Get Some Help: Managing the Winter Blues
Or, the first in a monthly series in which I try to help you (and you help each other)
Each month I offer paid subscribers a space to share what’s worrying them and ask for some help. This newsletter is in response to Su who shared that she suffers from SAD and needed some help on self-care during the winter months. My response to her is below but please do add your own experiences of looking after yourself during this time, managing SAD or just some support, in the comments below. And if you have a problem you’d like some help with, you can upgrade your subscription here:
It makes sense to me that we become more concerned with our self-care, and trying to improve it, in the winter months. All of us feel a bit worse for wear when January comes around. We’ve generally over-indulged in December, pushed our immune systems to the limit with numerous social gatherings and tried to finish a month’s worth of work in three weeks. Then we’re hit with new year’s resolutions and a feeling that we must make this year better. So Su, I very much doubt you are alone in feeling a desire to focus on self-care. And you’re definitely not alone in suffering from SAD, the NHS estimates around 2 million people are impacted by it in the UK alone.
There is a wonderful meme haunting my Instagram at the moment, reminding me that humans are the only mammal that doesn’t bother to hibernate during the winter months. Like most memes there is about 1% truth to 99% bullshit to it but it feels relevant here. This is not the time of year when we are supposed to feel alive and energised, it’s the time of year when we are supposed to feel, at best, ponderous and slow. But we’re not good at accepting that, we think “new year, new start!” or, “last year was a dud, let’s make this one great!” or, “I really will be better at…. in 2023, and I must get started right now!”. When in reality, we’d be better off hunkering down under the blanket, contemplating the year and getting started in a few months time.
I’m not suggesting that you should just give up and feel terrible throughout winter but I wonder if there is something here in acceptance. Sometimes when we know that a dark period is coming it’s easier to be in it. We can acknowledge it, “hello darkness, my old friend.” We’re so committed to changing and improving things that I often think a radical act of self-care is just to admit that things are bad and while they will change at some point, they’re not changing now. Strangely, once we’ve done that it becomes much, much easier to then take some small steps in the direction of easing things. Think of it like falling into a fast flowing river. You can use up all your strength trying to fight against it, or you can go with it for a bit, keeping your eye out for a branch to grab hold of when one comes along.
I don’t live with SAD, Su, so I can’t give you recommendations on what the branch will look like. I can tell you that all the research I did seemed to favour light therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy, and as someone who has used both of those things I can vouch for them. Anti-depressants and Vitamin D were also recommended. There is a massive stigma around anti-depressants in this country which seems, forgive the phrase, mad to me. If any other part of our body was having difficulty functioning as it needed to we’d throw medical support at it without question, so why are we so shy about this when it comes to our brain? If there’s even a small part of you which thinks they might help, then I’d urge you to talk to your doctor about it. See it as exploring all the options. On Vitamin D, I take a frankly eye-watering amount each day and it is a life-saver. Stock up now.
But here’s the thing, I’m sure you knew all that anyway. I don’t think your request for self-care was really about asking for another tool or technique to make you feel better, I think it was looking for the silver-bullet that would finally be the one thing that made everything better.
I know a bit about silver bullets.
For most of my life I have searched for the silver bullet which would make me thin. This resulted in me spending what if I added it all up would probably come to the equivalent of a house deposit on various potions, lotions and gurus. And I only got fatter.
When I was first diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes I scoured the internet looking for a cure and when that wasn’t available, looking for a researcher who was working on a cure. I put myself forward for medical studies, discussed the merits of stem-cell therapy with other desperate non-experts on Facebook groups and donated to the few charities dedicated to finding a cure in the hope that my tenner might be the thing that made a difference. I think we do the same with self-care.
The concept of self-care first hit my radar in 2015. A very glamorous, incredibly soothing woman gently asked me what my “self-care routine” looked like and I muttered something about “been meaning to book a nail appointment.” Since then self-care has included for me; massage, exercise, therapy, journalling, junk food, health food, talking to friends, being alone, crying, raging, laughing, sleeping in, getting up with the sunrise, swimming in cold water, lounging in hot tubs, getting my eyelashes died, decluttering, shopping, booking events, cancelling events, working, stopping… it was a never-ending list with only one continual feature, I never felt like I was quite getting it right.
You see, I was waiting for self-care to make me feel good. I was hoping that if I was truly excellent at self-care then I one day I’d find the thing that obliterated all my fears and concerns. I’m sad to say, that so far no manicure has been able to make that happen. And when you asked for help with self-care, Su, I wondered if perhaps you felt the same?
