In every online community Iāve ever seen, winter depression has been a noticeable thing, and this site is no exception. The combination of weather and being indoors, having to deal with shitty family over the holidays, being lonely over the holidays, etc. is bad enough, but I feel like this year is worse than usual due to the election and other events.
I donāt know if recent bad vibes might be in part due to this, but regardless, please treat both yourself and others with kindness, at least as much youāre able to. Also, donāt hesitate to open up to people you trust if thereās anything on your mind you want to discuss.
Does anyone else have any good tips for dealing with it? Please let us know in the comments, and thank you for reading this.
Iāve had extremely bad seasonal depression for most of my life and i finally grabbed some vitamin D3 tablets and honestly i feel like theyāre helping a lot
recently ordered my first batch of D3 and have been taking them daily. feeling not quite as gloomy as usual so maybe they work
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Just got my bloodwork done and my Vitamin D was way too low. Trying a supplement now.
Thanks for this. Iāve been pretty depressed since the election. Iām so tired of fighting.
Iām not looking forward to 4 years of Trump trying to destroy marginalized people and having to organize against that happening. It makes me feel like a pawn of the liberals too, since they only organize against it when itās a republicans doing the bad things, so working with them feels too gross, I canāt do it any more. They are so disingenuous and easily manipulated by liberal MSM into the correct liberal outrage of the day. I donāt even want to watch it all happen. Ughhhh Iām so sick of it all.
I highly recommend people at least try guided meditation too. Itās not a silver bullet by any means, but some days I get really bad anxiety and taking a step back to breathe, ground myself, and pay attention to my own body and surroundings provides a sense of relief for a few moments.
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Can you explain in simple words how to self-care? It was not a thing when I was growing up, and I never really understood what it means.
Will definitely try the vitamin D, thanks for reminding me, read a post about it on here a while ago, but then completely forgot.
Youāre the mod of /c/cute, right? Hereās a cute PokĆ©mon art that I found
Jolteon is the electric-type Eeveelution, and in this picture theyāre using it to charge a phone hehe
Iām definitely not an expert (and in fact, Iām quite terrible at self-care) but I see it as just paying attention to youāre own mental health and taking whatever steps you can to protect it. Like for example, I donāt get enough sleep and Iām always up to late on the internet, like Iām doing now. I should log off and get some sleep. Nightie night everyone.
If youāre any shade of brown or dark at all , get vitamin D supplements, the strong ones. Then, make it part of your routine to take them daily.
Also get some sunshine, even if itās cloudy outside. It helps your body fix the vitamin D
Honestly everyone should full stop. 42% of the US is vitamin D deficient. Iām on that 10,000 UI a day type lifestyle
what do you do if youāre depressed all the time and it just gets worse during the winter
watch One Piece
Anyone else get the opposite of seasonal depression, feeling invigorated by rain and darkness? I donāt know, I live in a desert, and the norm is clear skies and heat. Every summer I can feel my depression acting up when Iām constantly inundated by intolerable heat and oppressively bright sunlight.
sometimes I wonder if this is me. I grew up in the sunny subtropics. the only relief from the temps was hiding indoors, long storms, or being shit faced. if you were loaded you could live near a beach or had a pool. I spent many years doing outdoor physical labor, getting absolutely brain cooked in the heat and humidity, in the glare of an oppressive sun.
Iāve steadily made my way north and now live in a place with supposedly dreary weather. grey skies, rains, cold and snow. dark early in winter.
itās kinda G. I like being in layers, like armor against the cold. I have more energy and drive to move around because it warms me up. and when itās too cold and crappy out from icy rains, I can just cozy up at home and make some warm food. like thereās no social pressure to go out to some packed bar and be all sweaty with the other big boys trying to get so drunk the heat and stink doesnāt bother us.
sometimes I wonder if all the dislocating of the last several hundred years is one of the factors behind all this. like some of us just function better in certain contexts.
My safe place is dressing up like one of the strangers from Dark City and walking around in the rain
Even better if thereās a nice fog billowing about
idk if I feel invigorated by rain, but in the last few years as wildfires in north america have gotten worse and there are more frequent drought conditions, I always really appreciate the rain when it comes. especially in the fall, you can tell how thirsty the ground is as water soaks in.
also, as Iāve gotten older Iāve tried to change my thinking. instead of thinking āwow itās a nice day, this is a beautiful placeā or āthis is a miserable day and itās ugly outsideā I try to think āthis is what itās like to be in a beautiful place when it is raining/dark/foggy/sunnyā.
learning about botany has been helpful in the off-season as well. it is helpful to understand what vegetation does when it is not bursting with green. plants/trees/shrubs etc. arenāt dead when they are grey, they are just sleeping. does seeing a sleeping child make you sad? to me no, even though they are less exciting than when they are awake.
i like the cold
but then it got too cold
Rain and darkness yes, I love the before storm ozone smell. If the power wasnāt so unreliable here I would want much more frequent thunderstorms. Grey ice, melting snow & slush though? Nah, that season is very depressing for me.
I get it, heat is absolutely withering to me but I love the cold. Moving around feels good and warming, instead of making me feel like Iām dying.
seasonal depression, feeling invigorated by rain and darkness?
