With gray skies, freezing temperatures and a post-holiday letdown, winter blues may seem like an inevitability, but it doesn't have to be. Some simple steps and shifts can make the difference between floundering and flourishing.
Dr. Jarrod Spencer, a renowned sports psychologist who resides in the Lehigh Valley, helps to bring some insight to the term “winter blues.”
“We can speak of winter blues in terms of depression, but in other terminology, we call it languishing,” he says. “It's the absence of mental health concerns, but also the absence of thriving. In other words, you are not doing bad, you're not doing great, you aren't progressing.” Appreciating this understanding, we can begin to take a proactive approach to support ways that keep us thriving this coming season.
Keep Consistent Sleep Patterns
With the shorter amount of daylight and the increasingly cold weather, it is easy to want to stay in bed and extend our normal sleep patterns. Getting more than the regular seven to nine hours of sleep can actually increase feelings of fatigue, brain fog and depression. Keeping a consistent bedtime and wake-up time helps ensure that you don't oversleep and feed into the doldrums.
If getting up to a harsh alarm is difficult, or the snooze button is too easy to hit, try a wake-up light instead. Most of these devices combine a gradually brightening light that mimics sunrise along with a gentle sounding alarm. By the time the alarm goes off, the body has been exposed to light that naturally brings you out of deeper sleep cycles into a more awakened state. Just be sure to limit the electromagnetic field disruption by placing the light alarm further away from your bed and cover any LED display that could interrupt deep sleep.
Get Outside & Get Moving
Yes, the weather may be less inviting, but getting outdoors is still a win-win. Being in the fresh air in nature is invigorating and, depending on the day, may get you some much-needed vitamin D. Combine that with exercise, and now you have a double dose of mood-boosting medicine. Sometimes taking those first steps outside can be the hardest, so try to reframe the experience by connecting to the feeling of accomplishment that comes afterwards, or have a simple reward like a warm cup of tea upon return. Layering with smart thermal fabrics like merino wools and other tech clothing can make even the coldest days very manageable. If you just can't get outside, make sure to move in some way, shape or form, as exercise is one of the best ways to sharpen the brain and improve mental health.
Mind the Alcohol and Carbs
Starchy comfort foods and cocktails are tempting ways to ease the blues, but snacking on simple carbohydrates and sugary foods can have you on a blood sugar roller coaster. Now is the time to pay extra attention to limiting refined grains, sugar-sweetened drinks and to stick with clean protein sources, healthy fats and fiber-rich whole foods. Along with sugars, alcohol is also doing you no favors. It is a known depressant as well as a sleep disruptor. Dry January and the Sober Curious lifestyle are growing trends and for good reason. Staying away from drinks in the winter months can be more than just a reset from holiday excess, it's also an effective way to support one's mental and physical well-being.
Enhance Your Environment
Our home and work environments can either be sources of support or underlying stress. Improving your environment can begin with adding more life in the form of plants, which not only add vibrancy to your area, but boost your mood, too. Depending on the plant variety, it can give the added benefit of improving the air quality as well. Make space for the plants by clearing out the clutter!
Plan A Getaway
Plan a quick getaway to a warm, sunny immersion. Traveling the second or third week in January can often promise the best deal. And remember, it's not just the actual time away that provides the benefit. There's several weeks of excitement leading up to the trip and then a couple of weeks afterwards. The uplifting boost of a trip can actually last five to six weeks, which is a bulk of the season!
Get up and Cheer
Depending on your comfort level as well as the safety practices of the center, attending live events in the area can be a “game changer.” Dr. Spencer adds, attending a live sporting event like the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, or a show at theaters like Zoellner Arts Center, the State Theatre in Easton, the PPL Center or the plethora of venues in the Valley, can take you out of your norm. “It's a lively, energetic and enthusiastic environment. When you get up and cheer and share in the excitement, you can be in another world for an evening, and that matters for your mental well-being.”
Practice Self-Care
It may sound like an indulgence, but incorporating healing work on your body is an important and often underutilized strategy to combat the winter blues. Whether it's massage therapy, flexibility work, acupuncture or water therapy, like saunas and contrast bath therapy, including body work improves lymph flow and helps with aches and pains that can drag us down mentally. The act of choosing to put your well-being first and be supported through healing modalities can pay big dividends.
Act Now
“With the pandemic last winter, we had a lot of snow, we had time on our hands, but we couldn't go out very easily. It contributed to the spike in depression and anxiety seen in 2021,” Dr. Spencer emphasizes. “The most important thing is to get out in front of it, meaning take positive and proactive steps. We know the dip is coming, so schedule things now, plan the vacation, get the ski pass, order tickets to events in the area, sign up for the art class. It is important to plan things now, because when the blues hit, you have less motivation to do so.” Having activities to look forward to and already scheduled on the calendar can help provide the much-needed push.
In addition to scheduling activities, Dr. Spencer is adamant about educating oneself. He asks: “What podcasts are you listening to, what YouTube videos are you watching and what books are you reading? Finding a therapist can be hard right now, but that doesn't mean you can't educate yourself and find resources to enrich your understanding and get you on the path toward thriving.”
Staving off the winter blues is an active process that starts now. There are a whole host of ways to improve how you move through the remaining winter season. Learning more about what supports and nourishes our well-being and taking simple action steps to incorporate them can help us shift from languishing to flourishing.
