Resources: Learn More

• “Seasonal Affective Disorder” (Mayo Clinic)
• “How Does Light Therapy Treat Depression?” reviewed by Marc S. Lener, MD
• “Reasons to Stay Alive,” by Matt Haig

Things to Think About

• If you know you have Seasonal Affective Disorder, it can be helpful to prepare for its symptoms a few weeks or months before their usual time of onset.
• Always consult with your therapist or primary care physician before using supplements or a light therapy box.

About the Guest

Christy Wilkie provides therapy for children and adolescents, ages 5-25, who have complex behavioral health issues. She combines her extensive clinical expertise with a belief in kids, and has a unique ability to find and develop their strengths. She works hard to be an ideal therapist for her clients, doing what is best to fit their needs.

Lucas Mitzel provides therapy for children, adolescents, and adults, ages 5 - 30. He believes building relationships with clients is the most important piece of successful therapy. He loves what he does, because it allows him to walk next to people he would never have met had he chosen a different profession, as they work to make amazing life changes. He has the honor of meeting people at their worst, all while watching them grow into the people they’ve always wanted to be.

Transcript
Seasonal Affective Disorder (Community Chat Series)

Featuring Christy Wilkie, LCSW, and Lucas Mitzel, LCSW, Dakota Family Services

Tammy Noteboom:

Community chat recordings are presented by Dakota Family Services, an outpatient clinic with mental health providers in Minot and Fargo, North Dakota. Thank you for listening.

Host Gabe Wiese:

Our presenters today are Christy Wilkie and Lucas Mitzel. Christy and Lucas are both therapists at Dakota Family Services and provide individual therapy for children, adolescents and young adults. So with that I think I will turn it over to Christy and Lucas to get started.

Lucas Mitzel:

Awesome. Thank you for coming everyone. So today we're obviously, we're talking about seasonal affective disorder and that is a fancy way of saying that it's depression, but on like a more seasonal basis, if you will. And the typical seasons that we see seasonal affective disorder fall between like the fall and winter and then also again more in like the springtime. People typically think of seasonal affective disorder or seasonal depression in the fall because it's getting cold out, especially up here and the sun disappears forever and it just makes everybody down and just nobody is really feeling super great. But what people don't realize is that during the spring we also have a spike in depression and anxiety. And it's interesting because actually in the spring, that's probably one of our busiest times of year in the clinic and suicide rates are going up, suicidal ideation has increased, just people are not doing well during that time.

Lucas Mitzel:

And a lot of time during the summer then it starts to get better and then the fall hits again. And a lot of people aren't. So kind of just goes in this little cycle when it comes to seasonal depression. And the the interesting, a lot of people are really fascinated by that statistic about suicide rates going up. And there's a couple of theories and one of them being that people who were depressed during the wintertime are getting a lot of validation for that because everybody's kind of feeling gross and nobody's really doing super well all the time. And so then when springtime comes, a lot of people are starting to feel a little bit better and they're not getting that validation anymore. And so then they just get, they start to lower in their mood more than they were before, which then increases the rates of suicide or just suicidal ideation in general. Another thing that can happen is in the spring you can get a boost of energy. So then when you were down over the wintertime in energy, you get enough energy to actually follow through with a plan that you had all along. So these are just two of the sort of theories or ideas behind why the suicide rates go up in the spring. But I think it's really important to just mention that as we talk about this because a lot of people really focus on the fall being the main area of concern.

Christy Wilkie:

It's also important to note in the suicidal ideation is that we're really great at saying, yeah, it's everybody feels crappy. And then when you're feeling crappy and then the spring comes and you don't get that burst of energy and you don't get that feeling, you're seeing everybody out doing all sorts of stuff and you're still like, oh no, I still feel like crap <laugh>. And it starts to feel like this is a more permanent condition and that you're never gonna feel better because that little bit of sun that everybody's been telling you is gonna make you feel better. Just it doesn't. And I think this time of year it always starts around November when everybody's coming into the office. And which is kind of the impetus for us talking about this is that it happens every year where people come in and they're like, why am I not feeling well?

