I am generally a happy person.
I’m almost always optimistic and absolutely love the sunshine. This may be because I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, (as in ‘the desert’, where they average about 300 days of sunshine per year) and then I moved to Perth in Australia (as in ‘Australia’s sunniest capital city’). A cloudy day was a nice reprieve from the hot days, but it was never dreary because clouds didn’t hang around long enough for a day to become dreary. So it was no surprise that until my first real Winter in 2022, I couldn’t quite understand what SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) was.
When we moved to Romania in 2021 a friend of ours told me he used light therapy every day to avoid SAD. This confused me a little… why not just go outside each day? Why ‘light therapy’? See when you spend 1, 2, 3 months or more with limited to no sunlight exposure, it impacts your wellbeing. It decreases the amount of serotonin released by your brain which can impact your internal body clock, your mood, appetite, and sleep – which quite frankly can make you feel a little more than sad.
It was either November of 2022 or 2023 and Romania had served up a solid 3 to 4 weeks without sunshine. For someone used to 300 days of sunshine a year this was not something my body knew how to deal with! My whole family felt the impact! Despite our vitamin D supplements, daily exercise, and daily walks outside to and from school, we were all struggling!
So I did what I could to get out of there quick and booked a trip to Qatar to visit some friends! As soon as we stepped off the plane we felt an immediate positive impact. It was the sun! Just one week in the sun was enough to get us through the rest of that winter. We were lucky enough to have both the means and opportunity to get away and get to some sunshine. Not everyone has that luxury.
So, what is one to do? Check in with your friends; go for a walk outside; exercise regularly; take vitamin D supplements… and if that’s not enough, consider light therapy to help you get through the winter and check with your doctor.