I think seeing self-care as a silver bullet is one of the things that has popularised the term in recent years. Influencers and marketers would have us believe that if we just do this one extra thing, that will be the thing that makes all the difference. That takes all those stresses and strains away from us and makes us bright and shiny. What I’ve learned, however, is that self-care is in fact just a more Instagram friendly term for “marginal gains.”
The concept of marginal gains was popularised by the British cycling team back in the early noughties. The new coach, Dave Brailsford, wasn’t interested in finding the one big, shiny silver bullet that would propel the British team from mediocrity to excellence. Instead he was interested in all the little things that he could do, which would make the team 1% better. He believed that if he could find 100 things which could be improved by 1%, then as an aggregate the team would be 100% better. I don’t know if the maths on that stacks up but the wins certainly did.
He started with the obvious things first. They improved the comfort of the bikes, used fancy tech to find the best workout for each rider and changed the uniforms to be more aerodynamic. And then they looked at the little things, they found which pillows gave the best night’s sleep and then transported those pillows to each hotel the team slept at so their sleep was always optimised. They found which massage gel provided the fastest relief from aches and pains so the riders could be back at peak performance quicker. They used marginal gains to make huge leaps. And I think this is how self-care works too.
Rather than looking for the one thing that will make a difference, look for lots of little things that you can improve a tiny, tiny bit. And rather than aiming to feel 100% better, aim to feel 1% better and then build on that 1%.
Let me give you an example. I suffer from eczema which is worse in the winter. In an ideal world I would find a moisturiser that completely heals my skin and I’d slather it on like butter on freshly made bread. But the problem is, if this moisturiser exists I have yet to find it and so instead I spent last winter looking for ways to make the eczema 1% better. At the start of each week I set myself a task, (try out a new cream, apply more regularly, apply immediately on getting out of the shower etc) and then at the end of the week I’d review where my skin had started and where it was now, each time looking for 1% improvement. Sometimes I would find it, sometimes I wouldn’t but each week I felt a little bit better because I had done something, no matter how small.
If I was to give you some help on how to be better at self-care, as your comment requested, I would say first of all, know that right now you’re probably not going to be amazing at it and that’s ok. It’s ok for this to be a tough time and for things to feel harder than they would usually. Eventually it will pass. Secondly, don’t look for a self-care silver bullet, instead think of those marginal gains. What does 1% better look like? Pick one idea or area each week and go from there. Just remember, it’s winter and really we should be resting so gently does it.
Have some advice for Su? Please do share it in the comments, after all, we can’t do it alone!
Each month I offer paid subscribers the chance to ask me and the subscribers of this newsletter for help. It can be on any topic at all and the ask can be as big or small as you like. You can subscribe here.
Also, a little reminder that this Wednesday I will be running a Zoom gathering to let go of 2022 and gently turn our minds towards 2023. If you’re just getting started on your year, or if you already feel like it’s running away from you, then you can find all the details here.
Dear Harriet and Su,
SAD is really hard, even knowing it's coming for you and preparing best you can, it's crept up on you and chipped away at you. I really like Harriet's 1% x 100 approach. Little wins. Though it's finding the little wins for you. Acceptance is a foundation to layer everything else on top of. Things that have worked for me are maxing daylight. Making myself feel the full length of day light by exposing myself to it first thing in the morning. Doggy walks have really helped here. Trying to get out in the middle of the day whenever the sun is bright. Talking therapies. I definitely spiral more in winter. Talking to a counsellor helps keep things less spirally. B vitamins for energy. Regular exercise classes and things that get the heart pumping like HIIT, Body pump, Running. Left to my own devices winter would have me skip my self-led exercise, but I can't skip a class. As I write this I see that all of these things that work for me for SAD also work for depression.
I have never been more truly at the mercy of the seasons than I have now, and I'm fighting winter a lot less. I can't push to do anything more than the business of winter. Acceptance of that feels good. I've never gone to bed earlier or read more books. This of course is balanced out by having chopped a literal f*ck ton of wood so letting myself of the hook here. It feels good. It feels as it is supposed to be. Obviously I can't wait for spring, but it is what it is, and I'm going to be ok.
I wish you well on finding the marginal gains that work for you Su. Last week I saw primroses flowering. Noticing those little whispers of spring helps buoy me up until it arrives. You've got this <3
Dear Harriet and Su
I hear that today is the most depressing day of the year. Something about there being a big wait to pay day and of course the lack of sunlight. I try to reframe feeling down by recognising that I couldn’t feel up if I couldn’t also feel down. Light can’t exist in the absence of darkness. I wonder if the positivity movement has been a scourge on humans as it seems to promote that we should always feel happy when I’m not sure that’s achievable or even desirable. I think acceptance is key and part of that is accepting that “this too will pass”.
Sending some sunny vibes your way Su, and thank you Harriet for your wisdom. Geraldine xx