For the final episode of 2023, Join Malcolm, Kate, Marissa and special guest Justin. They will discuss some key topics surrounding seasonal depression and how you can prioritize your mental health during the holiday season.
For the final episode of 2023, Join Malcolm, Kate, Marissa and special guest Justin. They will discuss some key topics surrounding seasonal depression and how you can prioritize your mental health during the holiday season.
Hey folks, welcome back to the Get With The Grove Podcast. I'm Malcolm.
Kate:I'm Kate.
Marissa:and I'm Marissa.
Malcolm:For this week's episode, we will be talking about seasonal depression, we will give you some definitions and tips and tricks on how to prioritize your wellness leading up to the new year. We are very fortunate to have a special guest with us today. Justin, why don't you introduce yourself? Yeah,
Justin:hi, everyone. I'm Justin. I'm a youth outreach worker here at the grove. And I've been working in children's mental health for about 24 years now.
Malcolm:I also wanted to thank all you folks for tuning into our episodes this semester. This is the last episode before the new year. So thank you all so much for your continued support.
Kate:So what we typically call seasonal depression is actually called seasonal affective disorder. And most cases, symptoms start at the beginning of the winter months and resolve the beginning of spring. However, it is possible that people feel the depression in the summer months, and their symptoms go away. When winter rolls around again. Common symptoms are sadness, low energy, loss of interest in hobbies, sleeping too much and a craving for carbohydrates, which some people may call their comfort food. Seasonal Affective Disorder is often caused by your circadian rhythm getting thrown off by the lack of sunlight. To put this in simple terms. In the summer, when you look outside and it's dark at eight or 9pm, you start to feel tired around that time. However, in the winter, and when the time changes, and you look outside at four or five, you start to feel tired way earlier in the day, which makes you have lower energy earlier. This lack of sunlight also leads to a lack of vitamin D and serotonin. Serotonin is the drug our bodies produce that affects our mood and can make us happier. Another issue with this time of the year is exam season. University students are complaining exams now and high schoolers, you're up pretty soon. This is a lot of stress as you're studying all the time. And if you have not so great grades going into exam season, that's a whole added pressure. Justin, you were talking about your perspective on depression before we started recording the episode. Could you elaborate on that?
Justin:Thanks, Kate. When I look at depression, we're often talking about the sadness that it creates and all the symptoms that you mentioned, that comes with it. But one thing that we rarely talk about is the sensation of emptiness inside of us that it creates, it's a void, a void that sometimes we think needs to fill or that will have a perspective of something wrong with us, and often will say mean things to ourselves about why we're experiencing this. And so when I look at depression, what I'm really curious about is what's happening with that what's causing this void in the first place. And a lot of times, what I found is that when we're disconnected with a lot of our other emotions, that's what causes that void.
Marissa:Thank you, Justin, for sharing your perspectives on depression. I think that's kind of a good, holistic way to look at it. And so just saying someone's sad and trying to fix that. So now I'm just going to share some tips for managing seasonal affective disorder. So something that is super, super helpful is getting as much sunlight and time outside as possible. It's really important to prioritize time each day and just kind of get out in the sun, whether it be between classes or on your lunch break at work. Even if you're close to a window just kind of opening the window, getting some fresh air, letting the sunlight hit you. Spending time with family and friends is also really helpful feelings of isolation, talking to people and letting them know what you're feeling is super important. You can also create a plan with friends or family to walk outside every day. Staying active is super helpful, and it helps to really boost your mood. You can also seek professional help. If you're feeling that you may need a little bit more help and maybe talking to your friends and family isn't helping you as much as you need. Eating healthy is also a really big part your diet is super important. eating whole foods rather than processed foods can really help you feel more energized and uplifted, especially eating foods that are high in vitamin D like milk or orange juice or yogurt. Did you have any tips for managing seasonal affective disorder that you want to share? Justin?
Justin:Thanks, Marissa. There's a few different things that I like to go to both for myself and to help clients that I'm working with when it's dealing with their seasonal affective disorder or generalized depression that they're dealing with all year long. And all the tips that you gave absolutely incredible and people are able to do those things they absolutely should. One thing that I've noticed too, is sometimes we can't do those things. We know what's going to work for us we know that we know that we shouldn't be doing this thing. But once we add that word should into it that really changes a lot for us and makes it sometimes even harder for us to do the things we know that are going to help us so I always encourage people to really connect inside themselves and just sit with the emotion that they're feeling with it. So if it is the sadness, it can be really painful. Let's take a moment and sit with that sadness really acknowledged that that's what you're experiencing. And if other emotions are showing up while you're doing it again, give those emotions attention as well. Then from there, once we realize what we're feeling, I'm gonna encourage people to do something to connect with themselves. One strategy that I really like a lot is to find something a rhythm inside your body. So this could start off by finding your pulse, and just listening to your pulse, beat by beat. Or this can look like your breathing and just being bring all your attention to your breathing, and noticing the air goes into your body. And notice in the air, leave your body. And if neither of those work for you, this can also look like some touch, where you can just use your two fingers and just rub the inside of your arm up and down in a rhythm that feels good for you. Now while we're listening to this rhythm, we just wanted to create some presents for exactly what we're dealing with. So you can repeat this phrase in your mind as you're listening to the rhythm inside your body. And you can say to yourself, I am here right now. This is me right now. And the hope is with that we can create some presents with what you're dealing with. So you can connect with your emotions, so that we can actually deal with what we're going through, instead of just trying to run away from what we're going through.
