Is winter knocking, is your mood sinking like Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic? You don't want to go out, have an appetite for four and could sleep like Sleeping Beauty? then suffer from winter depression. Read here what winter depression is Causes are and how you dem mood low escape.
What is winter depression?
Every year hits you with the same blow. The autumn wind tears the first leaves from the trees, you already want to murmur at home, stay in bed and send your boss to hell. You suffer from winter depression – a seasonal disorder of your emotions (SAD: seasonal affective disorder or seasonally dependent depression):
When autumn begins, you fall into a deep hole and only spring brings a smile out of you again. Such seasonal depressions are rare, it is estimated that they depress up to three percent of Europeans. Those affected are mostly women: They complain about it three times more often than men.
Admittedly, apart from children, nobody loves winter. Everyone is listless, listless and would like to hibernate as if he were a brown bear in the Finnish woodland. That's why you are only upset or really depressive? Find out the answer now:
What are the symptoms of winter depression?
You may only suffer from one Winter blues? No, this isn't African American folklore that's only played in the winter. winter blues is the mild form of winter depression. You are tired and listless - you are not depressed. But how do you tell the two forms apart? You recognize him Difference especially how much the following symptoms dampen your mood:
- You are permanently and noticeably tired – maybe even prone to sleepiness? In addition, you could only be ripped from your feathers in the morning with a grappling hook and a permanent alarm.
- Cravings: The candy cupboard is looted like the safe in a bank robbery. You need to eat and eat - especially carbohydrates and especially sugar.
- irritation: They react irritably and annoyed, suffer from constant depression and avoid social contacts like vampires avoid garlic.
- lack of energy: You can't bring yourself to do anything - you would most like to melt into the couch and not get up again.
- Listlessness: Nothing drives them, nothing motivates them. Goals that you wanted to achieve weeks ago leave you cold like an ice bath today.
Especially fatigue and Cravings distinguish the winter depression from a normal depression - with a normal depression sufferers hardly sleep and eat almost nothing. But how do you differentiate between winter blues and winter depression?
Only a doctor can make an accurate diagnosis. When diagnosing, he examines you blood and uses an ultrasound scan. But you too can recognize winter depression by certain signs and support your specialist in the diagnosis: Every winter do you feel the same symptoms? And as if by magic, they linger about 90 again days from?
Maybe in summer you feel exactly the opposite - you are euphoric, exuberant, almost childish? Then winter depression is likely. Likewise if they specifically are tired and specifically eat a lot – almost everyone is exhausted in winter and gains a few pounds, but only a sick person could sleep and eat all day.
At the Intensity distinguish the winter blues from the winter blues. But where does that come from? What is the light switch that flicks them on misery as soon as the first kites fly in the sky?
What are the causes?
1. Less light
Our brain works according to a simple principle: Action reaction. When it's cold, we freeze - when it's hot, cold beads of sweat form on our foreheads. This system works perfectly, but unfortunately it gets out of hand in winter. Normally your body sheds Melatonin off as soon as it gets dark. That is a Sleep hormone and makes you tired.
Only the autumn is overcast, the winter months dark - the sun is missing. That is why the pineal gland pours also during the day melatonin off; if you suffer from winter depression, this effect is particularly bad. Because your visual cells less light-receptive your brain produces melatonin like Apple iPhones.
Consequently, you also suffer from a high need for sleep during the day and could fall asleep immediately – Your melatonin level is particularly high and your wake-sleep rhythm is out of place. This effect of light can also be observed geographically: Winter depression is rare in the sunny south and common in cloudy Scandinavia.
2. Vitamin D deficiency
In advertising will Vitamin C praised as if it were the philosopher's stone. It supports your immune system against bacteria and viruses and protects you from diseases. In fact, vitamin D is what vitamin C is praised for.
Vitamin D strengthens the immune system, strengthens the muscles and protects the nerve cells in the brain. It is also decisive and determines for the psyche that Neurotransmitters such as serotonin or dopamine (“happy hormones”) are properly regulated.
Problem only: 80 to 90 percent of vitamin D is produced by the body itself, as long as the sun is shining and the rays hit the skin. Only sun in the dark season is scarce like toilet paper in Corona March - that depresses the mood.
Episode from it: A winter depression hits you. This was the result of a review study that was relevant Studies on depressed mood and vitamin D from 2000 to 2017 has compared.
3. Melatonin inhibits serotonin
Serotonin is the happiness hormone par excellence - it makes you balanced, satisfied and focused. Unfortunately, your body taps into this serotonin, to form melatonin. Serotonin levels drop and so does your mood.
