Here Are the Things You Need to Know About The Winter Blues (Best Strategies)

As the summer months turn into fall, I experience a surge of energy . . .

There is so much to do in the garden. The preserving that started in summer needs to be completed, sometimes all at once if a hard frost comes early. There is soil building, which involves manure collecting and spreading, there is leaf collection and spreading. There is the general clean-up and weather proofing, including fixing any drafts that may cause problem in the house later in the year. The water heaters and heat lamps need to be checked for the chickens. The liquid fertilizers need to be dropped to a level that won’t burst the barrels when the degrees drop. And then as all the fall prep is winding down holiday preparation starts in earnest.

About a week or two after Christmas is over, when the real snow starts to come, when the cold makes it undesirable to walk the garden and to do anything outside the winter blues set in. Disclaimer: I have struggled with attention deficit disorder and major depression most of my life. While the ADD and depression are, for the most part, under control in my day-to-day life, the change in seasons brings on a deeper malaise that makes it hard for me to enjoy my winters and to keep up on the projects that I now have more time for without the daily grind of the garden. This is not what I consider Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or at least, it has never been diagnosed as such. It is important that we make a distinction here. It is natural for humans to go into an inward rest period during the winter. In the past, before electricity, televisions, and cars, we were forced in colder climates to hunker down, to just survive. In our present culture, where we have responsibilities outside the home this innate desire to just be and not accomplish too much can turn into temporary depression, guilt, or shame for not keeping up. This is different from SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a serious condition that can bring on major depressive episodes and allow thoughts of self-harm or the inability to keep up with daily life. If you are experiencing depression that affects your ability and will to live your normal day to day life, this is not your article, please seek professional help.

With that caveat, I have found through trial and error several practices that have helped me get through the long dark days of winter and to lighten that darkness in a way that it has now become something I can use to help my life become better every day. I have split them into three categories: Physical Health, Mental Health, and All-Around Health. There is nothing to buy unless you want to, and there is nothing hidden or secret. Anyone can start practicing everything in this blog post when you finish reading. I hope this post helps you to have a better winter and a better life.

Physical Health

• Move
• Get After Your Gut
• Sleep Hygiene

Standard physical health can be broken down into diet, exercise, and sleep. I have been on a lifelong journey in trying to get these three right. I was never a very active kid, and I loved to eat. Since becoming an adult, I have tried all the diets, the workout routines, and the advice. What works is to be okay with where you are. Whenever we are trying to be something we are not, when we go to extremes to get rid of something we hate, we always come back to the beginning. Why? When you do not love and appreciate where you are in life, physically, emotionally, mentally you will self-sabotage because it is easier to know what is already known than it is to have the courage to let go. In saying that, I am not in the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps crowd.” I am more of a “do you even have bootstraps?” Maybe you’ll have to start with tennis shoes with Velcro. The point is you must get to the point where you are okay with being in your current skin, nothing can change if you’ve got a voice inside your head telling you you’re fat, ugly, and going to fail. I’ll write more about that when we talk about mental health. For now, just try to be forgiving and kind to yourself.

When we move, we release chemicals that make us feel good. Wherever you are in your health journey, a little more is better than not at all. I don’t always get to the workout I want to do, but even if I get a minute running in place, a little stretching, or I just rough house with my kids, it’s better than not. That is the key for me in the winter, because in spring and summer, there is always opportunities to move. In winter I just need to move more than I did yesterday, that’s enough to lift my mood.

When we eat highly processed, sugary foods it weights our bodies down. We are not meant to eat the standard American diet (another SAD acronym). If we look at Blue Zones, places where humans typically live to more than a hundred, we see less processed, more whole foods. Things like lots of vegetables, traditional fats, and oils, not from seeds, not from plants, from animals and fruits. Meat in moderation, carbohydrates in moderation, but not bleached and highly processed. If you’re eating raw butter and homemade sourdough bread, you will not gain weight like someone eating white bread from the store and margarine. It’s just not going to happen. Science that is not sponsored by processed food companies, bears this out In the winter time we grow microgreens and sprouts. Both are easy with little expense and provide fresh greens for our bodies. We have eliminated oils like canola, corn, and “vegetable” from our diet and use tallow, lard, butter, and olive oil. We eat a lot of bread, fresh sourdough bread and sweet breads made from summer veggies like zucchini. We eat oats and dried fruit, we try to resist the temptation to go out to eat or order in. not only does it suck the energy out of you, but it also sucks the money out of your bank account. We also eat pickles, homemade fresh cheese, and drink kombucha. When our gut is healthy all our body is better able to be healthy.

