Winter Is Here: Slowing Down to Fight SAD
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nicky.bearblog.dev
- https://selecthealth.org/blog/2020/07/7-health-benefits-of-s...
Getting a lot of sunlight in the morning is also a good way to reduce jetlag by resetting your circadian rhythm to be in sync with your new time zone.
If you live in a climate where you do not have access to sufficient sunlight, one possible alternative is to buy an LED corn bulb (don't use it too late at night, otherwise you won't be able to fall asleep):
- https://blog.plover.com/tech/corn-bulbs.html
- https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens
- https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/
You can buy these fairly inexpensively from retailers like AliExpress if you are ok with waiting a month for shipping from China: https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=corn+bulb
If you live in North America, Japan, Korea, or Taiwan (120V AC), you want an E26 socket lamp, otherwise for 240V AC grids, you should consider E27 socket lamps.
Particularly people who live shitty lifestyles who expect you to "come over" and stay with them and put up with their domestic insanity.
Also found family is an absolute blessing around the holidays. I’m surrounded by people who love me more and less conditionally than my own family.
Don’t wait for society to deem it acceptable to ghost your terrible family, just do it. Be the change. You won’t be alone, trust me. You would be shocked at the number of nuclear families who cut out their extended family and have “family-friend Christmas” and even more than that cut out one of the sides.
-- There's a lot of seasonal work that depends on good weather: ag, construction, even real estate. Work slows or is physically harder in the cold and poor weather conditions, creating hardships.
-- There's tremendous social pressure to spend money, not only on xmas gifts, but also on charitable giving. There are a lot of different kinds of emotions people go through either because they can't afford to give or to spend and/or because they go overboard.
-- Because of the above issues, many people are trying to stretch their dollars this time of year. IE: got paid out for work they did through summer and fall, but now at a time everyone wants their dollars, they are trying to stretch them until the next round of work starts up after the new year (or even in the spring...)
-- With all of the various holidays this time of year, there are a lot of family and social demands on people. You might have to see that family member you don't like - twice even between Thanksgiving and the December holidays. Creates a lot of emotional turmoil and/ or time commitments that people don't have or don't prefer to have.
-- If you've been hard at work all year, there is a natural exhaustion that seems to come this time of year regardless.
I guess what I'm saying is... yeah, get those SAD lights, take your vitamin D, but also be aware that for many people there's a lot more going on than just not enough sunlight.
Trying to get 1h outside / day does it for me - usually using the commute for it, running or cycling to work.
Dont forget, we were optimized for millions of years for spending our time outside. Dont run fully outside your specifications people ;)
In case this wasn't meant to be a tongue-in-cheek statement: perfectly.
“LED lighting is improving rapidly. You can install very bright lights for treating seasonal affective disorder (SAD) easily and inexpensively. Common sense says that will be more effective than commercial SAD lights that are much less bright. My experience confirms this.”
Everyone has their own, unique body, best to be cautious and aware, if one experiments. Keep a journal or check in with a close confidant. This is generally less expensive in time and money than seeing my general practitioner.
Also, I live in the PNW of the United States, so those are the amounts of sunshine I work with.
> The real issue is that if I can’t hit some pre-conceived level of commitment and results that my perfectionism convinces me that I can hit, I don’t put the effort it.
> The instant gratification serves another purpose though. It prevents me from slowing down.
Fighting this is key.
Even completely euthymic, this is still a battle, perhaps THE battle I would pick.
That's like trying to stop breathing for me. Getting out and exercising when I least feel like it is the only thing that has helped me. But clearing that hurdle isn't always easy.
I also use a Lumenator (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hC2NFsuf5anuGadFm/how-to-bui...) which I think of as icing on the cake. Perhaps ‘cure’ is too strong a word, but it’s been the most effective thing other than leaving the hemisphere for someplace sunnier which was my previous approach.
I walk before dawn quite often, and while I don't get a lot of light (especially on those days with low, thick, dark clouds), the simple act of moving, breathing fresh air, having routine, etc... It seems to make a tremendous difference.
Some sources claim the lack of light isn't too problematic, but that aiming to get 15m or so (even if it's very overcast) around 7:30am in mid-winter could be totally sufficient to stabilize your circadian rhythm and help mitigate SAD.
This has been my experience so far this winter, but I'm only one person, I've completely changed my diet, I'm exercising more, etc. I can't narrow down exactly what helped. I can say that when I didn't change the other variables, morning walks were making a significant difference.
I'll also admit that the option to do this is a luxury in a sense. A couple years ago my youngest would have been waking too early for this to be possible, and before that for a long time his brothers were much the same. Parents of young ones will often struggle to maintain this kind of rhythm. It's worth aspiring to though, though. When mine get up early I just bring them with me, but they're old enough to walk and all of that at this point.
The confirmation bias is strong here maybe in me and others, the solutions are all dripping in snake oil.
It's really quite bizarre but amount of cold and darkness doesn't correlate well with low mood. Frankly I've not seen anyways provide an reasonable explanation for it.
Anyway, given that placebos work very well on mood, I'm happy to read about possible solutions (as long as they're not harmful) even if they would have no observable effect in a double-blind :)
Just like every other living organism from lichen to bears.
But humans do not like to admit they are not masters of their domain (genuinely not a Seinfeld reference).
The question, however, is the use of "disorder" and the evidence this far is lacking.
The term is borrows credibility from other parts of medicine. The term gives the impression of a ‘disease’, which a) we tend to think of as physiological and b) something foreign and unwanted in our body, and c) not normal. I have ADHD but none of the above describe my mental state when I’m off my medication.
I see the term ‘disorder’ in psychology often used to the effect of ‘basis for a prescription’. I’ll take the medication, improve my life, and leave the stigma of being ‘diseased’ behind.
The idea that it is synonymous with feeling "down" and more or less depression is just how "down" you feel.
Depression is much more than just that feeling. And not all unpleasant feelings are pathological.
So the question becomes, why is it in modern times people no long feel able to say "I feel down" or "I don't like winter". Instead they need to wrap it in a medical term that appears unsupported by evidence.