Christy Wilkie:

Like all of a sudden I'm not feeling great. And we have to be like, we just turned our clocks back. We just gained a whole bunch of darkness in our day. And so let's talk about if your depression is impacted in a more seasonal pattern. A lot of people wonder, I mean, scientifically what seasonal affective disorder is in the winter and in the winter, it's that decrease in serotonin and increase in melatonin with disrupted sleep patterns. That tells your brain that, it incites more depression. And with the time change people, I mean half the time now, I don't know if I'm going to work or coming from work, I just get transported in the dark everywhere I go. And it's really easy for your brain to not know even when you're supposed to sleep or if you're supposed to be sleeping all of the time.

Christy Wilkie:

So when we talk about seasonal affective disorder, we talk about symptomology and it not being a whole lot different than depression. And in fact, the symptoms are similar. You're just doing it in a, in a seasonal pattern. So if the fall rolls around and you start to feel like you are sleeping too much, that you're craving carbohydrates or you're gaining weight because of the food choices you're making, you're lethargic, you're withdrawing from your friends and your family. The idea of going to do something fun is like, oh my gosh, too much work. Those are all kind of indicators that, you know, maybe there's something, there's something going on there. And I think a lot of times we do explain it away, especially in North Dakota, we're not great at talking about our emotions and validating the way that we're feeling 'cause we're tough and we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and we just get stuff done.

Christy Wilkie:

But it could be that those are symptoms of depression in a seasonal pattern and it's, don't explain them away, like validate those things. And if you're having a thought that's like, I wonder if this is normal to feel this way or not, that's enough for you to feel like maybe I need to go in and talk to somebody about that. But it's easy to be like, oh, we live here, we just know it's, we're just gonna be miserable for six months. No, believe it or not, not everybody in this state is miserable <laugh> for six months out of the year. And so if you're noticing some of those symptoms, you should see a professional.

Lucas Mitzel:

Absolutely. It's funny you say that 'cause I, I hear that all the time where I might be doing like a screening for depression or something like that and I'm asking them a symptom like, do you ever think about dying? And they're like, well yeah, but everybody thinks about that. It's like, oh man, nope, that's not true. Actually that's really abnormal. So we should maybe talk about that. So don't ignore, like Christy was saying, don't ignore that and make sure that you are just taking everything seriously if there's a change in mood or behaviors or anything like that. One thing too that often gets missed when we talk about seasonal depressions is that the fall and spring is like, especially for kids, the biggest stressing points of the years. Why? Because fall school's starting and they might be starting a new school, they might be starting a new grade, well hopefully they're starting a new grade, but like in like high school or middle school or stuff like that, like a really big transition into a different school environment.

Lucas Mitzel:

And springtime there's finals and graduation and either way you're moving either into a very structured routine of school or you're moving out of that structure and that can cause a lot of stress. Just the anticipatory anxiety of that. And we know that anxiety is highly linked to depression. And so if that anxiety doesn't get dealt with appropriately, we can start to see some depressive symptoms. And it can often look like it's just a seasonal issue when maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's just we need to learn some skills to manage some of this anxiety that's going on or just manage these transitions. So it's not always a seasonal issue. It's not always because of just the serotonin and the melatonin and all the chemicals and stuff, although those are major factors, there could be some environmental issues going on too, but it's really hard to like tease those out by yourself. So again, if you're seeing any of these problems, we're gonna be a broken record about this part. If you're seeing any of these things, it's really important to have somebody who's objective, who knows what they're doing to ask you some good questions and to try and help you figure out where this is coming from, what's going on, and then to have a plan as to how to make it better. 'cause It can get better. You don't have to live like it.

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah. It's also when you talk about those changes that happen in the fall and the spring, the summer, like the summer pattern depressive disorder is more of when we're talking about symptomology, we talk about, you know, the winter ones are like, you overeat, you're overtired, you know you're withdrawing and it, it's kind of feels icky. And the summer pattern is more the anxiety and the irritability and poor appetite. You don't really feel like eating and you don't know when to sleep because it's bright out all the time and then your body doesn't, doesn't sleep. And so then there's that insomnia that comes with that. And so the patterns have a little bit of different symptomology when we're looking at at those kinds of things. That is a very distinguishing factor between the two. I think too, both the fall and the spring, we all know how that feels like.

