As the days get shorter and the weather gets colder, you might notice changes in your mood, energy, or motivation. Maybe you're having a harder time getting out of bed in the morning, feeling less interested in things you usually enjoy, or finding yourself wanting to stay home more often.
For some people, these changes are mild. For others, they can significantly impact daily life and may be a sign of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a type of depression that follows a seasonal pattern, most commonly during the fall and winter months.
Winter can also bring its own emotional challenges. The holidays, complicated family relationships, grief, and the pressure to feel joyful during a season that might actually feel difficult can all contribute to our emotional well-being.
If you notice yourself struggling more during this time of year, there are things you can do to support your mental health and make the winter months feel a little more manageable.
Why Does Winter Affect Our Mental Health?
Our bodies are closely connected to the natural rhythms of light and darkness. When daylight hours decrease, it can affect our circadian rhythm, or internal clock, which helps regulate sleep, energy, and mood.
Changes in sunlight exposure can also influence melatonin, a hormone involved in sleep, and serotonin, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in mood regulation.
For people experiencing SAD, these seasonal changes can contribute to symptoms such as:
Feeling sad, down, or more irritable than usual
Low energy and difficulty getting motivated
Sleeping more than usual but still feeling tired
Changes in appetite, including increased cravings for carbohydrates
Difficulty concentrating
Withdrawing from friends, family, or activities
Feeling hopeless or losing interest in things you normally enjoy
While it's normal to have fluctuations in mood, persistent symptoms that interfere with your daily life deserve attention and support.
Ways to Help Yourself Feel Less SAD This Winter
1. Get Outside and Soak Up Some Natural Light
One of the simplest ways to support your mood during winter is to spend time outdoors, especially earlier in the day.
Even when it's cloudy, outdoor light is generally much brighter than indoor lighting. Getting outside for a morning walk, drinking your coffee on the patio, or taking a break outdoors during your workday can help support your body's natural sleep-wake cycle.
If getting outside feels overwhelming, start small. Even 10–15 minutes can be a manageable place to begin.
Light therapy is another option that can be helpful for some people experiencing SAD. Specially designed light boxes are used to mimic bright outdoor light and may help improve seasonal depression symptoms. It's important to talk with a healthcare professional before starting light therapy, especially if you have bipolar disorder, certain eye conditions, or take medications that increase light sensitivity.
2. Keep Moving, Even When You Don't Feel Like It
When we're feeling depressed or low in energy, exercise is often one of the first things to fall off our routine. Unfortunately, the less active we become, the harder it can feel to get moving again.
Movement can help improve mood, reduce stress, and support better sleep. And it doesn't have to mean going to the gym or doing an intense workout.
Taking your dog for a walk, stretching, practicing yoga, dancing around your kitchen, or doing some gentle movement at home all count.
The goal isn't to push yourself to do more than you have the capacity for. It's to find ways to bring movement into your day that feel realistic and supportive.
3. Create Structure, Even When Motivation Is Low
Depression can make even simple tasks feel overwhelming. When we're struggling with motivation, it's easy to fall into a cycle of staying in bed longer, putting things off, and feeling worse about what we haven't accomplished.
Having some structure in your day can help interrupt this cycle.
Try maintaining a consistent wake-up time, eating regular meals, and creating a few small routines that give your day some predictability.
Rather than waiting until you feel motivated to do something, try taking one small step first. Sometimes motivation follows action, rather than the other way around.
This is a concept we often work with in therapy, particularly through approaches like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
4. Stay Connected, Even When You Feel Like Isolating
When our mood is low, we often feel less inclined to socialize. It can feel easier to cancel plans, ignore messages, or spend more time alone.
While alone time can be restorative, too much isolation can contribute to feeling more disconnected and depressed.
Try finding small, manageable ways to stay connected with others. This might mean scheduling a walk with a friend, making a phone call, attending a class, or spending time with people who help you feel comfortable and supported.
You don't have to be particularly social or energetic to benefit from connection. Sometimes simply being around someone you care about can make a difference.
5. Care for Your Creature Self and Lean Into the Coziness of the Season
Sometimes supporting our mental health means tending to our most basic human needs for warmth, comfort, nourishment, and rest.
Rather than fighting against everything that comes with winter, what would it look like to embrace some of the slower, quieter parts of the season?
Make a big pot of nourishing soup, sip a warm cup of tea, light some candles, pull out your favorite blankets, and allow yourself to nest a little. Create a space that feels comforting and inviting to come home to.
There is something valuable about allowing ourselves to slow down and enjoy simple sensory experiences. The warmth of a mug in your hands, the smell of something cooking, or the feeling of curling up under a soft blanket can help bring us into the present moment.
You might also think about what your body is asking for during this season. Maybe it's more time outside during daylight hours, a warm bath before bed, a slower morning routine, or an evening spent reading instead of scrolling on your phone.
Caring for your creature self isn't about avoiding life or withdrawing from the world. It's about recognizing that we are physical beings with real needs for comfort, nourishment, movement, and connection.
And sometimes, taking care of those needs is a meaningful place to start.
6. Make Space for Holiday Overwhelm, Challenging Family Dynamics, and Grief
While the holidays are often portrayed as a time of joy and togetherness, the reality can be much more complicated.
For some people, this season brings financial stress, packed schedules, and the pressure to create meaningful experiences for everyone around them. For others, spending time with family can bring up old wounds, difficult relationship patterns, or feelings they thought they had moved past.
You might notice yourself falling into familiar roles when you're around family, feeling responsible for other people's emotions, or struggling to set boundaries.
