Summer is generally thought of as a joyous time, but for a lot of people it’s just as much of a trial to get through as cold, rainy weather is for others. Summer can be a time for summer seasonal affective disorder and loneliness.
“Summer seasonal affective disorder is a real thing,” says Dr. Christina Lee, the regional medical director for mental health services at Kaiser Permanente. She says about 10 percent of SAD sufferers have the summer type. “It’s another type of depression, and it’s linked to an overabundance of sunlight.” The heat and humidity, and pollen for some people, doesn’t help either, Lee says.
Summer depression can include feeling down, irritability, a loss of appetite coupled with unintentional weight loss, trouble sleeping, and anxiety.
“A lot of times, people will come to me in clinic, and they won’t know about summer seasonal affective disorder,” says Lee, a psychiatrist. “But they’ll just kind of report this worsening mood around the summer, and especially around heat.”
Research has shown that excessive light and heat “can make people feel more fatigued, irritable, even aggressive,” Lee says, “and they can interfere with one’s circadian rhythms and sleep schedules.”
The first steps are obvious ones, Lee says. Try to stay as cool as possible, including limiting your time outdoors and drinking lots of cool water. But it may take more than that.
“If you’re not purposely reducing the amount of light exposure you get, then your eyes are still getting that light exposure,” Lee says. “So, I think you may not even realize how much light exposure you’re getting or how much heat exposure you’re getting just on a day-to-day basis.”
Clothing with an SPF factor might help. Lee also recommends showering more than once a day, if that’s what it takes. “Like cold showers, where you feel that brisk coldness and you feel good to get out of the shower and to warm up a little bit.”
In the Dark
Your sleep schedule can get thrown off by the summer heat and light, even if you don’t realize it.
“Try to maintain a normal sleep schedule and reduce the amount of light exposure you’re seeing every day,” Lee says. You need to make an effort to go to bed on time. “That can sometimes be really hard to do if you’re exposing yourself to a lot of light. So if you need to, toward the evening hours, go someplace where it’s darker and dim the lights.”
You also may need to invest in blackout curtains to make sure your sleeping area stays dark in the very early morning, Lee says, or you might want to consider sleeping in a different part of your home during the summer months.
Some of the strategies, she adds, are the same kind of self-care strategies that can help get you through anything.
Self-care includes eating right and exercising, and that can take different forms for different people — yoga, a big run, daily walks — but the key is to pick what you like (“anything that is going to get you moving”) and stick with it.
“I think a lot of times self-care is this buzzword, but people don’t prioritize it, and they don’t prioritize having consistent routines,” Lee says.
If you’ve done all this and you’re still having depression and irritability, “or in the worst-case scenario suicidal thoughts, then that would be the time to reach out to a health care provider” about therapy, medication, or other treatments.
Feeling Lonely
Some people face a different challenge in the summer: loneliness.
Without a circle of friends or family, it’s easy to feel even more isolated in the summer, Lee says. For one thing, many people tell themselves “Oh, it’s the summer; you should be enjoying yourself; you should be going out; you should be spending time with friends and family, going on vacations. And so I think that feelings of loneliness can actually increase in the summertime.”
For another, summer can feel unmooring: Students lose the school schedule that forms the backbone of their routines, while adults, even if they stay working through the summer, generally have to deal with a lot of colleagues taking time off.
“All of those little micro-disruptions can exacerbate this feeling of ‘Wow, I’m a loser,’ or ‘I just don’t have activities and fun things planned like everybody else does,’” Lee says. “It’s separate from seasonal affective disorder, but those things also increase your risk of developing depression and anxiety.”
Her suggestion for those who feel lonely is to create connections. “Anything that you can do where you are being active about fostering some kind of meaningful connection is really important,” she says. Strengthen relationships with people you already know, even if it can feel uncomfortable. “Reach out, start calling, texting, make a plan to go out. So then it’s something you can look forward to.”
You can also make new connections by getting involved with local organizations and community events. “You feel that there’s more meaning in your life if you’re giving back; you feel a sense of gratitude and appreciation for what you have when you volunteer,” Lee says.
Feature image by Sabphoto/stock.adobe.com
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