Christy Wilkie:

Like some people it gets, it gets cold and they're like, oh yes, let's hunker down. And people kinda like that feeling. And spring is kind of the same when spring comes around, you kinda get that extra pep in your step and it's like, oh, I wanna do that. And sometimes people don't feel those things and sometimes those feelings will trigger other traumas or other things that have happened in their life because those trauma, trauma triggers that live in your body with seasonal changes, people are like, why this time of year? And it's like, well it, there's a lot of loss that's triggered in both the fall and the spring and there's a lot of change that gets triggered from fall in the spring. And so like even if you're an adult and you have kids and they moved out of your house in the spring and that was a really sad time for you, like that, that can also trigger feelings of depression and sadness and learning to talk about that and finding a different way to look at some of those experiences can also help manage that depression.

Lucas Mitzel:

And so some of the behaviors or the changes that you might see for somebody who's struggling with this or maybe for yourself, like if you're feeling down most of the day, that's not normal and it's different. I'm not talking about like if you're grieving, 'cause grieving is normal, right? And a lot of depression symptoms can be associated with grief, but especially if you're feeling down and you have the thoughts of like, there's really no reason to be sad today. That could be something to consider for kids. It doesn't always look like sadness. It looks like irritability and being a little crabby and oftentimes it might show up in anger or just like snapping at you for something that seems very minor. And so look out for that. When it comes to kids, you might have a lower interest in doing things that you normally enjoy.

Lucas Mitzel:

One of the ways that this shows up is that you get bored really fast over things that you used to maybe be able to do for a long time. For kids who really like to play video games, and it just seems like that's the only thing that they're, they want to do, they'll show this by constantly switching games because a game is just only interesting for maybe like five minutes and they're like, oh this, this kind of sucks now even though they're confused because normally they like playing these games. Christy mentioned eating too much or eating too little. So causing like weight fluctuations, having difficulties with sleep that could either be too much sleep where like you can't wake up or not getting enough-- insomnia. Depression's really annoying in that during the day you wanna sleep sometimes. And then at night it's like all of a sudden you're wide awake and you can't fall asleep and you might feel restless or being slowed down.

Lucas Mitzel:

You might get tired all the time. That's what I was talking about just a few minutes ago of just feeling like you're just sluggish and you can't just get that energy up to go do anything that you want to do. Having feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt about things or feeling like you are indecisive or unable to think clearly. And then of course having recurrent thoughts of death or suicidal ideation. All of these things are things to take seriously. It might be nothing if you are feeling tired all the time, it might be that you're stressed out or that you just aren't going to bed on time. It could be, but let's just do some check-ins and see what's going on there. Especially if you're somebody who's struggled with depression in the past. Definitely take those things seriously. It's much easier to treat depression when it's little than when it's full-blown and it's been here for like months.

Christy Wilkie:

The other part of that is the time period that, that you go through. Like there's, there's a difference between having a bad day every now and then. Everybody has those, those are totally normal to have. I wouldn't freak out about a bad day, but when those last more than two weeks, that's when it can be classified as a depressive episode in whatever capacity that is. And 'cause people always ask, you know, well how long should it, how long should it stick around? And it's like, well, I mean if if you're experiencing it for more than two weeks, that's too many weeks <laugh> to not be feeling, to not be feeling well. There's a question in the chat that's talking about can seasonal depression affect other mental disorders such as bipolar and PTSD, major depressive disorder? And the answer is absolutely yes. We find people that come in that have a depressive disorder where it, it ends up getting worse and a seasonal pattern and they, once they kind of know it, we can prepare for it.