Malcolm:Thank you so much for those tips and tricks, Justin and Marissa. So I just wanted to briefly talk about the holidays. So for many people, the holidays can be an amazing and positive time to spend with family. However, on the other end for many people, the holidays can be a time filled with loneliness, self reflection and anxiety. The important thing to know when you are feeling this way is that you are not alone. The holidays can be a stressful time full of gift shopping visits to relatives you may only see once a year, and many other anxiety inducing tasks. This is why it is so important to utilize the tips that Marissa and Justin just mentioned. Next, I just wanted to quickly touch on the New Year, when you get into the new year, a very common trend is setting a new year's resolution for yourself, these can be super helpful and the start of a new year is always a good time to make some changes. I just want to say though, that it is so so important that you are setting achievable goals for yourself. If you choose to do this. Often people try to set New Year's goals for themselves that are way too difficult. Try managing your goals and making sure that you are not setting yourself up for failure. It is important not to overload yourself with difficult goals that will only lead to you being just disappointed in yourself a few weeks down the road. Do you have anything that you'd like to say about the holidays? Justin?
Justin:Yeah, one thing that I always want to suggest with anyone I'm working with and everyone who's listening is when you're dealing with the holidays, to be really conscious of yourself and give yourself a lot of compassion, whether you're dealing with some isolation and loneliness, while you're dealing with some depression, or seasonal affective disorder. Or maybe you're spending time with family. And there's a lot of triggers around that. A lot of times this can be shrouded in guilt and shame. And when we're stuck in guilt and shame, our nervous systems are always trying to figure a way to get rid of this and not always in the most healthy way. So being compassionate with yourself and what you're going through can be a really positive experience. And this can look like just trying to understand how is this helping me right now? Like right now, my parents are nagging me and they haven't taken me a long time. So I've been away from home. How is it helping me that is causing me this discomfort or this anger or this annoyance and connect with that. And I just want to end off with quoting one of my favorite quotes. And that is if you ever think you're enlightened, go spend a weekend with your family. And that was from spirits or teacher RAM Dez. And I think it says a lot. Sometimes we think we're growing, we're maturing, that we can handle it all. And then we're back into a place full of lots of triggers. And then we'll be really hard on ourselves for falling back into those triggers we thought we were over. Alright,
Kate:so we are going to be talking a little bit about suicide and harm just as a trigger warning for everyone listening. So Justin, we just want to know what are the risk factors and triggers for seasonal affective disorder?
Justin:Yeah, and thanks, Kate. There are definitely a lot of things to be aware of when it comes to risk factors. So for the risk factors, these can look like things like just be doing things like not finding enjoyment and things you usually do like the low energy things that we kind of already discussed. But as well one thing that we need to be really aware of is that as we go through the season and Seasonal Affective Disorders affecting you there can be an increase in suicidal ideation and and self harm ideation. Now, when these things show up again, a lot of times they're filled with shame and guilt about the fact that we're even having these thoughts. So first, I just want to let everyone know that these thoughts are quite normal in the fact that statistically, roughly 93% of the human population has these thoughts at some point in their life. So when looking at it, again, the sensation and the thoughts saying that this is too painful, because that's really what's happening here. Your nervous system is telling you this is too painful. And you're trying to find creative ways to get rid of the pain. So these are one of the outcomes is to have these suicidal and self harm ideations. So if this is something coming up for you, I really recommend seeking support from someone that you trust and is close to, or looking at one of the other supports that I know Marissa is going to be mentioning shortly, as well, just to make sure that you do have someone to talk to you about these things and know that there's nothing wrong with you. And this is not your fault. Again, bring lots of compassion into what you're actually experiencing. Thank
Marissa:you so much, Justin. As you mentioned, it is super important to know what supports and resources are available to in our community. So you know where you can go if you ever need support, seeking help and talking to someone about your seasonal affective disorder can be very beneficial, especially if you're at school away from home, and you don't really have your usual family or friends that you can talk to about it. So some helpful resources are 988, which is the suicide crisis helpline Kids Help Phone the Grove, the Canadian Mental Health Association here 24/7 And Wes for youth II counseling which provides you a free virtual counseling for youth under 24. It can also be very helpful to see what supports you have available to you at your university. Here at the University of Guelph. There's individual in same day job in counseling. They have group therapy programs, the Student Support Network, which is a drop in peer support group and many more, which can all be found on the Student Wellness page of the university's website. So that brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you everyone for tuning into this week's episode. And thank you so much, Justin for joining us and sharing such important information.
Justin:Yeah, thanks, Marisa, Kate and Malcolm for having me really appreciate the invite for today. Unfortunately,
Marissa:this will also be Malcolm and Kate's last episode. Thanks both of you for all of your hard work and sharing your tips and experiences on the podcast these past few months. And don't forget to check out our social media to stay up to date with what's going on at each hub. You can follow us at the growth hubs on Instagram or check out our website at the growth hubs.ca. You can also check out our Twitter and Facebook both at the growth hubs. As always, be kind to your mind and we'll see you next time.