Winter Blues: Fighting Winter Depression
Seasonal Affective Disorder is a yearly dose of depressing moments at the same season of every year. The most common type of seasonal depression is winter depression. It is not as simple as having winter blues, but it is a complex condition that needs medical intervention as soon as possible.
Walking Into Winter Depression
The causes of winter depression can't be pinpointed out. However, it is believed that the amount of light during winter is responsible for making you feel depressed. Just like how sometimes you become gloomy when it is a rainy day, that's how winter depression works. The difference is that winter is a long period of time compared to a single rainy day.
Feelings of sadness, depression, lethargy and cravings for sleep are usually experienced when you have winter depression. Medication and light treatments are used to treat winter depression. However, there are also ways that you yourself can do to battle out those depressing winter blues.
Go Get a Great Tan
One way to rid off lessen depression during winter is by getting a tan. Light therapy is used to treat winter depression, but this can be sometimes inaccessible to other people or may be too expensive. If that's your case, then a tan can be your substitute to access light, especially if there is little amount of light in your place during winter.
There are lots of tanning salons that can give you artificial tans during summer. About ten to thirty minutes sessions are sufficient enough to have your fair share of light.
Go Somewhere New
You can forget those depressing emotions by making yourself busy in planning and going to a new place. It can be a long vacation for the whole winter, or even just as short as a day trip to a place that you haven't gone to before. Doing this can relieve you from thinking gloomy thoughts while you stay bored in the darkness of your home.
You can also opt to skip having a white Christmas, and opt to go somewhere where the sun is shinning brightly everyday, like the tropics. In this way, you are sure that you get enough sunlight plus you also get to experience a different kind of Christmas!
Talk
Try calling up or visiting family members or friends that you haven't seen for a while. Talking with them about old times and catching up can be a refreshing break you're your blues and can lift up your mood.