Christy Wilkie:

But definitely if you, if you already come in with a predisposition or you're already depressed and have that diagnosis, it can absolutely make it worse. Bipolar is interesting because, and we'll probably talk about this a little bit later, but increased light can induce manic episodes even when you're looking at using, they call them sad lights, which we'll talk about later, but, which is why it's really important to talk to your doctor about starting any sort of light therapy because if you have a preexisting bipolar condition and then you put a light on it that can actually make those manic episodes come out. And some people will experience bipolar in a seasonal pattern where sometimes the seasons will invoke that, that manic sort of period. 'cause Most people in bipolar ex has spent more time in depression than they do in mania. And so it's really, it's important to track those kinds of things and how you're feeling.

Christy Wilkie:

So the, the more you know about yourself and how you're feeling during the seasons and, and really being knowledgeable about it, the easier it is to help treat it and kind of expect what's to come and what's not to come and kind of start some of those treatments before the season changes or, and sometimes people just kind of, they know themselves well enough to know that they're gonna start doing this, the the stuff that they know helps them in October or whatever month it is and then they're gonna keep doing it past the point where they think that they could feel better because if you just extend it, you're managing it more effectively. I hope that answers your question, but the seasons definitely impact already existing conditions.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah, I wanna just echo and just reiterate the importance of really just knowing yourself and just trying to figure out how your brain works, what the triggers are and what happens when you're triggered certain ways and when things occur. All of that stuff. Because even if worst case scenario, you can't prevent the seasonal depression from stopping. Just knowing that it's going to happen and being prepared for that with your safety plans, with your loved ones, with yourself and just having those like safety mechanisms in place can make it just make you not crash as hard and make it feel like it's more manageable. And even just having the thought that this is just a temporary thing. This happens every year, it's gonna end. That alone can make going through that so much easier because, and we're gonna talk about this in a little bit here, but depression really likes to tell lies and really likes to tell you that it's just gonna stick around forever and that there's no hope and it's just not true.

Christy Wilkie:

<Laugh> And that's the end of that <laugh>. And Lucas and I have talked about this with each other before, but once your brain also finds the pathway that kind of opens it up and helps you realize how to get out of, of a dark abyss like that, it's easier to go back if your brain's already done that. It's already figured out how to get out of it and so it can get out of it again. And so even the thought of knowing that I've done this before, my brain knows what to do, my body knows what to do, I know how it feels, I know what this feels like, I know what's going on, I can name it. There's a lot of power in naming emotions where if you can learn to identify what it is you're feeling and say it out loud to yourself or to somebody else or just write it down or even yell it in your head, that gives you control over that emotion instead of that emotion controlling you, which has been super helpful for a lot of people to just be like, this is anxiety, I know what that is, or this is depression.

Christy Wilkie:

I know what that is. I know what I need to do about it. So naming it and just being like, okay, this is mine. I have control over this. This is a mind shift that can be really helpful.

Lucas Mitzel:

One of my favorite analogies to use with depression is calling it a parasite. 'Cause A parasite is something that feeds off of you in order to survive or to live. And depression feeds off of your happiness and your joy in order to survive. So by calling it that or by looking at it that way, it takes the depression and it removes it from you. And it's a separate entity that now we are fighting. And it's not like who you are, it's something that's affecting you. So when I do this with people and help them see it this way, we then talk about, okay, what is depression telling you to do? What is it telling you not to do? Okay. And now we're gonna fight against that. So how are we going to fight the depression and what it's telling you to do? And that's by doing what's called opposite action, which is exactly how it sounds.

Lucas Mitzel:

You do the opposite of whatever your depression is telling you to do or not do, which sounds really simple and easy, but it is not <laugh>. But if we can start doing these things, even in just like small bursts or small examples, you're gonna start to feel better slowly because you are starving that parasite and it's getting less and less power over you than it would if, for example, a lot of people's depression might say stay home or stay inside and don't like talk to people. Well, okay, so if we go outside and go talk to somebody or go spend time with people, you're gonna maybe start feeling better. It may not be right away, right away it might be miserable, but we, but the more you do that, the less power it's gonna have over you and the more quiet it's going to be. So that is one of my favorite ways to look at it and to talk to people about it. But there's a lot of different takes and approaches to make this get better.