The holidays can also be an especially painful time for those experiencing grief. Whether you're missing someone who has died, grieving a relationship, navigating infertility or pregnancy loss, or mourning the family experiences you wish you had, the contrast between how the season is "supposed" to feel and how it actually feels can be difficult.
It's okay if this time of year brings up mixed emotions.
A few ways to support yourself might include:
Give yourself permission to set boundaries. You don't have to attend every gathering, participate in every tradition, or stay in situations that feel emotionally overwhelming.
Notice old family patterns. If you find yourself slipping into familiar roles or reactions, try approaching them with curiosity rather than judgment.
Make room for grief. You don't have to push away sadness to participate in the holidays. You can experience moments of joy while still missing someone or grieving what you've lost.
Let go of some expectations. Consider which traditions genuinely matter to you and which ones you may be continuing out of guilt or obligation.
Create your own rituals. Sometimes honoring your needs means creating new traditions that feel more aligned with where you are in life.
You don't have to force yourself to feel happy simply because it's the holiday season. Making space for your actual experience, rather than what you think you should be feeling, can help reduce some of the pressure.
7. Pay Attention to Your Inner Dialogue
When we're feeling down, our thoughts often become more negative. You might notice yourself thinking things like, "I'm so lazy," "I should be doing more," or "Why can't I just get it together?"
These thoughts can make an already difficult time feel even harder.
Instead of criticizing yourself for struggling, try getting curious about what you're experiencing.
What if, instead of telling yourself you're lazy, you acknowledged that your energy has been lower lately? What if you gave yourself permission to adjust your expectations while still finding small ways to care for yourself?
Self-compassion doesn't mean giving up or avoiding responsibilities. It means recognizing that being hard on yourself isn't necessarily going to help you feel better.
8. Make Space for Things That Bring You Joy
One of the challenges of depression is that we often stop doing the very things that help us feel good.
You might find yourself waiting until you feel better to make plans, start a hobby, or do something enjoyable. But sometimes we need to engage in these activities before our mood begins to improve.
Think about the things that typically help you feel connected, grounded, or fulfilled. Maybe it's spending time in nature, cooking, creating something, listening to music, or connecting with friends.
Try intentionally making space for some of these activities, even if your motivation isn't quite there yet.
You don't have to feel excited about something for it to be worth doing.
How Therapy Can Help With Seasonal Depression and Winter Stress
Sometimes lifestyle changes aren't enough, and that's okay. If you're experiencing ongoing depression, therapy can help you better understand what you're going through and develop strategies to support your mental health.
At Rise Healing Center, we use a variety of therapeutic approaches based on your individual needs.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can help you learn to make space for difficult emotions without allowing them to completely dictate your choices. Rather than waiting until your mood improves to engage in life, we can support you in taking small, meaningful actions that align with your values and help you get unstuck. This might mean gradually reconnecting with people, establishing supportive routines, or making time for activities that bring meaning into your life.
Parts work can be especially helpful when the holidays bring up old family dynamics, self-criticism, or conflicting emotions. You might notice a part of yourself that feels obligated to please everyone, another part that wants to withdraw, or a younger part that feels hurt or unseen. Through parts work, we can explore these experiences with curiosity and compassion, helping to "update" parts of ourselves that may still be responding to experiences from the past.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) can help when unresolved trauma or painful memories are contributing to your current emotional struggles. For example, if family gatherings bring up intense emotional reactions connected to childhood experiences, EMDR can help you process those memories so they may have less influence over how you feel and respond in the present. EMDR and parts work can be especially valuable when trauma, grief, or longstanding emotional patterns are contributing to what you're experiencing.
For some people, medication or light therapy may also be important parts of treatment. A healthcare provider can help you explore which options might be appropriate for you.
For Our Santa Barbara Community - Take Advantage of Santa Barbara's Natural Beauty
One of the wonderful things about living in Santa Barbara is that even during the winter months, we have opportunities to spend time outdoors and connect with nature.
While shorter days can still affect our mood, our relatively mild winters make it possible to enjoy the beach, mountains, and beautiful outdoor spaces throughout much of the year.
Consider taking a walk along Hendry's Beach, watching the sunset at Butterfly Beach, exploring the trails around the Douglas Family Preserve, or simply sitting outside with your morning coffee and enjoying some fresh air.
Spending time in nature can help reduce stress, support emotional well-being, and give us an opportunity to slow down and reconnect with ourselves.
You don't need to plan a big hike or spend hours outside to benefit. Sometimes a short walk along the beach, feeling the sun on your face, or taking a few moments to notice the sounds of the ocean can help you feel a little more grounded.
If you're struggling with seasonal depression in Santa Barbara, finding small ways to connect with the natural beauty around us can be one part of caring for your mental health this winter.
If you are not in Santa Barbara - you can still find local beauty wherever you are and especially take advantage of daytime hours and soak up the light.
Finding Your Way Through the Winter Months
If winter tends to be a difficult season for you, it can help to approach this time of year with a little more intention and compassion.
Maybe this season is asking you to slow down, reconnect with people you care about, spend more time outdoors, or create more opportunities for comfort and rest. Maybe it's a time to examine old patterns, set boundaries, or make space for grief that hasn't had much room in your day-to-day life.
You don't have to love everything about winter, and you don't have to feel joyful throughout the holidays.
The goal isn't to force yourself to feel differently. It's to find ways to care for yourself while making room for whatever this season brings.
And remember, you don't have to wait until things feel unmanageable to reach out for support.
At Rise Healing Center, we support individuals navigating depression, anxiety, grief, trauma, and other mental health challenges. If you've been struggling with seasonal changes in your mood or finding this time of year particularly difficult, we're here to help.
Reach out to learn more about our therapy services or schedule a consultation.