Seasonal Affective Disorder is a yearly dose of depressing moments at the same season of every year. The most common type of seasonal depression is winter depression. It is not as simple as having winter blues, but it is a complex condition that needs medical intervention as soon as possible.
Walking Into Winter Depression
The causes of winter depression can’t be pinpointed out. However, it is believed that the amount of light during winter is responsible for making you feel depressed. Just like how sometimes you become gloomy when it is a rainy day, that’s how winter depression works. The difference is that winter is a long period of time compared to a single rainy day.
Feelings of sadness, depression, lethargy and cravings for sleep are usually experienced when you have winter depression. Medication and light treatments are used to treat winter depression. However, there are also ways that you yourself can do to battle out those depressing winter blues.
Go Get a Great Tan
One way to rid off lessen depression during winter is by getting a tan. Light therapy is used to treat winter depression, but this can be sometimes inaccessible to other people or may be too expensive. If that’s your case, then a tan can be your substitute to access light, especially if there is little amount of light in your place during winter.
There are lots of tanning salons that can give you artificial tans during summer. About ten to thirty minutes sessions are sufficient enough to have your fair share of light.
Go Somewhere New
You can forget those depressing emotions by making yourself busy in planning and going to a new place. It can be a long vacation for the whole winter, or even just as short as a day trip to a place that you haven’t gone to before. Doing this can relieve you from thinking gloomy thoughts while you stay bored in the darkness of your home.
You can also opt to skip having a white Christmas, and opt to go somewhere where the sun is shinning brightly everyday, like the tropics. In this way, you are sure that you get enough sunlight plus you also get to experience a different kind of Christmas!
Talk
Try calling up or visiting family members or friends that you haven’t seen for a while. Talking with them about old times and catching up can be a refreshing break you’re your blues and can lift up your mood.
“I’m depressed”, you may have heard a lot of people you know say this line. You may even have said the line itself whether, sarcastically, meaningfully or jokingly. However, if you said that line and you were asked, “What is depression?” honestly, would you be able to answer the question?
Getting to know what is depression is one way to understand the condition and most especially the people who are suffering from it. Being depressed is not the same condition as simply saying that you are. Genuine depression cases involve a lot of complications that should be given importance in all aspects.
Depression Defined
Depression is a mental disorder, in which you have abnormal signs of having depressed mood, low self-esteem, loss of pleasure and interest with life, and disturbance of appetite and sleeping patterns.
This condition can affect people of all ages, gender, and backgrounds. It is very common since 121 million people are being affected by this disorder, and the numbers are still increasing. It is actually the leading cause for disabilities worldwide.
Depression is also sometimes called the “common cold” in the paradigm of mental health. No, you don’t have to ask what is depression’s connection to colds is. The term is used in this manner because a lot of people are being depressed that’s why it’s as common as the colds.
Some Factors for Depression
There are a lot of factors that can cause or higher the risk for depression. One important factor of your life affecting your risk for depression is your environment. You may ask what depressions relationship to your environment is. Actually depression and environment are highly connected.
Environmental situations like living in a cramped up house, having money problems, being intoxicated by schoolwork, losing something or someone significant, can higher the risk of depression. If you are feeling helpless most of the time, since you can’t change your environment, then it would be best to seek a doctor’s advice.
Another factor affecting depression is interpersonal factors. What is depression’s relation to interpersonal factors? Well actually, the importance of the relationship can vary from person to person. One example of an interpersonal factor is a relationship breakup. Of course, lovers have definitely experienced being depressed due to their partner once in a while. Broken family relationships can also be an example of interpersonal factors. If you have problems relating to your family, you have a greater risk of developing depression.
Learning what depression is can be beneficial not only to you, but also to others. If you know of people who are showing depressive signs, then you should tell them of their behavior, or tell one of their family members. Depression can be dangerous since thoughts of suicide that sometimes occur in this condition can prove to be dangerous if acted upon.