MeThe first mushrooms have already shown themselves and it gets dark outside a little bit earlier every day: autumn is coming! Those dark days don’t do everyone good; light has a major influence on your mood. Who doesn’t feel happy and energized after the dark winter months, when you finally spend some sunny spring days outdoors again? In this blog I will give you tips on what you can do against a winter depression. This way you’ll get through the dark winter months energetically!
Winter depression
During dark autumn and winter days, a significant number of people suffer from a so-called “winter depression”, also known as Winter Blues or Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). About 3-10% of people (of which the majority are women) suffer from complaints such as tearfulness and irritability, indecision and uncertainty, tiredness, reduced muscle strength and initiative, sleeping and eating problems (for example tendency to snack) due to the reduced exposure to (bright) outdoor light and weight gain. Just turning on the desk lamp doesn’t do the trick.
The cause
The cause of winter depression is often the lack of light. Your eyes communicate through your brain with an “inner clock”. Our brains recognize the spectral composition of natural light. In the morning and early afternoon, the blue light color predominates. At the end of the afternoon and in the evening, the red color predominates. Then it gets dark.
The effects on your hormones
The daily transition from light to dark affects the amount of cortisol and melatonin that our body produces. These are the hormones that regulate our day and night rhythm. The cortisol level in your body responds to the blue light color. Cortisol gives you energy, but also regulates your alertness and concentration. Melatonin, the so-called sleep hormone, reacts to the red light color. The amount of melatonin in your body increases from the moment it gets dark. The color of the light and the intensity therefore determine our feeling, energy level and behavior.
Therapy
Winter depression is usually not a real depression, but a mild form of it. We therefore also call a winter depression a ‘winter blues’. However, some people have such severe complaints that they do actually suffer from depression. There are different treatments for the different types of depression. Light therapy often helps very well when you’re suffering from winter depression.
What can you do?
Not only people who work in the office, for example, are (too) rarely outside. Especially when it gets dark early, the weather is bad and we work from home, we spend a lot of time indoors. However, staying indoors is not that healthy and can therefore cause an annoying winter blues. To counter this, you can do the following things:
- Go outside for half an hour every morning between 8 and 9 am. There is then a relatively large amount of ‘blue’ in the light. Blue light inhibits the production of the sleep hormone melatonin.
- Go outside around lunch time.
- If you work indoors, sit as close to the window as possible.
- You can make the lighting in the house stronger, with special daylight lamps.
- Spending a few days in a sunny destination in winter (whenever possible) improves your mood.
- Do not always stay indoors, even in bad weather. Outdoor activities such as sports or exercise counteract a winter dip.
- Eat a healthy diet and take a multivitamin as a supplement
- Take the bike instead of the car
- Get plenty of sleep.
Help with a winter blues
Do you notice that, despite these tips, you continue to suffer from a winter dip? Discuss it with your practitioner, ask your doctor for help or click here to see how you can get started via NiceDay.
Consciously taking good care of your mental health on a daily basis is great. That might sound a lot, but there are many different ways to do that. And it is important to carefully consider which ways work for you. Below I would like to share 7 useful tips.
1. Focus
First, it is good to do one thing with focus. Whether it’s eating with friends, finishing a difficult email or playing with your child. We are not made for multitasking! Multitasking unconsciously causes stress and ultimately a bad feeling; you do not feel satisfied if you are not focused on one thing. So make sure you do one thing with attention. This will help you experience flow and reduce your worrying thoughts. Here you can read more on how to do that practically. What could also help is mindfulness; this is about drawing your attention to the here and now and can help you with finding focus!
2. Be kind to yourself
We are often hard on ourselves when it comes to the expectations we want to meet. But we’re often not strict when it comes to taking care of ourselves, so pay extra attention to that! Taking good care of yourself can of course mean many different things. Find out what it means to you: for example, drinking 2 litres of water every day, stopping yourself when you worry about something unimportant, taking a break when you feel a headache coming on instead of continuing, venting your heart to friends, listening to your favourite music or taking a walk. Experiment with self-care! Find out what works for you and start small.
3. Active versus passive relaxation
Make sure that you do more active relaxation than passive relaxation. Netflixing and losing yourself in social media may sometimes feel great, but it is passive behaviour. While drawing, making music, dancing or cooking is all active relaxation. And it just so happens that that is very good for your brain! It makes you feel fulfilled and satisfied. Of course, occasionally it can be nice to completely immerse yourself in a good show, as long as you make sure that you don’t take it too far.
