As the days become shorter and colder, you might notice more people around you struggling to manage their moods or maintain previous levels of functioning due to related seasonal changes. From time change to the chilly weather to obligatory family and cultural engagements, the fall and winter seasons can bring unique challenges for you and your mental health. Seasonal mood changes are no laughing matter.

How Seasons Change Our Moods

ABT Counseling knows that client-centric services to address you as a whole individual are a necessary part of treating seasonal mood changes. We’ve compiled three tips to help you understand the impact of the seasons on your mood and identify a few next steps that might help.

Light Exposure and Mood

For quite some time, researchers have been studying how light affects people. Studies demonstrate reduced sunlight exposure is associated with depression, decline in cognitive function, sleep irregularity, and perceived stress in a variety of populations.

During the winter season, it can be challenging for many Americans to get adequate light exposure due to long work hours, shortened days, or weather-related concerns. This is a recipe for mental health challenges!

Your counselor can help you consider how light exposure frequency and duration might be affecting your mood today.

Routines and Mood

As the seasons change, routines can change as well. People fall out of habits and into new ones, often without even thinking about the changes in routine or the effects on their moods.Counselors know that if you’re not eating, sleeping, or having fun, you’re probably not going to be feeling great.

Moreover, if you’re first able to identify alternative behaviors that are easier and more rewarding than your current daily habits, you might feel motivated enough to implement them. Behavioral activation is an effective treatment approach for depression that does just that! This approach identifies which behaviors might be contributing to reduced functioning and replaces them with behaviors that have more positive consequences.

Consider which parts of your day might be contributing to mood changes and which alternatives might serve you better. A counselor can help you see these details and the big picture of your daily routines.

Acceptance, Choice, and Mood

The winter season can be a season of celebrations. It can also be one of grief, frustration, or obligation.

Many have had bad news right before a holiday or must interact with that one family member who doesn’t know how to respect a “no”! It’s common to experience challenges with daily functioning, in social situations, and with mood this time of year.

In therapy, clients have the opportunity to express their pain, and also learn to accept that it’s part of everyone’s lives. Through acceptance comes awareness, the identification of values, and the opportunity to choose.

We often can’t control what happens to us, but we do get to choose how we respond.

How to Respond to Seasonal Mood Changes

At ABT Counseling, clients get to talk about what is working for them, and how we can use these already-present strengths to adapt to the changing environment or current challenges. Our clinicians can help clients develop a robust self-care plan, interpersonal skills, or emotional awareness to soften the effects of the present seasonal stressors.

Seasonal mood changes are no joke, but you have the power to do something about them!

Take the Next Step: Schedule Your Appointment Today.

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