Christy Wilkie:

To try to give people some empathy if, if you're a person that hasn't experienced depression or don't know what that feels like, I try to tell people that it's really frustrating when you're depressed because the thing that you wanna do the least in the whole world is the only thing that will make you feel better. It is so frustrating if you think of the thing that you wanna do the least in the whole world and then to try to get yourself motivated to do it because that's the thing that's gonna make you feel better. It's really, really hard. And people that have been through depression, they know it's like you could sit in bed and be like, I do not want to get up and shower. I wanna sit in this bed forever. Like I, I don't wanna do anything. I just wanna be here and lie like a potato and do nothing. Watch trash TV. And you know that if you get in the shower it's going to make you feel better. It's going to, but to force yourself to do that and take one foot in front of the other to get into that shower to know that that's gonna make you feel better, that's what you gotta do. It's like it's acting opposite and doing the thing that you really don't wanna do. But you know that doing that thing, it's gonna change your whole day. But it is very difficult to manage for a lot of people

Lucas Mitzel:

With depression, we oftentimes have a lot of intrusive thoughts and they're typically very negative and they're about yourself or about how other people view you maybe. And those thoughts can have a lot of power. The thing to remember though is that thoughts by themselves do not have power. We all day long have weird thoughts that we do not give power.

Christy Wilkie:

Speak for yourself.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah, whatever <laugh> <laugh> and it's weird, intrusive thoughts that you might get where it just pops in your head to do something or to say something and you don't do it 'cause you didn't give that thought power. And so even just by saying out out loud or in your head like, I'm having the thought that I am worthless, that sentence is a lot different than I am worthless or I'm thinking that I'm worthless or I think that I'm worthless. So by identifying what you're thinking of and just saying that you're having the thought and then refusing to give that any more power, you're going to start slowly, as you practice this more and more 'cause this is also a very hard skill to learn, you're going to start being able to combat those thoughts better. Something that Christy had said earlier where you start to like talk your thoughts out loud or even just like talking back to them is something that I've taught people to do that have been really helpful.

Lucas Mitzel:

And I've had some clients report back to me that like they were sitting in the car and they had a really negative, intrusive thought and they like yelled at their depression to shut up. And by doing that, like by actually like having a verbal altercation with their depression <laugh>, they were able to take the power away from that and feel really good after doing that. So you gotta figure out what works best for you. There's a lot of different strategies and tactics to kind of fight those thoughts. Speaking with a therapist can be really helpful to try and figure those out. But those are just a few techniques that could be really helpful to someone.

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah, essentially what what Lucas is describing is cognitive behavioral therapy, which is something that people probably hear all the time and it probably sounds way more intimidating than what it is, but it is just examining your thoughts and finding a different way to look at it. The thing I tell people about how powerful your thoughts are, if you're researching something like you're gonna buy something like a Jeep <laugh>, I always go with the Jeep. I don't know why, but if you're gonna, if you're gonna buy a Jeep and you're looking at pictures of Jeeps and you're looking at the Jeep website, you're building one, you're, you're looking on Facebook marketplace for Jeeps and all of a sudden you're like driving around in your car and you're like, oh, there are a lot of Jeeps out here around. It's like, well no, there's the exact same amount of Jeeps as there was, you know, two weeks ago.

Christy Wilkie:

It's just that in your brain, that's what you have going on in your head. That's what's occupying your thoughts. And so that's what you're noticing. And so it's, it's no different than thoughts about yourself or thoughts about other people if you're walking around all day thinking about what's wrong with you and what you're not doing right and what could be different and how you could look different and how you could act different and oh my gosh, I messed this up at work. If you're always thinking about that, that's what you're gonna find. You're gonna find all of the negative things in in your life. And so training your brain to not look at all of the bad things and look at, you know, what am I doing right today? Like, what's going in, what's going in the right direction? What are my colleagues saying about me that's positive?

