Trauma Stewardship

Trauma Stewardship.

Fall Back…into old habits?

This weekend the country (or most of it) celebrated the return to Standard time, which for many SADders, is a blessing, because moving our clocks back and hour translates to more sunshine (in theory of course) in the wee morning hours. Of course with this change also comes darkness before the workday is done and perhaps a desire to sit on the couch as soon as one comes home from a long day of work…and stay there for the next 6 hours until it’s most certainly bedtime. I do not speak from experience…nooo, not me. I have never been guilty of sitting around in the dark winter months, I am a therapist after all, we don’t make such mistakes, right?

So, in continuing my series on what to do in the dark winter months, I am signing us (you and me dear reader) for a challenge. And that challenge is to NOT fall back into old habits, but to forge ahead and combat SAD with another tried and true ‘trick’ for easing the winter blues. After all, my dawn simulator won’t be needed for another couple of weeks thanks to this new hour of daylight in the morning.

And this challenge is: activity.

There, I said it. Activity. Sure I can hear the groaning now (did I really just groan aloud?). Everyone knows that getting some exercise combats the winter (or any time of the year) blues of depression, but for many, the word exercise conjures up traumatizing images of 8th grade volleyball/basketball/soccer/cross country/insert your least favorite sport here, where you were forced to run lines until you felt like you might die, and after the 1st day of tryouts you had that distinct gait of someone whose quads would never be quite loose enough again to walk normally. Yes friend, I too have been there. And the couch seems much more appealing than that drill seargant history teacher who had surely never run a day in her life yelling at you to MOVE IT as you ran the campus mile. I get it. I am not asking you to subject yourself to such torture. What I am suggesting, is that of those 6 hours spent on the couch after work…that maybe, just maybe, there is time for a little bit of movement…a little bit of activity. And I promise you will be able to walk tomorrow (though I cannot guarantee anything and will not be responsible if you do try to run bleachers and find yourself sore. I am a therapist, not a personal trainer).

Not to get too scientific or anything (because there are websites for that), but activity makes you feel good. It does something in your brain, with all of those neurotransmitter dealy bobs, and you will feel better. Again, I can’t promise anything, but I know that it’s been tested in reasearchy settings and has worked. And what can this activity look like? Well, anything to get your heart pumping a little bit. Perhaps it’s walking your small fluffy dog around the block (or if that’s too ambitious, simply walking him to the end of the driveway), or vacuuming your living room, or dancing to holiday music. Maybe it’s doing some jumping jacks in between marathon episodes of your favorite television show or cleaning your bathroom. Or parking a little bit further away when you get groceries. Just getting some of this activity will help elevate your mood.

But, if it were so easy we would all be doing it, right? That’s the problem with things like depression or SAD…our brains start to say “but, I’m tiiiiiired, and sitting on the couch is conserving energy and it will make me feel better and you can’t possible want me to go outside in THAT weather, are you crazy?” Contrary to what our depressed minds say…sitting on the couch will not actually make us less tired, it will make us more tired, and then it becomes a spiral where we are tired so we sit and we sit because we’re even more tired, so we sit some more and if we aren’t careful we could sit on our couch and never leave.

So, do you accept the challenge? Could you find 20 or 30 minutes a day to be more active?

If you can, share how it’s going for you…

Hanging on to sunlight…

It’s getting darker and darker every day, and we haven’t hit daylight savings time yet, and I am wondering how many of you Northwesterners are having difficulty getting up in the morning. I’ve been hearing more and more people lately talking about the darkness, and for many, the lack of quality exposure to sunlight has left them feeling down, depressed, blue, tired and longing for springtime…or a free ticke to Phoenix or Maui.

While  I certainly woudn’t turn down a free trip to a sunny state, in the meantime I’ll let you in on a secret that helps me through the winter months. A dawn simulator.

Light therapy is often used to help individuals suffering from SAD, and while a dawn simulator won’t substitute for sitting by a full spectrum lightbox, but the magic is in helping you get out of bed in the morning, AND it also helps you go to bed at night, as it works on the gradual lightening or gradual darkening to mimic dawn or twilight, respectively.

The beauty of the dawn simulator is that it wakes you up gradually over a half an hour (or half time if you want to do it in 15 minutes). This allows the body to gradually wake up, rather than BEEP BEEP BEEP, flying straight out of bed, stumbling to the bathroom in the dark, squinting your eyes as you stare blurrily into the mirror and wonder ‘wow, is it monday already?’ (or, it beats pressing snooze 14 times before it is actually light outside and you are 92 minutes late to work).  I have found that I don’t even need the full 30 minutes to wake up, and my mood is certainly brighter! I suggest that you invest in one of these if waking up is hard for you in the dark Seattle months.

Now if only I could get the weather outside to be less rainy…

Grey Skies

Grey skies have once again come to Seattle, and while hopefully these days will be outnumbered by our traditional Indian Summer, we might want to get a jump start on preparing for the gloomy winter months that are in the near future.  Inhabitants of Seattle tend to err on the Seasonal Affective Disorder side, and even those who don’t carry a full diagnosis often find themselves a little more subdued during the gray rainy months that settle between October and March. So what can we be doing to prepare for the  inevitable gray that is creeping upon us?

There are many different things that have helped boost people’s moods during the gray winter months. Over the next few weeks I’m going to explore with you some of the options that may alleviate some of the grey blahs you might begin to feel as the colors of autumn turn to grey.