Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Seasonal Affective Disorder Is Nothing to Ho, Ho, Ho About
By Lynne Gots, posted on December 16th, 2013.
It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean the holidays, although their approach certainly can make you want to crawl into a dark cave to escape the strains of White Christmas and the twinkling lights reminding you of how behind you are with your preparations.
I’m talking about the winter blues.
Lots of us go to work before sunrise, sit all day in a windowless office, and drive home after sunset, never seeing daylight. The hours of prolonged darkness can wear on you and even—for those individuals whose biological clocks make them susceptible—cause what’s known as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). It most commonly occurs in late fall and early winter and diminishes as the days grow longer, but SAD also can affect some people in spring and summer, causing agitation and anxiety rather than the lethargy typical of winter SAD.
Symptoms of winter SAD, like other forms of depression, include a loss of interest in normally pleasurable activities, irritability, withdrawal, lowered motivation and drive, changes in appetite (either overeating and carbohydrate cravings or loss of appetite) and sleep patterns (either excessive sleeping or insomnia), muscle tension and pain, feelings of heaviness in the limbs, lack of energy, poor concentration, and negative thinking.
Winter SAD is most prevalent at Northern latitudes and among women. Its causes are still speculative, with hypotheses suggesting imbalances in melatonin, circadian rhythms, and serotonin.
As with all neurobiological conditions, brain chemistry may make the symptoms unavoidable. But how we respond—our behavior and thoughts—can mitigate the distress we experience.
For instance, if you focus on how tired you feel in the morning, you’re likely to pull the covers over your head and give into the urge to hibernate. But if you can manage instead to drag yourself out of bed and take a brisk walk outside, you’ll feel more energetic and motivated for the rest of the day.
One of the best antidotes to a depressed mood is to engage in a variety of pleasant or competence-inspiring activities. Go out for a leisurely meal with friends or family, or stay in and cook one to share. Play with a pet. Get some exercise. Learn a new language. Practice a musical instrument. Listen to music. Solve a crossword puzzle. Knit a sweater. Peruse Pinterest or Houzz to get ideas for a redecorating project. Clean out a closet. Visit a museum. Go to a movie or play. You may need to adjust your activities to accommodate the weather, but you can still find plenty to occupy you.
Modifiying your attitude is another way to boost your mood. Instead of focusing on the shortened days and punishing wind chills, find enjoyment in a steamy mug of hot chocolate or a crackling fire. Try to accept the moment instead of wishing for it to be different.
Maybe as a consequence of my regular mindfulness meditation practice (which helps cultivate acceptance), I haven’t dreaded the advent of winter as much this year as in the past. But I do sometimes catch myself slipping into old thinking habits, as I did one day at my last CSA pickup of the season. Inundated with apples, I felt the negative thoughts starting to build: “I don’t like apples very much. I wish it were still summer. I want peaches. I’m sick of apples. I want watermelon.”
You don’t need to sell me on the merits of an apple a day. But it wouldn’t be my snack of choice, except as an occasional vehicle for peanut butter. On the other hand, apples in dessert form—gussied up with cinnamon and nutmeg, topped with a crust or a crumble, and served with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream—are an entirely different story. So I decided to adjust my attitude and stop complaining.
You know the old saw about what to do when life gives you lemons? Well, the season was giving me apples.
So I made apple pies.
Tags: acceptance, mindfulness, SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness, Depression |
Knowing When to Put Change on Hold
By Lynne Gots, posted on February 3rd, 2013.
I’m in the business of helping people change—their habits, their thoughts, their behavior. But sometimes staying the course is the wisest choice.
In my first post of the New Year, I outlined my Five-Minute Plan for changing behavior. I committed to trying it out myself by writing for five minutes a day with the goal of blogging weekly.
That hasn’t happened.
At first I felt guilty. After all, how can I expect others to follow my advice if I can’t apply it to my own life? But then I took a more mindful perspective, setting aside the self-judgments and extending to myself the compassion I’d readily give to others.
You see, this isn’t a good time for me to try to change my habits. A family health crisis has consumed my time and emotional energy. So in order to maintain my mental acuity and physical wellbeing, I’ve had to decide what’s most important for me to do right now.
Get enough sleep. Prepare nourishing meals. Keep up with a modest exercise regimen to clear my head and relieve stress. Meditate. Walk my dogs. Talk to my husband and children. Be fully present and on my game at work.
Blogging doesn’t make the cut.
So I’ll be taking a brief hiatus and will return when the time is right, whenever that is.
Tags: behavior change, compassion, mindfulness
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness, Behavior Change |
Short on Time? Try Adding Meditation to Your To-Do List
By Lynne Gots, posted on January 17th, 2013.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about time—about its elusive nature, its short supply, and its too-rapid passage.
So far no one has invented an app to add more hours to the day. But we can change our relationship to time. How? Through meditation. By adding a formal mindfulness practice to your agenda, you can slow your pace or heighten your awareness of even the briefest moments to get the most bang for your temporal buck.
I came to this discovery recently during a meditation practice. On weekdays, I usually I try to meditate as soon as I arrive at the office. I don’t like to feel rushed, and I get in early enough to give myself plenty of time.
But on this particular day, I needed to answer emails and couldn’t fit in the practice before my first appointment. So, I decided to squeeze it in during a break. I set the timer for twenty minutes and began to focus on my breath, as I do nearly every day.
What I noticed was this: I found myself hurrying, trying to get through the exercise as quickly as possible. I wasn’t cutting short the time—twenty minutes is twenty minutes, no matter how you may try to speed it up—but I remained acutely aware of the clock until the bell I’d set to mark the end of my practice (there is an app for that) rang. I found the process frustrating and unsatisfying.
We often dash through our days in just the same way, rushing to complete one activity so we can move on to the next. Focusing on the end product rather than the process of getting there takes away from what’s happening in the present moment—so much so, in fact, that we often can’t even remember what we’ve just experienced.
When my son was in high school, he had his own epiphany about time. Now a college senior majoring in music performance, back then he’d already begun to get serious about his trumpet playing and, under the guidance of an outstanding teacher and mentor, was finally learning how to practice. Until that point, he’d put in the requisite fifteen or twenty minutes, speeding through his scales and embouchure drills so he could get them over with and play video games. But after reading The Inner Game of Tennis and discovering how to focus, he started playing longer and with a greater sense of presence.
Although 15-year-old boys aren’t typically known for their ability to verbalize complex internal processes, he summed up his experience with an uncharacteristically Yoda-like observation: “When I used to practice, 15 minutes felt like an hour. Now an hour feels like 15 minutes.”
Of course he didn’t realize he’d achieved the enviable mental state called “flow.”
Most of us overly scheduled people would seriously question adding yet another task to our already excessive daily To-Do lists. Between going to work, looking after a family, attempting to maintain a semblance of fitness, and maybe even having a social life, how can we find the time?
It’s possible to make room in your agenda for a mindfulness practice, even though it might mean playing fewer games of Angry Birds or Tweeting less frequently. By including twenty minutes of meditation—or even just five, for starters—you might find you accomplish more throughout the rest of the day. Or, as my son realized, you might even enter The Zone: that sweet spot where you connect effortlessly with your experience and don’t even notice the passage of time. You’ll still have only twenty-four hours at your disposal. But it could feel like all the time in the world. Or like no time at all.
Tags: meditation, mindfulness, The Inner Game, time management
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