Christy Wilkie:

Like what's, what's the, the good feedback that I got, because I talk about this with parents all the time with report cards, report cards will come back and they'll be like five A's and a C and what do we spend all of our time talking to the kids about? That C Instead of saying, look at all these A's like, look what, tell me about what you're doing in art. Tell me about English and then we maybe have to discuss math because like what can I do to support you in that? Like how can I make that better? But the same thing goes with ourselves we're we are so more likely to take the one negative thing that somebody says about us and hold onto that forever and ever and ever and not look at the 99% of other positive things that we have going on in our lives.

Christy Wilkie:

And training your brain to look at that positive side of things is hard, but it also impacts your wellbeing and your depression. 'Cause If I'm going around looking all the time for things that I'm like great at, I'm gonna be way more happy than I am if I'm just going around looking for everything that I suck at. And it's math in case anybody was wondering, I'm terrible at math, that's the thing I suck at. But if I were to judge my success as a human being on how I can do math, I'd be pretty miserable. So I could go around thinking about how crappy I'm at math all the time or I could go around thinking, you know what, I'm a decent golfer. You know, that's, that's maybe where my skillset is and that, so I can focus on that. But that is all, you know, training your brain to, to think differently.

Christy Wilkie:

There's a question on on the side that says, would seasonal depression be treatable when on a current treatment therapy plan, for example, someone getting treatment with ketamine or other antidepressants be more or less susceptible for the seasonal depression without standing treatment be affected by the seasonal depression symptoms? Understood it's with clinician therapists and treatment professionals that medication adjustments are made. Anytime there's a treatment plan, it would be treatable. I mean depression is a very treatable diagnosis and the seasonal depression part of it isn't any different. I have people that I have seen for years, honestly we are very aware of the cycles in their moods, in their and their depression. And so I start preparing them for that months before it's gonna come. And that's part of the treatment plan that I, that we put together with the client. Be like, Hey, December's coming up and we know that this is a hard time for you.

Christy Wilkie:

And I'll start talking about that with them in October so that they are well prepared and we can start doing all of those things that we need to do to combat that depression as best we can as quickly and as effectively as humanly possible. You get to know the triggers of your, of your clients and and they get to know them too that just kind of the triggering times and be like, this anniversary's coming up, what are we gonna do to prepare for that? And that's all in a treatment plan. And our clients are all very aware that that's kind of part of what they do. The more prepared you can be, the less maybe severe it it is when it kind of clicks in. So yeah, we do a lot of work with preparing people for that.

Lucas Mitzel:

To follow up on a, I think if I'm understanding the next question in there, so is it, is it treatable? Yes, absolutely. Will it impact treatment? Maybe, I mean any sort of time you get new symptoms that maybe weren't there before or an increase in symptoms, yeah it's gonna impact maybe what you guys are are doing or how you're doing something. If I have a client who's coming in that maybe we've been working on depression and the seasonal depression makes things worse, or if they were anxious and then they have some seasonal depression, we might go backwards a little bit just to reinforce some skills or go back and talk through some of these things that maybe we have talked about before or whatever. But it's not going to be detrimental to your treatment by any means. Like Christy said, this is very much treatable and workable. It's just a matter of visiting with your team and figuring out, hey, this is what's going on right now, this is how I'm feeling, what can we do? Because that answer is gonna be very subjective and very individualized to you as the person going through that.

Christy Wilkie:

Definitely. And there's, I mean the other things that we always talk about, a lot of people can manage seasonal affective disorder, like everything that's mental health. It all happens on a spectrum. Not everybody has to go to talk therapy. Not everybody has to be on medication. We always start with, you know, the big three diet, exercise and sleep. And we don't just say it because it's cliche, we say it because it really, really does matter. What you eat matters what you, what you do with your body matters and, and when you're sleeping absolutely matters. And so even to this question, you know, we we start with, we what's your diet gonna be? What's our plan? And sometimes people need to have like meal plans to be like, okay, this is, this is how I need to organize my life. This is what I have to do in order to eat healthy and make sure that I'm giving my body what it needs.

