Holiday Survival Guide – part 1 of 5
5 Easy Ways to Beat the Blues and Feel Joyous this Holiday Season
by Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC
Author Patrick Dennis somewhat sarcastically referred to the winter holidays as “The Joyous Season” in his 1960s book of the same name. Most of us inwardly believe that Christmas and the winter holidays are indeed meant to be joyous. But in actuality, many people have a rough time during the holiday season, for many reasons.
Because the holidays seem to be such challenging and sometimes transitional periods in our lives, this month I decided to have a look at what I think are the “Top 5 Blues” that affect so many people during the holidays, along with why we get them, and how to turn them around into Joy. Here are the top 5 that came to mind:
- Holiday Blues Number 1: Seasonal Affective Disorder (“SAD”) in today’s issue
- Holiday Blues Number 2: Seasonal Illnesses (coming Wed 9 December)
- Holiday Blues Number 3: Family “Dramas” (coming Sun 27 December)
- Holiday Blues Number 4: Stress over Money (coming Mon 28 December)
- Holiday Blues Number 5: Feelings of Isolation (coming Thus 31December
Over the next 12 days, I’ll be examining each of these “blue areas”, give you some tips from other great thinkers, and offer a few of my own suggestions for turning the winter “blues” into cheery multi-coloured mind-body-spirit holiday sparkles. Today, I’ll be talking about SAD– Seasonal Affective Disorder. The findings might surprise you!
Beating Holiday Blues Number 1: Seasonal Affective Disorder (“SAD”).
SAD is a condition that affects some people during the winter months causing them to feel a bit blue, low in energy, or basically “down in the dumps.” But what causes it?
Here in the UK, I recently attended talk by the world-renowned nutritionist Phillip Day who said that SAD actually is caused by a lack of Vitamin D, owing to the decreased amount of available sunshine during the winter months. Through some research, I found that the link between Vitamin D and SAD is widely recognised accepted by the general scientific community.
The truth about Vitamin D
Vitamin D is not really a vitamin, but actually a hormone the body produces, which plays a key role in so many vital functions of the body, and deficiency has been linked to an array of diseases, including diabetes and cancer. Taking a simple 1-hour walk outdoors during the warmer months is generally adequate to keep us stocked with our daily quotient of Vitamin D, which is first absorbed through exposed skin, and then assimilated into the bloodstream.
So if sunshine helps create Vitamin D, and Vitamin D gets rid of the winter “blues”, is “busting” Seasonal Affective Disorder just an easy matter of getting out into the sunshine during the winter? Well yes… and no.
During these dark, winter months, not only is there much less sunlight during the daytime, but also the angle of the sun is such that Vitamin D absorption by the body is not as efficient as it is in other times of the year. This is especially true for people who live above 40 degrees latitude, which includes a huge portion of the US and most of Europe. To make matters worse, the likelihood for Vitamin D deficiency is even greater amongst people with darker skin who live in these latitudes, because their pigmentation was naturally designed to block the sun’s rays more than that of people with fairer skin, as their ethnic roots are from sunnier climates.
Hmmm… Kind of makes your realise how much our bodies love to live in synch with the Earth and the Sun, doesn’t it?
Can I cheat?
You might ask the question, “If we cannot get enough Vitamin D during the winter, can we ’stock up’ on it over the summer when there is more sunlight?” Answer: Nope. Vitamin D lives in the body only for about two weeks. So two weeks’ summer holiday in sunny Spain last June will not cover your Vitamin D requirements during your English Christmas six months later. No, if you suffer from SAD during the winter in the northern latitudes, the best advice nutritionists are currently giving is to take Vitamin D supplements (do some research on the dosages, because I have read varying opinions about this).
Why is Lynn talking about this?
Ok… it’s true I’m not a scientist, doctor or nutritionist. So why am I talking about this in a coaching newsletter? Well, it’s because I believe, with every grain of my being, that our overall happiness and wellbeing is dependent upon the integration of mind, body and spirit. And something we, in this modern era, forget too frequently is that we are basically the children of the solar system and are not only physically connected to and dependent upon the Sun, the Earth, the Moon and other celestial entities, but that our ultimate happiness depends upon our being emotionally and spiritually connected to them as well.
But it is my observation that, in our modern world, we have become so dissociated from the most ubiquitous presence in our daily lives (the Sun) that we are even a bit “sun-o-phobic”. We smother our bodies with sunscreen, believing the sun to have “deadly rays”, forgetting that it is actually our link to our own Source. While I am not minimising care needed to be taken with regards to things like skin cancer, I do think our modern relationship with the Sun is poorly defined.
“Working Lunch Disorder”
Here’s an example of what I mean. If you combine our “sun-o-phobia” with our modern “workaholic” ethical code, you come up with the modern blight known as the “working lunch”. Personally, I think the “working lunch” is responsible for the vast majority of work-related stresses and other ailments in our modern world. But still, hardly anyone DARES to kick the habit. I can’t tell you how many times I have requested my clients to get OUT of the office daily and go outdoors during their lunch breaks. And by “break” I don’t mean a 20-minute dash to the bank! I mean an actual BREAK. You’d think they’d leap at the chance to become less stressed… but noooooooo…. you wouldn’t believe the MOUNTAIN of excuses I hear:
- “My boss wouldn’t like it.”
- “If I did that, I wouldn’t get my work done.”
- “People depend on me. Things would fall apart if I took an hour off.”
