I think the Boo and I both have Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD). SAD is a chemical disorder resulting from a lack of natural light that causes depression-like symptoms in wet wintery climates. Ther seratonin levels in the brain decrease making alertness and happiness more difficult. You'd think after eight years of living on the rainy side of two states, I would be used to living without constant sunshine, but man, this year I've really got it bad. Long, weak sleep schedules, irritability, big appetites, carb cravings. I can't walk through the kitchen without veering toward the cookies on top of the fridge, and last time I made soup, I put away half a fresh loaf of bread with one bowl, all by myself. I'm like a bear packing food away for winter, but the hibernation won't kick in properly.
I kind of expect these things for me. I've got a tempermental nature, and I've always been inclined to slide into a little depression if the situation allows. But the Boo took me by surprise. She's always a bundle of energy. She only takes proper naps when she's sick. However, right about at the beginning of December, she started curling up next to me after lunch and actually sleeping! I thought at first she was entering a growth spurt, but then I noticed other things. Crying more frequently. Craving carbs. She's sitting across from me right now, shoveling away twice the normal number of cheerios than she usually eats for breakfast, and this is her third bowl today. Oh my goodness, I thought. My poor husband is going to have to put up with two of us.
In the rainiest November/December that Portland has seen for a while, I guess I'm not too surprised that we should manifest hitherto unfamiliar symptoms. I just find it annoying that in the first winter that I finally have everything I need to keep me balanced -- my husband home, an anti-depression system in place, the munchin in school and doing well, a convenient side job to stimulate the brain and bring in a little money -- the weather decides to sit down on the scale and throw everything else up in the air again.
The part that annoys me most is the fatigue. There are days when I can barely hold my head up unless I've been eating carbs or doing pushups (exercise helps a lot). I can control the irritability somewhat. I can stop myself after my second piece of toast and say, "It's just a craving. Eat an orange." But when my head bobs over the stove as I'm cooking dinner, I find this whole winter slump business a tad bit problematic. Two days ago, I was so tired that I pulled up to a familiar intersection and momentarily didn't recognize it. I thought I had pulled up to it from the other side. That alarmed me a little. Being that tired is not really conducive to driving safely.
So I did a little research. I learned that you cannot get vitamin D from fruits and vegetables, but you can get it from beef, milk, and mushrooms. I also learned that you can fight SAD with tryptofam and vitaminB12, which are found in beef, turkey, milk, cheese, nuts, mushrooms, and avocados. So we've revamped our diet a bit. I've taken to sprinkling mushrooms and cheese over everything, and three times a week, I try to work in some avocados. They're in season right now.
I also learned that 30 minutes of aerobic exercise can help minimize sleep disturbances and smooth out energy fluctuations. That one is a little harder to adhere to. Munchin doesn't like to run, and I don't like to leave her alone. And I've found, that unlike normal depression, the SAD-fighting effects of exercise don't carry over from day to day. If I should desire to take Sunday off, I will miss the seratonin I could have otherwise been generating.
A friend of mine suggested buying an aerogarden. Check them out. They're kind of cool. They let you grow herbs inside, and the light for growing plants also lifts the seratonin levels. I haven't gotten around to it yet (Christmas crunch and all that) because I'm trying the remedies that don't cost extra money first, but if worst comes to worst, I might just have to break down and buy a bumblebee.
A plus side to having a glitch like this inserted into my system is that it forces me to prioritize, and it also forces me to suck it up sometimes. I've always thought of myself as a motivated person. Now that my motivation has been removed (zonk! right into the spaghetti), I'm learning to say, "I don't care how tired I am. This is important. It needs to get done." I am also learning to say, "This isn't really important. It can sit a while." That's a valuable lesson. It's one I hadn't learned learned through four years of college and eight years of military wifedom.
A third thing I've learned is that I don't need to be alert and active to be happy. (I can hear some of my friends and family saying, "It's about time.") Happiness can be a static thing. It is possible to nod off involuntarily in the easy chair and be exquisitely happy, even if the vacuuming isn't done. The roots of joy are not in sunshine or vitamin D. The faithfulness of God does not vanish because my spirits are low, and the work of the Kingdom at large does not grind to a halt when my energy level bottoms out. Leaning on the faithfulness of God in these little things has made me much happier in the big picture.
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