Christy Wilkie:

By moderating those three things, you can make a lot of changes in your mood because they all matter. Sometimes just time outside, sitting by a window, going for a walk, even when it's cold. Even just having the light that's by a window when it's freezing, that can be helpful. Spending time with people that even though sometimes it sounds like it's terrible will, will be helpful 'cause it takes your brain off of something for a while and kind of reminds you who you are for a while. I don't even like to call it exercise because people can get so turned off by exercise, which is moving your body in any sort of way. You don't have to go out and run three miles in order to feel better <laugh>. You can do yoga, you can just park farther away in the parking lot and just kind of get that extra movement in your body and in the, in the form of a walk or stretch, just stretch. Do something that moves your body in a different way that just kind of brings yourself back into who you are, and where you are in the moment. All of those relaxation techniques. I know Lucas and I both preach a lot of progressive muscle relaxation meditations, sleep meditations, any gratitude meditations. I use the Peloton meditations. There's the call map. There's, is it the talk app? Is that, am I making that up?

Lucas Mitzel:

You might be making it up.

Christy Wilkie:

<Laugh> There's all sorts of apps you can use too that will, that will help you with meditations and, and those can be really helpful if you're not in the space where you think that you need something that's as intensive as going into doing therapy. All of those things are very helpful in moderating your mood. Yeah, balance has a one year free trial. Our participants are amazing. Thank you for that.

Lucas Mitzel:

Another thing, like a broader idea is the skill is called building mastery. So you take something that is difficult but not too difficult, something you know you can be successful in but something that you can get better at. So anything artistic is a really good example of this. So if, if painting is your thing, it's not my thing, but if painting is your thing, for example, you choosing to do something that feels like it is difficult but is manageable because if you can get that feeling of success, if you can get that feeling like you did something, there is a lot of chemical dumps that happen in your brain after that. The feel-good chemicals, serotonin, endorphins, dopamine, all of that stuff, it's dumped into your brain when this, when you do something like that. And that is an excellent way to help yourself feel better. Like I said though, the important thing is that we're not doing something that's too easy 'cause then you're not gonna feel successful and we don't do something that's too hard because then you're gonna get, you're gonna feel like a failure and that's definitely not helpful.

Christy Wilkie:

So choose wisely.

Lucas Mitzel:

Choose wisely. Yes. And it doesn't have to be anything that's super creative or super crazy. I mean like you can get creative with this. Like I've got people who use video games as a way to do this. I have people who use arts, like I said, physical activities such as exercising or running or things like that. You can do a lot with this. Building something.

Christy Wilkie:

Puzzles, Legos.

Lucas Mitzel:

Legos are great. It's just anything that you can get better at is a really good option for that. So, oh, being nice to yourself too. Like you're gonna have days when you're depressed that are going to suck and it's just gonna like, it's just gonna show up. Depression's gonna show up and just be like, Hey, I'm here today. We're hanging out and you're not gonna feel like doing a whole lot. And I know we preach a lot about like opposite action, like, like try not to listen to your depression, push through those moments and like get outside and stuff like that. But like you're not feeling well. Like have, give yourself some grace too. Like you don't have to go out with friends every single time you're invited. You can take some time and just hang out at home too. Like that's 100% okay to do that.

Lucas Mitzel:

And one of my, I have a lot of people actually who maybe they leave early from going to work and they just feel so guilty about that and it's like if you were physically ill, you would not feel any shame about that. You would just go home and take care of yourself and rest. And this is no different except worse <laugh> because it's in your brain and it, it hurts way worse honestly than a cold. And so just have that balance. Don't overexert yourself, don't push yourself too hard to go and do like all of these things that we were talking about like opposite action wise and at the same time just make sure we're taking care of ourselves and be kind because you're doing the best you can today with what you got and we're just always working on tomorrow being a little bit better.

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah, that's a a very good point 'cause there is, there's a fine line to walk and that I feel like is so it's something that you have to go through with a therapist or somebody who's helping you because what works for one person or where one person is isn't where another person is. And so sometimes, yeah, the prescription is, I know that you don't wanna get a shower but that's our goal for the week. Like I just need you to get in the shower. And then on the other side, sometimes you get these people that are depressed that are just plowing through it and they're not respecting the, the emotion that that's actually going on inside of them. And like you need to just rest, you need to like just take some time and calm down and like not plow through it. And yes, this was a really difficult therapy session, go get yourself a coffee.