So what about sleep? A sleep routine is the best that the night can offer. What a lot of people are now calling “Sleep Hygiene” offers several practices to get your nightly z’s.

            Number 1 – avoid alcohol

            Number 2 – Avoid screens

            Number 3 – Set a Routine

            Number 4 – Train your body and mind to associate the bed with sleep

            Number 5 – Expert Tip – Sleep Meditation / Wind Down

1. Alcohol, while helping to fall asleep, will not provide a deep sleep that is necessary for feeling rested and healthy. Often, as the effects of alcohol wear off during the night it can cause restlessness and potentially waking up several times during the night.
2. Screentime can be a stress reliever, and for many screens have replaced paper books. While some screentime is fine any amount in the hour before bed can make it harder to wind down and to be able to let go and fall into a restful sleep.
3. Setting a routine helps train your body to know when to start producing melatonin, a hormone that helps to regulate sleep. A wake-up routine as well as a falling to sleep routine can be very beneficial. As we do the things in our routines over and over, the body realizes that it is time to let go to sleep. A routine could be as simple as, at 8pm I change into pajamas, brush my teeth, and listen to quiet calming music. The key is to do it regularly. Repetition is the key to set the process in motion.
4. The bed should in general, be reserved for sleep. When we read, watch media, do homework, etc. in our beds we learn that when we get into bed there is more, we need to do rather than sleep. There will always be exceptions but try to create a space that is conducive to deep relaxation, safety and above all calmness.
5. I have found great benefit in listening to a guided meditation or a sleep affirmations playlist. This works especially well if I wake up in the middle of the night.

Mental Health

1. Meditation
2. Breathwork
3. Positive Mindset

A meditation routine helps to free us from overthinking, anxiety, and dualistic thinking. For many of us the mind continues to think even when we are not actively using it. We think about the past, the future, plan, judge, and remember. All these thought patterns pull us away from the present moment, the only real moment we have. There is much to say about mindfulness and how the ego tears us away from it, but that is for another post. If you have never meditated before all you need to do is follow your breath and whenever you notice that you are thinking observe the thoughts, don’t resist them, just be aware that they are there. A Zen practitioner I once knew said it this way; “thoughts are like uninvited guests. You greet them, and are kind, but you don’t make them coffee and serve them cookies.”

Breathwork is something new I’ve started this year. An excellent resource is the Wim Hof method. This technique involves rapid breathing interspersed with breath holds. It is a prerequisite to cold training, and developed by Wim Hof, aka the Ice Man. Any breathing that is done with attention to the breath and utilize your full lung capacity will work.

As I mentioned earlier, I have struggled with keeping a positive mindset. I have never considered affirmations in the past, in fact, I thought they were silly. I kept coming back to the 1990’s SNL skits where a comedian with a fluffy blond bowl cut stood in front of a mirror and said affirmations to himself. I have found, however, with encouragement from an online community that affirmations can be very effective, especially when down during meditation, after meditation and in periods just before sleep and just after waking up. There are several good playlists on YouTube and Spotify. If the affirmation doesn’t resonate with you, choose another one.

All Around General Health

Winter moodiness, sadness and lethargy typically start with the changes in light during seasonal changes. It is therefore imperative that we get as much natural light as possible. Even standing in a sunny window when it is too miserable to go outside is better than hiding in the dark. If nothing else, force yourself to get to that window. If that is not possible there are many products on the market that simulate sunlight, and sun rises. These can be beneficial for many people.

Another activity that I have started this season is cold training. I am at the very beginning of my journey in cold training, but I have already noticed that I can tolerate the cold better, I have more energy and have a more optimistic outlook after a session. I recommend looking into Wim Hof, the Ice Man. The cold training can be greatly enhanced with a sauna experience, I have unfortunately not been able to incorporate a sauna into my routine but hope to in the future.

Conclusion

This blog post is far from an exhaustive read on the winter blues. There are many more techniques, practices and traditions that help people of all walks of life beat the doldrums during winter. The recommendations written about here are the ones that have worked for me. They do not work every day, and I still have hard days, but when practiced regularly they help. The key to everything is consistency and when consistency is not possible, we get back up again when we fall and start over. This blog post is a week behind, and I did not keep my goal of two posts a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The reason is that the weather got very cold and grey. I was practicing most of these techniques, but still couldn’t get the energy to finish the post. That combined with a new semester at school contributed to the tardiness of publishing. Self-compassion and forgiveness are essential. I got my mood under control, and I finished this article. It was not the outcome I was looking for, but it was the outcome that happened. I have to be okay with that and continue to get back up again, and so do you.