Survey of Winter Blues Management Techniques

Penelope has been somewhat reticent lately (hence the infrequent Lunch Reports)* as she struggles with the increasingly groundhog-day-esque feel of her day-to-day existence. Wake up, dress (yet who cares what wear this time of year), work, lunch (always within the $3 limit), sunset (gone already? Geez), 5 mile run, more work, feed cats, dinner, inhale glass of wine (or several), watch Golf Channel, sleep . . .

Every year, about this time of year, winter stands tall before me, a menacing presence that promises to impose itself for an unbearably long time. It doesn’t matter whether it's 60 degrees out or -6 degrees, because there's still over 8 weeks to go and during that time the weather is sure to fluctuate and frustrate beyond all reason.

And each year I explore new ways to push back the winter and maintain a convincing smile in the dead of winter.*

One year I ran through the winter, in complete denial of the cold and its effects on me. I wound up with walking bronchitis, but, thanks to all those endorphins sloshing around and working themselves into a happy lather, I also got through the winter with cheer and was absurdly fit when spring arrived.

I’ve never understood folks who extol the change of the seasons. I don’t need winter to appreciate summer. The contrast does nothing for me. Summer could last all year long, although I don’t mind the fall and spring stuff that nature tosses in like an annual bonus.

There was the year I golfed my way through winter, booking a trip south every other weekend. My handicap went from a 24 to a 12 but my savings were cut in half as well. By March 1st, I realized I could no longer afford Seasonal Affective Disorder, or my means of coping with it.

The very next year, I dated my way through winter, with the assistance of the Internet, of course (who has a deep enough bench of friends that they can field a new set-up once a week without some cyber assistance??). This was the winter of my real discontent. It produced myriad enduring stories but not a single male who endured beyond a first date.

Yet another year I entertained a scientific approach, enhancing my daily exposure to natural light by leaving my bedroom curtain open.* It helped, until the open curtain introduced my feline roommate to the pigeons perching outside my window at dawn each morning, in turn prompting him to hurl himself at the pigeons to kill them and protect his master from the wicked birds defecating indiscriminately.

No matter how many times he repeated the exercise, sadly, he couldn’t understand that a double window separated him from his prey. Convinced he might suffer brain damage as a result of blunt windowpane trauma, I eventually closed the curtain and returned to the dark.

I continue to explore new techniques for blues management but what should Winter 2011’s project be? What can I entertain, or what can entertain me, so that I forget winter has arrived and won't loosen its grip on me anytime soon?

I’ve already solicited advice from select friends, whose suggestions range from becoming a Christian Scientist (it may make more sense to attend my own church more frequently before switching religions altogether) to rekindling my stale passion for skiing (why pay to be cold when I can stay in NYC and freeze for free?). Now I’d like to put the question to a broader audience.

What can I do to confront those recalcitrant moods and make them yield more gracefully, if not effortlessly? Even the treadmill has become tired of the unrealistic expectations I invest in it each time I step on for another run.

And how will I know if I am successful? Each day I fight harder, but am less certain of any discernible progress. Perhaps my standards are too high, because when I asked a close friend whether I was winning the fight against the blues, she assured me that if I was alive and still able to ask the question, I was winning . . .

So, Penelope is inviting her readers to write in with suggestions for managing the winter blues and to share success stories of overcoming the demons that rule many of our winters.


Penelope

Notes
*For those new to The Lunch Report, please see http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com for back issues.

*See “Happy Meals for Sad People,” http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2009/10/lunch-report-happy-meals-for-sad-people.html

*Exposure to natural light is just one of many techniques recommended for managing Seasonal Affective Disorder. See, Avery, DH; Kizer, D; Bolte, MA; Hellekson, C, “Bright Light Therapy of Subsyndromal Seasonal Affective Disorder in the Workplace: Morning vs Afternoon Exposure,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica (2001)