Christy Wilkie:

Like just do something that takes care of you. And that is sometimes that's the trick too, where you just get so hard on yourself and you go back to those thoughts that in your head that if you're always talking about how bad you are and how, how terrible things are and you have to keep going and you have to push through and if you don't, you're weak. That doesn't help anybody. You're human and you have depression and it blows like yeah you're, you're gonna have days where you just need to sit and watch selling sunset and that's okay <laugh>, that's just fine. The two things that people always ask me about when we talk about seasonal affective depression are light boxes and vitamin D and both of those things can be helpful and, and they also can't either. So it depends on who you are and I would never start any of those without consulting with your doctor or your mental health professional because those are relatively prescriptive devices that you don't wanna overuse or underuse.

Christy Wilkie:

I mean, like I said, if you've got already a preexisting condition, sometimes the lights and the vitamin D, sometimes they don't do great things and vitamin D is, I mean a lot of us are vitamin D deficient in this neck of the woods without a doubt. And that can be, it can be super helpful and the lights can be super helpful too. But I would never jump into any of those things without talking to somebody first about how to best use them when, why, how long, what kind of light, 'cause we don't want UV light that's not helpful. There's more that goes into it than just like buying a $25 light on Amazon. So I just would like you to be a little bit more thoughtful if that's kind of a direction that you're going with any of that.

Lucas Mitzel:

You know, I would recommend too just having a conversation with your doctor regarding medications. If this is something that maybe you've been on medications before and now you're not on 'em, maybe you've never been on medication, you're having a hard time working through this. Even just having a conversation with your doctor about it. 'Cause Knowledge is power, right? Just asking questions, getting more information about what those do, what potential risks are, how it could benefit you, those sorts of things. Like Christy said, medication is not for everybody and that's totally fine, totally fine, but for some people it has been found to be extremely helpful. So it's just something to consider and just having a conversation and it doesn't have, just because you talk to your doctor does not mean that you're going to get automatically put on something you don't want. You can say no you want to do that, but like I said, just knowledge is power and just maybe having a conversation about that. If you are on medications already, please be consistent on your medications. Take them as prescribed <laugh>

Christy Wilkie:

Don't stop taking them when you feel better because that's like the point.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right? It happens all the time <laugh> and it's not like an antibiotic where like you feel better and that's because it cured you, it's because it's working. So make sure you're consistent on it because getting on and off, on and off is not, it's not very kind to your brain and to your body and it can just make things just feel gross and then obviously try therapy because we're pretty awesome.

Christy Wilkie:

We are, we're great <laugh> and we and I, Lucas and I both, I know this is that we will always take the least invasive approach to help you treat your depression, your whatever it is that you're coming in with. I'm never one to jump straight to medications. I like to see what we can do with therapy and figure out, you know, if there's some, some things that we can do without medication. There's some people wanna go straight to medication. Totally cool, fine with that. I do think that we also have to lift the stigma around being on medication. There's nothing wrong with that. If you have to be on it, you have to be on it. It's something that your body needs that your brain's just not making organically and that's just fine to supplement that with that. That being said, not everybody has to be on antidepressant medication their whole life, but when you're looking at going off it, it has to be a very mindful approach that you do with your doctor and your therapist. And it's not something to be like, I feel better, I'm just gonna stop taking it. There's a thoughtful way to go about that if you know, kind of this, the environmental stressors that have caused your depression have kind of been dealt with and you've got some skills and you wanna be like, you know what, I really think I wanna try it without it. And everybody's in agreement. Like we can do that in a very responsible way rather than just going off and going on and going off and going on.

Tammy Noteboom:

Thank you for listening to this community chat presented by Dakota Family Services. To make an appointment with one of our mental health providers or to learn other ways to mind your mind, go to Dakotafamilyservices.org.

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