Did you know that The Winter Blues now has an official name? Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is defined as a kind of depression that occurs at the same time every year, usually during the fall and winter months. These months of grey, wet, and cold make you feel down right exhausted, as if you’re just being sapped of your energy, and well…sad! Don’t just brush these feelings off and tell yourself that you just have to tough it out. Like all emotions, these ones are trying inform you of an energetic imbalance that wants to be corrected. There are many therapies available to help you find the silver lining in the clouds during this season, including services provided here at Stream Point Wellness.
Causes & Symptoms
As we mentioned above, SAD is most often seen seasonally in the late fall and winter months. Common symptoms include: Depression and hopelessness, anxiety, extreme fatigue and low energy, heavy feelings in the limbs, oversleeping, social withdrawal, appetite and weight changes, difficulty concentration and a loss of interest in activities you usually enjoy.
As we mentioned last week, energy flow in the body is highly affected by the climate and environment, so it’s almost no surprise that these months elicit these kinds of feelings. Cold weather makes things feel bundled and stagnate, the wetness and grayness makes us feel dull and heavy…and sometimes we just want to hibernate through these months. Additionally, our body has an inner biological clock that tells us when to be awake and when to sleep based on daylight and darkness. This is called our circadian flow and it’s mostly associated with the pineal gland, which ironically is now being heavily researched as the seed of consciousness!). With the reduced amount of sunlight in the winter months, our circadian flow gets thrown off a bit, and sometimes it’s hard to self-adjust. Additionally, lower levels of sunlight are also associated with lower levels of serotonin and melatonin, two hormones heavily involved with mood, appetite, and sleep.
What To Do
How Stream Point Can Help: All of our services are designed to treat the body, mind, and spirit. Massage therapy can help move your body and your spirit into balance again through muscular and energetic work. Acupuncture can help by identifying the source of the energetic imbalance and then using acupuncture needles to correct the imbalance and infuse you with the energy needed to thrive during this season. We can also provide guidelines with nutrition, thought patterns, and other lifestyle modifications to help you feel your best.
Phototherapy: This is exactly what it sounds like – being exposed to light that mimics the sun to bring your body back into a state of balance. It’s just important to make sure you’re using a high quality light therapy device and utilizing proper dosage and length. For those of us on a budget, take advantage of a tanning bed and sit in them for a few minutes. It’s not ideal – but sometimes we just need to work with what we have in front of us.
Psychotherapy is also a great option. Sometimes we just need to curl up with some cocoa and talk to somebody about how we’re feeling…and sometimes it’s best if that person is a compassionate and trained professional who can offer an objective ear and some objective advice. If you do feel like it’s time to talk to someone, we have a great psychotherapist we can refer you to.
Brighten Your Environment & Get Outside: Open the blinds, move items that block daylight, or add skylights to your home. Sit closer to windows while at home or in the office. Take a long walk, and be outside (just bundle up!). Even on cold or cloudy days, outdoor light and air can help — especially if you spend some time outside within two hours of getting up in the morning.
Exercise Regularly. I cannot stress enough how great exercise is for your psyche, it does wonders by encouraging smooth and abundant flow of energy, while elevating mood and sense of well being. If you’re looking for a creative and fun challenge, we’re big fans of Bella Forza Lexington, which offers a multitude of classes (one of our favorites is the Aerial Silks!). As a matter of fact, Bella Forza is offering a promotion exclusive to Stream Point right now where if you mention us, you’ll receive either 50% off your first class or 20% off a 5 or 10 class punch card!
Before we finish, I want to take a moment to talk about finding the balance with diagnosing the psyche. When we’re feeling mentally and emotionally off, we almost immediately want the name of what’s wrong – we want to fit ourselves into the perfect diagnosis. So we search the good ole’ Internet for answers, and before we know it, we’ve thrown ourselves into a diagnosis. Once we’ve labeled ourselves, it’s very easy to slip down the slope and become attached to it. That attachment can cause us stigmatize ourselves and maybe even manifest new symptoms just to fit in to the diagnosis. Before we know it, we find ourselves feeding the thing that brought us out of balance in the first place, and that is a hard pattern to break. That being said, if you do find yourself a little sadder than usual in these months, I urge you to find balance between searching for answers and not letting yourself fall victim to what WebMD is telling you, or what any label is telling you. By all means read, learn, educate yourself and become self aware – because self awareness is power. The next step (and sometimes the scariest step) is to move forward with it and own that power to bring yourself some sunshine again.
In the mean time, stay sunny my friends, you are all little rays of sunshine in my eyes 🙂
*~Namaste, Andrea~*