- “I don’t eat lunch anyway. I just grab a granola bar and coffee, and eat while I reply to my emails.”
- “Most of the time, I’m so busy I don’t remember it’s lunchtime until it’s like 3pm, so I just keep going until it’s time to go home.”
- “I’ve gotten used to it.” (Yeah, right. I call this the “frog in the pot syndrome”)
I find it utterly astonishing how such a simple thing as getting away from our desks during lunch hour can be one of the most challenging habits for people to cultivate. It is a plight of the modern age, and would never have happened in the past, when people didn’t have cars, had to work the land, etc. But nowadays, it can be a real challenge to shift our perspective so we recognise that our bodies, hearts and minds are CRAVING connection to source and that lack of this connection can actually cause both physical and emotional imbalances. (Ironically, many people might blame our troubles on our boss, but the truth is, our boss is in exactly the same predicament).
Getting back to SAD, the point is, if you are already not in the frame of mind to go out into the sunshine on a regular basis even when the weather is nice, warm and sunny, you are even less likely to get outdoors when the weather is colder, damper and darker.
My own experiences
Back when I first moved to London, I do believe I suffered from SAD. I commuted 5 hours a day on the London underground and I was indoors nearly all the time. I felt really low, my diet was abysmal and I walked with a stooped posture (Vitamin D is also essential to the proper absorption of Calcium, so it is essential for healthy bone growth).
Since moving to Bedford 4 ½ years ago, my lifestyle has changed radically. I’ve made a habit of walking outdoors at least 1 hour a day, at least 5 days a week, even if it’s raining or snowing. I love walking in the crisp air (provided it’s not TOO cold). Upon the suggestion of my good friend Fran Stockley, a nutritional therapist, I try not to wear gloves, hat or scarf when I’m outside unless I really need them, in order to enable better absorption of the sunlight. I also take plant-source supplements, including about 400 IU of Vitamin D every day.
The result?
While I might sometimes succumb to seasonal illnesses (see part 2 of this “Holiday Survival Guide” later this week), I never get “SAD” in the winter months. My energy and enthusiasm are pretty much unstoppable. One of my former clients recently said to me, “You must be the happiest person I know.” I had to laugh because she said this to me on one of my more STRESSED days! So if I seem happy in comparison to others even when I am not at my own 100%, you can see how much room for improvement there is amongst the people she knows.
TODAY’S JOY FORMULA:
Turning SAD into Joy
Ok, at a practical level, if you suffer from SAD and you want to bust the holiday blues this year, the experts tell us to get out and walk in the bright, crisp air every day for a minimum of 30-60 minutes, and to get yourself a good Vitamin D supplement from a natural food source.
But at a deeper, internal level, if you suffer from SAD, try to view it as an indication that the Earth and Sun are “calling” you. SAD is their way of telling you they want you to come out of your dark, air-tight cubicle and connect with them. They are saying, “Come out and play with us!” I think it is high time for us human beings to listen to them, so we can inherit the wisdom they have for us.
What better friends could you have during the holiday season, or indeed at any time than Father Sky and Mother Earth? They will never abandon you. If you ever feel lonely or depressed, just look up into the sky, or down beneath your feet, and you will find them there. Earth and Sun are your most intimate friends, who really KNOW you body, mind and spirit. They with you at every moment.
AND… when you feel genuinely connected at every moment, how can you have the blues? It is within this connection that you will find your Joy.
In the next instalment of my “Holiday Survival Guide” I’ll be talking about how to beat the blues of Seasonal Illnesses during the Holiday Season. Again, it’s not necessarily what you might think! Be sure you check it out in 3 days’ time.
Information Sources
1. Live talk bay Phillip Day on 26 November 2009, Milton Keynes. Phillip Day is the founder of an independent research organisation called “Credence”, whose stated goal is “to report properly annotated and verified information
that enables you to make wise health decisions.” http://www.credence.org/
SIDE NOTE: Phillip Day has agreed to be a guest on my radio show sometime in 2010; be sure you watch my updates around March or so. If you are interested in health, you won’t want to miss him.
2. Turner, Natasha, ND. 2009. “Sleeping too Much? You Could be SAD.” Accessed from TrueStar Health website on 5 December 2009 at http://www.truestarhealth.com/members/cm_archives13ML3P1A8.html
3. Reinagel, Monica. July 2008. “Can you store up enough vitamin D in the summer to last you though winter?” Accessed from “The Nutrition Data Blog” on 5 December 2009 at
http://blog.nutritiondata.com/ndblog/2008/07/can-you-store-u.html
4. Gombart, Adrian. November 2009. “Multiple health concerns surface as winter, vitamin D deficiencies arrive.” Accessed from Eureka Alert on 5 December 2009 at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/osu-mhc112309.php
5. Landers, Susan. April 2009. “OM studies boost in vitamin D requirements”. Accessed from “American Medical News” on 5 December 2009 at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/04/20/hlsa0420.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC is a transformation coach, speaker, radio host and author of the bestselling book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self. Lynn coaches clients from all over the world via telephone. If you would like to discover and unleash your inner hero, call Lynn for a FR*EE no obligation coaching consultation at 0845 880 28 25 during normal business hours, or fill in a consultation request form at http://www.create-a-life.co.uk/free_consultation_request.html
Tags: Christmas, Coaching, ENJOY, Growth, health, Holidays, Joy, Lynn Serafinn, Mind-Body-Spirit, SAD, wellbeing