That's why you're so ravenous: Off Sugar and chocolate attracts your body substancesto make new serotonin. You fill up your stomach and fill up your serotonin stores – hence the hunger. Now you know the causes, but you are not yet rid of the winter depression - you will achieve this goal now.
What helps against winter depression? – 10 tips on how to prevent a low mood
- Do you do sports regulary: In the study "Is Exercise a Viable Treatment for Depression?" they determined researchers that movement effectively relieves depression. High-intensity training sessions performed best. be recommended three to five times a week.
- Take long walks in the fresh air as much as possible: I know it's cold outside, the streets are slippery and the sky is more overcast than a migraine sufferer's room. Nevertheless, daylight is a brighter light source than the energy-saving lamp - your body therefore produces more Vitamin D and less melatonin.
- Eat products with Vitamin D: for example fat fish (Herring, mackerel, salmon, sardines), liver and egg yolk. Additionally you can MCT oil take – it contains vitamin D and K2 (good for bones).
- Driving towards the sun: Admittedly, only very few succeed in doing this. But if you go on a winter holiday, do as the migratory birds do: Follow the sun.
- Take St. John's Wort: St. John's wort relieves mild and moderate depression. So does you more sensitive to light – Your eye can absorb more light. That conquers the winter depression.
- Shower light in the morning hours: A light therapy lamp shower in the morning in the light. They sit there For 30 minutes in front of a lamp that you with light intensity of 10.000 Lux irradiated. The result: Your biological clock is set correctly again Melatonin balance normalizes and the lack of light is overcome.
- Meet her friends: With winter blues you want to be alone, like a hermit in the desert. Nevertheless, you should not lull yourself into solitude – see her friends, go out and do something. It clears up like the sea after a storm.
- Relieve Stress: In winter we are less fit. Point. That's why you should take the air out, switch off and relax and don't suffocate in work. Save big plans for spring.
- Laugh more and think positive: Sounds banal and a bit like Far Eastern hippie healing arts. Nonetheless Laughter releases endorphins – so happy hormones. And our focus determines our well-being: see everything bad in life, feel bad. What if you focus on the positive?
- Avoid sugar and sweets: Chocolate makes happy? Just for now: the more sugar you consume, the higher the risk of depression - and vice versa. That emerged from the study "Sugar intake from sweet foods and beverages, common mental disorder and depression: prospective findings from the Whitehall II study". So join in mental illness to a healthy diet .
But what if no tip works? And hit the funds in vain like in shadow boxing? Then what can you do? Then you should consult a doctor and seek professional help:
Professional treatment of winter depression
If you go to a doctor, he will help you three actions prescribe:
- Light therapy (as mentioned above)
- Antidepressants
- Psychotherapy
Don't worry: you're not crazy. Antidepressants and psychotherapy sound worse than they are. Let's go through the two together and take the fear out of you:
Medication
How are medicines supposed to help you when the dark winter hits your mood? This question is probably buzzing through your head, but the answer is clear. As shown above, you are depressed, because your serotonin levels are low like the sun in November. An antidepressant is supposed to correct that, especially those Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs).
How do the ingredients work?
They block the serotonin transport proteins in the central nervous system and prevent messenger substances such as serotonin from being reabsorbed into the synaptic cleft, to put it simply: SSRIs prevent the return transport of released serotonin and thus increase its effectiveness.
So you take save stimulants to yourself, save drugs and will too not high. The antidepressant just eases the symptoms of winter blues—you're back more motivated, happier and greet the day with a smile, instead of with the pillow over your head.
Psychotherapy
In addition to the medication, your doctor can prescribe a therapy - specifically one cognitive behavioral therapy, but what does that mean? The cognitive behavioral theory believes that thoughts and feelings directly influence our behavior. If you feel lost in large crowds, you will hardly make social contacts and weld together into a new circle of friends.
They stand alone, shy and inactive - They just want to get away. Cognitive behavioral theory eliminates those negative feelings and thoughts so you can behave differently and change your life positively.
Conclusion – what helps with winter depression?
You're probably saying to yourself: “I can't take it anymore, everything is bad, I'm in a hole!”. That's why you don't do anything, don't go out and shut yourself off from friends and work. The behavioral therapy now close this holeby replacing it with positive feelings and thoughts fills up.
Think better, live better again. Her Winter depression consequently fades away and you get through the cloudy winter serenely. Did the tips help you beat your winter blues? Write it in the comments and help other readers with your experience?
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I know this feeling! I had depression in the fall. Closer to earth I became melancholy. And I didn't want to do anything. I thought it was a normal condition. But they advised me to go to the doctor. I was diagnosed with mild depression. I'm dealing with it now. I smoke CBD, I meet friends or just go for a walk, I can clean the apartment. The time I spend alone with myself calms me down. How do you relieve depression?