The holidays are a good time to pay special attention to mental health and the ways to ward off seasonal blues.
To start consider a key question, said a Northern Health clinical educator. Look back over the last few weeks and ask yourself or friends:
"Have you been feeling down, depressed or hopeless? If the answer is yes for more than half of the days, consider seeking out some additional support," said Damen DeLeenheer.
That can mean leaning on friends, family, cultural groups or seeking out specialized care from doctors or counsellors.
Other warning signs can be social isolation, increasing fatigue, anxiety or irritation and experiencing little interest or pleasure in doing things.
The Christmas season can be an especially hard time.
"There was a lot of literature that pointed to the social pressures and the popular culture affect on people struggling to meet this ideal that sometimes just isn't working for folks."
"This is your holiday, not Macy's."
Seasonal blues is more widespread than seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or depression that follows a seasonal pattern and variations in light. And while the shorter and darker days are a factor, DeLeenheer said patients should be mindful of other triggers.
"It's more than just the light," said DeLeenheer, although light therapy can be one way to address that.
"That's one part of it. Social isolation can be another part," he said, also adding medical health or spiritual isolation.
For those who live alone, DeLeenheer recommended leaning on local community support groups.
"For holiday blues, it's such a multifaceted issue, the effects can come from so many areas of your life."
According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, around 15 per cent of Canadians experience the winter blues, considered milder than SAD, which affects two to three per cent of Canadians, although it's more common in northern climates.
"Northern regions receive fewer daylight hours than their southern counterparts, and so are likely to present higher incidences of SAD. Additionally, internal biological clocks respond to seasonal changes in day length, putting people at risk for SAD," it said.
The CMHA recommends exercise, relaxation, and diet as a way to manage those lows. Just as the problem can include any number of factors, so can the solution.
"It's really a holistic issue and doing all those things that our primary care providers have told us for years: exercise, sleep, moderation really," said DeLeenheer, including alcohol consumption and diet.
"Overeating can be more of a problem during the holidays than any other time of year," he said. "Be mindful of the foods you're eating and consider at least alternating between the veggie and the dessert tray."
Because seasonal blues manifests in a number of ways, it's difficult to track and Northern Health couldn't comment on the numbers affected in the region by such symptoms.
"Because so many potential diagnosis make up the holiday blues it'd be really tricky to correlate all of the presentations," DeLeenheer said.
"Seasonal blues is really a catchall pop culture term that encapsulates specifically for the holiday seasons these feelings of isolation, stress, anxiety, depression that are specifically associated for this time of year."