4. Energy guzzlers versus energy sources
A nice social circle can be a lot of fun, but you don’t get the same amount of energy from everyone. You can decide in whom you invest your time and energy and to who you give attention. Ask yourself the question: which people give me energy and which people cost me energy? Grab a pen and paper, make two columns and write it down: who makes me happy and who makes me feel stressed? Then, after you have made this overview, see whether you can increase your energy sources step by step by, for example, meeting up with your fun friend more often. And look at how you can reduce your energy guzzlers, for example by skipping a few coffee dates with a neighbour who demands a lot of energy from you.
5. Movement
You’ve probably heard it all before, but make sure you exercise daily. This is good for both your physical and mental health. You can also exercise during your work; go outside during a meeting or take a walk with your colleagues. Go out for lunch and listen to your favourite music or podcast.
6. Less alcohol
What if you stop drinking? Give it a try and see what it does to you. We all know the negative effects of alcohol, but do you also know the positive effects of quitting alcohol? You can experiment with yourself by, for example, stopping drinking for a month and seeing what difference you notice!
7. Tidy
Clutter demands a lot of energy from us. Cleaning up your mess also has a clear effect on your mental health! Do you find it difficult to keep your house tidy? Do you keep falling into a “messy” pattern? Then it may be worth taking a look at Rust in Huis.
Not only does clutter around us cause unrest, but also clutter in our heads. It can therefore help to write down what is going on in your head. Think of your to-do lists, your ideas and also the topics you worry about.
Are you struggling with complaints?
If you notice that you have structural complaints, for example, you have been feeling gloomy or tense for a long time, then it is important to take your signals seriously and seek help. Sometimes you can’t figure it out by following some simple tips. It is then very good to call in professional help. Read here how to do this for online treatment via NiceDay at various healthcare institutions.
Everyone crosses their boundaries from time to time. You allow others to take more from you emotionally or you give more energy than you intended, and that’s fine! You have a buffer that allows you to do that every now and then. If you ensure that you can recharge it sufficiently, you will be able to go beyond your boundaries responsibly. But when this starts to become an unhealthy pattern, something else may be going on.
What are the benefits?
If you overstep your boundaries often, it’s too easy to just say you shouldn’t do that anymore. There’s a reason this behaviour is repeating itself; it has its advantages. You could think of receiving more appreciation at work or maybe it fits your flexible attitude. Maybe it feels good to be helpful or you have a strong urge to prove and improve yourself. Or maybe it’s just a lot more practical and it leaves you with more time on the weekends if you walk the extra mile during the week. In short, overstepping your boundaries can have all sorts of benefits.
What does it cost you?
Because people instinctively tend to be more focused on the short term benefits, we often lose sight of the bigger. Besides that occasionally overstepping your boundaries has its benefits, it also costs you something. That is something we usually don’t realise, until it starts to affect us. Overstepping your boundaries can often lead to feeling like you’re selling yourself short if you don’t do as much. You can experience more pressure, because you’ve created the expectation that you’re always the one that will take that extra step. People can eagerly take advantage of that. But eventually it will cost you your resources and the ongoing effort will lead to both physical and mental fatigue.
Setting boundaries
Setting boundaries is not something you do for the short term; it’s not just taking a step back because you’re tired today. You’re also doing it for the long term. By setting boundaries you give clarity about what you can expect from yourself, but also what others can expect from you. You make realistic and dynamic demands. This means you can expect yourself to do your best every day, while always taking the circumstances into account. For example, if you didn’t sleep well or you’re experiencing some personal difficulties, it’s realistic that you will get less done during the day. But if you’re suddenly highly energetic and you feel great, then of course it’s good to use your energy to walk the extra mile every once in a while! You’re optimizing your achievements, because you balance your efforts and divide them realistically. In the short term it may seem less productive when you sometimes say no to certain tasks or requests, but in the long term the sum of all your activities will be higher. You’re not making anyone feel shortchanged, you’re doing them a favour!
NiceDay
Try examining what it gives you to overstep your bounds. And what does it cost you? What do you need to sufficiently recharge yourself so you can overstep your bounds responsibly? You can track this in the NiceDay app, download it here!
