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Is COVID Winter Making You SAD

I have been appreciating the beautiful sunrises over the last couple of weeks when I let my dog out. The colours have been amazing. Looking at the sunrise is my reward for getting up and getting moving on days when I would like to just stay in bed.

But the fact that I am seeing sunrises instead of blue skies is a reminder that days are getting shorter and that we are about two months away from the winter solstice, my least favourite event of the year.

I’ve been managing COVID and living quietly since March, when the days were starting to get longer, but frankly I am a bit worried about what working from home during a COVID winter will be like. Getting up while it is still dark, working at your desk all day and emerging at dusk is going to be a challenge for some of us. So, what can we do?

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a real thing—some of us experience changes in mood as the seasons change, and these mood changes can be mild or they can be severe. Here are a few facts about SAD courtesy of a wonderful book called The Full Weight of the Law: How Legal Professionals Can Recognize and Rebound from Depression” written by two clinical psychologists with the Massachusetts Lawyers Assistance Program, Shawn Healy and Jeffrey Fortgang:

Most SAD cases occur in fall and early winter as we experience shorter days and less sunlight.
It may be more common in climates where there are significant changes in temperature and amount of daylight (like ours!)
Sunlight affects our circadian rhythm and the amount of serotonin and melatonin we have which influences our sleep.

The conventional treatment for SAD can include using a light therapy lamp, usually first thing in the morning, which replicates the positive effects of sunlight. Light therapy lamps are high intensity—typically 10,000 lux—which are placed about 16 to 24 inches from your face for 20 to 30 minutes per day.

I was researching light therapy boxes that were available through online retailers and local store with a view to making a purchase, but I noted a warning that you should consult with your family doctor before starting a light therapy regiment.

Drs. Healy and Fortgang point out that just because it is fall or winter, it doesn’t mean that your feelings of depression are caused by decreased exposure to sunlight. Depression has many causes, from neurotransmitter breakdowns to physical illness to hormonal imbalance to sleep deprivation to genetics, and in order to deal effectively with depression, you need to identify the underlying cause.

People may also have skin or eye issues which make using light therapy inappropriate. Certain medications, including some anti-biotics and anti-inflammatories, can also increase your sensitivity to light. So can the supplement St. John’s Wort. And if you have bipolar disorder, mania can be triggered by light therapy.

There are also practical considerations if you decide to try light therapy. You need to use the device at the same time every day and it must be placed in a location that is the correct distance from your face. Check out “Seasonal affective disorder treatment: choosing a light therapy box.”

Not every case of the winter blues is SAD or will respond to light therapy, so what else can we do?

Ensure that you have a healthy diet and exercise on a regular basis. Eating foods with added sugar causes a quick sugar high, followed by a crash. Following this pattern over time can cause recovery from the crash to become more difficult. Ensure that you are eating whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and foods containing omega-3 fatty acid, folate and vitamin B12.
There is also a link between vitamin D deficiency and depression. While I can’t pretend to understand the biochemistry, our bodies produce vitamin D from a form of cholesterol through exposure to sunlight, and when we get less sunlight on our skin, we synthesize less vitamin D. While some studies suggest being outside for 10-30 minutes of noon-day sunlight three times a week, wearing a tank top and shorts, we Northerners may have to take supplements.
When we exercise, our brains release endorphins—the “feel-good” hormones. We all know this and many of us struggle to get enough exercise. When you are depressed, you often have low energy, and even thinking about exercise can be exhausting. But if you summon the energy to start, you may find that have more energy afterward. Consider making a plan to exercise with a friend (in a socially-distanced way) since we are less likely to cancel on another person than on ourselves.
Get sufficient sleep consistently. Lack of sleep and poor-quality sleep are tied to depression. It isn’t exciting or glamorous, but having a regular bedtime and wake up time can help you feel better.
Spend more time outdoors when the sun is shining. I had a colleague who had lived in the Northwest Territory and I asked her how she coped with the short days. She said that when the sun came out for its short intervals in the dead of winter, people just stopped what they were doing and went outside. Try to get outdoors when you can!
Consider counselling as the days get shorter to help you develop strategies and helpful thinking processes if you think you will descend into the blues. Proactive counselling is covered through Assist’s program—just call 1-877-498-6898.
Some forms of depression are most appropriately treated using medication to address the underlying issue (e.g. a neurotransmitter failure or chemical imbalance.) This is part of why it is important to talk to your family doctor (as well as to identify medical issues which could make a proposed strategy unsuitable.)
Meditation, mindfulness and yoga can help with depressed thinking. Check out Assist’s Tuesday 15-minute mindfulness breaks at 12 noon and our free online yoga class on Wednesday at noon.

As we head into our first (and hopefully our last) COVID winter, we need to be good to ourselves. But being good to ourselves does not mean taking a pass on things that are difficult and opting instead for the shallow satisfaction of lying on the sofa, watching Netflix and eating junk food. It may mean pushing ourselves to cook healthy meals, forcing ourselves to exercise and moving out of our comfort zone in order to interact with other people.

I am going to make a list of things I want to do this winter—not to serve as a measuring stick against which I no doubt will fail—but because it can be hard to think of healthy things to do when the winter blues set in. Here are a few items from my list:

Go cross-country skiing (which I haven’t done in more than 30 years)
Read the Canada Reads books (which I always mean to do…)
Practice gratitude daily—including being grateful for having a job that gets me up before the sun 😊
Reach out to friends if I feel blue.

Remember that you can always drop in online to Assist’s Red Mug Coffee Circles on Mondays where you can connect with other lawyers and students and discuss issues in the practice of law. It may be gloomy outside, but you don’t have to be alone.

Loraine