Irritation and seasonal affective disorder can go together. But they aren’t inevitably linked. Here’s what I’m learning about both of them.
seasonal affective disorder
When Winter Blues Affect Your Marriage
During the shorter, darker days of winter, the winter blues affect not just me, but my marriage. It’s bad enough when I struggle with winter blues, but since my husband also struggles with them, our marriage suffers a double whammy.
Over the years, I’ve learned ways to cope with the winter blues and even fight back with healthy methods. I’m sharing them today at A Wife Like Me. Here’s a peek at my post, and I hope you’ll head over to read the rest.
How to Reach Out and Fight Off Winter Blues
In this final post of my winter blues series, we’ll talk about the importance of reaching out and using intentional friendship to beat seasonal affective disorder.
We have covered light therapy, eating right, and self care in the past series posts. I hope you’ll check those out too, so you’ll have a full arsenal of ways to battle your winter blues.
Let’s look at five ways reaching out can boost your mood in the winter.
Eating Right to Fight Off Winter Blues
Today, we’ll look at how eating right makes a huge difference in the battle against winter blues. Last time, we discussed light therapy. and I encourage you to read that post if you struggle with seasonal affective disorder like me.
No girl loves sweets more than me. Christmas is my favorite time for indulging in cookie after cookie, because I love to bake.
But when those winter blues hit me hard in January, I change my eating habits. Not necessarily to lose weight. I change my eating plan to fight off winter blues.
Using Light to Fight Off Winter Blues
When I was a child, New Year’s Eve was one of the bluest days of the winter. I remember feeling sad that a year was ending, because I hate goodbyes. Cold weather is my nemesis, and I knew the worst of it lay ahead (with no Christmas celebrations to offset the blahs). My mom worked in a tax office, so my sister and I would be alone much more often beginning January 1. All those reasons had logical explanations—but I didn’t know there is a name for what I was experiencing until I was in my 30’s.
I have seasonal affective disorder (SAD). It’s a form of depression that afflicts around 10 million Americans every year, especially in the winter months. The long, dark nights combined with shorter light periods often trigger depression-like symptoms.
I have endured several seasons of depression in the past, and mental illness runs on both sides of my family. I am genetically predisposed to have this problem, year after year.
But I have found ways to fight off these heavy winter blues that strike each November and last through March.