Yes! Whenever it is rainy all day (and Iām talking like, stormy weather - constant drizzles are alright but I wanna hear the rain against the window inside) I usually have a better day mentally. Iām more likely to do stuff in the early morning (I am NOT a morning person usually) if its raining; more likely to just do stuff I wouldnāt normally do on a sunny day in general (rainy days are usually my ālets check off a bunch of random stuff I put on my to-do list months ago like buying a new showerhead & installing itā days)
I grew up close to the equator, so sunrise and sunset would be pretty much at the same time all year. It was rainy af too, but I never really struggled with lack of energy or weather-related depression symptoms. I think itās because I got enough sunshine during the day.
Moved somewhere with very marked seasons, and seeing the sun set at 4:30 pm is rough. Had to learn how to deal with it the hard way
It can be nice and comforting as a change of pace. Every setting and climate has its charm but
when Iām constantly inundated by intolerable heat and oppressively bright sunlight.
this is where i fucking thrive lol i am a sunny boy, give me arid conditions with scorching heat, drought, and deserts, I live for this sit
If youāre able-bodied, I cannot stress enough how much exercise does for emotional regulation. Used to think this was all bullshit but then after a few days of consistency, it turned into weeks and now here we are years later. Itās such a needed outlet and an important part of my day. I still get moments of depression, but exercise has made it not as long or as intense. It also gives you a goal which I think is needed. Having something to look forward to, some sort of routine, I feel is something innate, and feels good to work towards something.
Good post.
Get a SAD/happy light too!
Get a happy light, if you have poor sunlight exposure for your eyes (cloudy, especially in the mornings), start using one when you wake up. Ideally have it placed towards the upper end of your vision. I donāt remember the right amount of lumins, might be 10k but just make sure you get the right kind of light.
Take supplements, vitamin D and maybe fish oil (or whatever vegan supplement is equivalent, sorry Iām not sure). Honestly take a multi vitamin if youāre at all unsure about the quality of your diet, at least for the bad months (Iām not a big believer in multivitamins but depression/seasonal depression is a multi-pronged thing you need to deal with, you need to seek out as many small improvements you can even if not all of them work). If you feel like you donāt eat a lot of fiber at least start supplementing fiber as well.
If you have issues with your sleep/sleep schedule getting weird I would suggest taking melatonin about 1 hour before your intended sleep time, nightly. The main problem with melatonin supplements is that they are dosed way WAY too high, probably because the people who researched the correct dose ended up doing a trademark on it (or something like that). The correct dose is about .25mg or so, much smaller than the doses you normally find. My suggestion is to buy this bottle: Life Extension Fast-Acting Liquid Melatonin ā https://a.co/d/7Z7LALB , this comes as a liquid with a dropper and you only need about 3-4 drops to have the right dose, itās also just a ton of melatonin for the price and will last you a very long time. For me this keeps my sleep super regular, gently nudging me to sleep at the correct time, but I can also stay awake if I really want to until the melatonin wears off (it should only really noticeably last for a couple hours). Being consistently well rested is important for anxiety/depression.
On that note I would also suggest making absolutely sure you donāt have any sort of issues with breathing while sleeping. Sleep apnea is also pretty bad, although admittedly resolving it can be kinda hard, especially without health insurance helping. Regardless, sometimes even doing something small like training yourself to sleep in different positions can make a large difference.
By upper end of your vision do you mean, ideally the light should be above your eye level? I have one but my thinking is too disordered to remember to use it
Yes should be shining like right in the upper part of your vision, ideally
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100% this, my depression has always been at its nadir in summer, the cold and dark of winter? Paradise, especially since I get migraines triggered by light. However, when the sun reflects off snow just right or someone burns a Christmas cookie candle Iām hosed.
Yeah every time I think āIāll be fine this time!ā I end up super fuckin deppressed for 2 months and donāt realize
Today is that day this year, thanks for the post lol
I NEED A UV LAMP (mainly cause I, since moving to an apartment without a balcony, canāt sit outside and sunbathe I DONāT CARE ABOUT MY VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY) BUT THEYāRE LIKE $2000 AND DONāT TAN YOU WHICH IS BULLSHIT
Itās not a UV light, but using those daylight lamps for 20 minutes while I have coffee or tea has helped a lot with lethargy and low energy in the mornings, especially when itās really dark out but you have to be up.
Theyāre also very cheap, mine was like 20 bucks.
Letās see here, I work 3rd so society already considers me an outcast, live in rural ohio so finding anyone remotely closely aligned may as well be functionally impossible.
Seasonal depression for me ends up being all year. New years, nobody to be with. Valentines day, ālook at all these happy couples, experiencing a part of life youāll never be able to have, get fucked loserā. 4th of July (seriously, itās the 2nd closest thing to a community event here), I really hate being in large groups of people, plus I just donāt care for overpriced carnival food/games. My birthday, itās become nothing more than a reminder that Iām another year older andā¦ oh right I turned 30 this year, well we all know what society thinks of a single man who hasnāt ever dated really at all. Halloween, homeschooled church kid so I never had any feelings on it at all, besides hating it because I got to watch other have something and I just couldnāt. Thanksgiving/Christmas, Iāve been avoiding it mostly because my grandparents have somewhat given me the implication that I shouldāve been married and had a kid at least 5 years ago at the latest.
Self care to me just ends up being me continually finding distractions to not ending it in spite wanting to.