty space heater and big mugs of hot chocolate.

Perhaps your idea of hygge is buying fresh flowers at the grocery store once or twice a month so that your home still has a little touch of spring, or making plans to have a big potluck dinner with your friends once a month so that you all have an excuse to leave your homes and see each other. Whether you believe in the concept of hygge or not, it never hurts to consider what inexpensive changes you might make to your space or routine to both boost your happiness and help make the winter feel more manageable.

4. Mindfulness

I touched very briefly on mindfulness in the previous paragraph, but I’m going to reiterate how important I feel it is to coping with unpleasant situations. In all honesty, I’ve fallen off the wagon in terms of my meditation practice this month, but I’m working to get back in the habit because of how much it has helped me. As a person with anxiety and a busy schedule and far, far too many thoughts swirling around in her head, I find that even sitting for five minutes or so at the end of every day and actively concentrating on my breath instead of my brain does wonders for my mood and my peace of mind. There’s something about being able to step outside yourself and see the bigger picture that makes whatever it is that you’re dealing with not feel so bad.

Mindfulness isn’t just meditation, though. I’ve kept a gratitude journal in the past, which I’ve also found really helpful in terms of keeping my spirits up and my negative thoughts in check. I still do yoga, which is basically meditation in motion. (Bonus points because you can do it inside all year long, and it’s a great form of exercise.)

But even if you don’t have room to add one more mindful thing to your schedule–I’ve been there, believe me–I find it still helps to take a moment to notice and appreciate the parts of your day you find pleasurable, as well as the wintery things you find pleasurable. I don’t love snow and I hate driving in snow, but I love watching it snow through my windows when I have nowhere to be and no place to go. I love how beautiful the barren trees become when they’re dressed in frost, and I love how much easier it is to spot hawks and bald eagles perched high up in the branches hunting when those branches aren’t obscured by leaves. I love having an excuse to stay inside and do inside things I find enjoyable, like baking or jigsaw puzzles or coloring.

And although none of these things can quite make up for the fact that it isn’t yet spring and probably won’t be for another couple of months, they do help make the winter a little bit easier to handle.

What tips do you have for battling your own personal winter blahs? And if you are one of those impressive people who likes this time of year, what, specifically do you like about it? Let me know in the comments!