Meditation For Seasonal Affective Disorder – Managing SAD

This is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder and is thought to affect one in ten people in northern Europe. While the cold is certainly unlikely to help, it appears that the real trigger is a lack of light. In the winter many people find themselves going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark, and experiencing very little natural light, a situation exacerbated when dark clouds are a permanent fixture.

Seasonal Affective Disorder impacts Emotional & Physical Wellbeing

Circadian rhythms (the 24-hour cycle of physiological processes your body undergoes each day) can be affected by this lack of light, disrupting sleep patterns that can all too often impact our emotional and even physical wellbeing. Being without daylight seems to increase melatonin, a chemical that is associated with symptoms of depression, and in winter people’s serotonin levels (broadly known as “the happy hormone”) are lower. While the majority of people seem to experience low moods in the cold and dark months (especially if the summer has been equally miserable), some people find winter truly, life-disruptingly cheerless.

Unfortunately, only bears and tiny mammals are allowed to hibernate during winter, but for the rest of us there is often a pressure to carrying on functioning as normal. This adds to the low emotional moods many experience during these wintery months. For people with Seasonal Affective Disorder finding ways to cope with the condition is very important to ensure they don’t spend a significant part of the year feeling awful.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is Associated with Stress

SAD is strongly associated with stress, and can be alleviated through Beeja meditation (particularly in the lead up to winter), promoting a healthy hormonal balance and regulating your stress response. You can also try to reduce your stress in other ways, such as trying to organise the year so the major demands on you such as marriages, births and job changes – although of course it’s hard to control these factors all of the time – occur in the summer.

If you have the money, going away somewhere with long days and sunshine can also make people feel better in the winter months, even if it is advisable to exercise caution. Spending a week or so soaking up the sunshine only to return to chilly darkness can at times exacerbate the condition, so getting advice from a doctor before going is important. It may also be better to organise a holiday towards the end of the season so there’s both something to look forward throughout winter and lengthening days to return to.

Light therapy has also been shown to be an effective treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is why here at Will Williams we are giving away a SAD lamp to someone deserving to get them through the winter months. All we want to know is: what do you like to do when you’re feeling low? Let us know via social media to be in with a chance!