Winter Blues: Understanding Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and Techniques to Boost Your Mood - My Therapist Online.

As the seasons change, so does the amount of sunlight in each day. As we see with all emotional shifts, a change in the amount of daily sunlight brings about a change in the production of certain chemicals in our bodies. 

During the winter months we see a reduction in the production of serotonin, which is an essential hormone for stabilising our mood and bringing feelings of positivity. 
Reduced exposure to sunlight can also lead to an increase in melatonin, the hormone which makes us more sleepy.

The reduction in sunlight during winter months can also effect our circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm, our internal body clock, lets us know when to sleep and when to be awake. When we experience a significant reduction in sunlight, this rhythm is disturbed which, for some, can negatively impact our mood.

The combination of shorter winter days causing a reduction in our mood stabilising hormone, a decrease in our energy levels and changes to our sleep pattern, it makes sense that the changing seasons affect some of us.

At My Therapist Online, we see ~15% more people seeking online therapy to help with their low-mood over the winter months.

Techniques & advice for boosting mood & positivity during the winter months

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is one of the therapeutic treatments recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for helping those struggling with low mood. 

Online CBT is the same as in clinic, but it is delivered live by a computer or other video device. Treatment is focuses on changing the way a person thinks and behaves, to support a positive impact on our emotion.  

CBT can teach us tools to practice with help shift our outlook and choose more healthy and helpful behaviours. 

Learning some CBT skills will help modify and diffuse the impact of negative thoughts and feelings.

The easiest and arguably the most effective thing we can do to boost our mood during the winter months is to increase the amount of exposure we get to natural sunlight.

Relatively simple yet effective things we can do to help increase mood and positivity during the darker months could include:

Upping your exposure to natural sunlight in winter - increasing the time we spend outdoors in natural sunlight, can have a positive impact on our mood, as well as provide us with fresh air and the space to process tricky things from our day or reframe any difficult thoughts.

Practice mindfulness 

Put your phone on silent, slow down your breath and shift your attention from any internal mental chatter to the external world around you. Take some time to notice and observe without judgement. Notice both near and far what you can see, hear, touch or even smell. Practising this outdoors offers a rich environment that can really engage your senses and help you tune into and ground you. It can help therefore to detach and diffuse the impact of the thoughts, theories and predictions spinning around in your thoughts. 

Stay Active

There is strong evidence that demonstrates the positive impact of regular exercise (aiming for 150minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week) over a period of 16 weeks can be just as effective as using anti-depressant medication.

If you enjoy walking, cycling or running, don’t stop doing that over the winter period.

Soak up the winter lights on a walk through your local area, or turn off the tv and play some favourite tunes and dance around your kitchen. Any kind of movement is good movement. 

Find a wellbeing buddy 

Evidence has shown that when we share our wellbeing goals and how we plan to achieve them (this doesn’t need to be a detailed plan, merely some actionable steps), the process of sharing and regularly checking in with another ensures greater accountability in continuing to move forwards with them, and encouraging each other to do so too. 

Practice talking to yourself with compassion.

How we talk to ourselves really does matter because it is the loudest and often most repetitive message that we will receive. Trying to nurture an internal dialogue that is more in line with how you would speak to a good friend can have a really positive impact on how we feel.

Taking a moment to notice and label tricky thoughts and feelings can help. Shifting the language to an observation of your experience, ’I have noticed more negative thoughts and feelings today’, and better still writing them down, can give us enough distance to view things differently, from a slightly different perspective. From there we can consider thoughts attached to the feelings and view them as ideas, theories or guesses that have shown up, rather than as facts or truths.

Try journalling 

Starting a gratitude journal (ideally daily as a part of a new healthy routine) can help our mindset. The aim of a gratitude journal is to increase our focus on positive experiences within a day. The act of regular writing in our gratitude journal promotes a more positive mindset.

Refocus on our values and what really matters. Re-aligning ourselves with activities and behaviours that are in line with those values, can help us to diffuse the impact of negative thinking and feeling cycles. You will never regret choosing to do a behaviour that is in line with your values.

My advice is simply to start but nurturing a curiosity about how the winter months might be having an impact on your mood and your behaviours. Choosing one of two of these healthy behaviours to build into your daily life and simply observe the impact of them over this winter season compared to the previous year. If they seem to be helping then stick at them, adding more as you go.

Written by:

Lisa Johnston

BABCP Accredited Cognitive Behavioural Therapist

Director of My Therapist Online