Be honest. Are you feeling all right? That’s OK. It’s everybody, not just you.
Talk to people in the office or in line for a burger and fries. We’re all having trouble getting up in the morning. We’re weary, cranky and ready for sun and better news.
I spied, through a miserable drizzle, this message on a sign outside an Everett car wash: "The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts."
| SAD times
Seasonal affective disorder is a seasonal depression. Symptoms appear in fall and winter; sufferers feel normal in spring and summer. Symptoms include:
Many with SAD improve with light therapy, daily exposure to a full-spectrum light box. Psychologist Gregg Jantz also suggests these tips to beat winter blues:
Source: Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc., Edmonds
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Cornball, yeah. But doesn’t it hit home?
We in Western Washington are used to the winter blues. This year, the shade of blue is darker than usual. It’s a blue winter, to be sure.
Gregg Jantz thinks so. With a doctorate in counseling psychology, Jantz is director of the Center for Counseling &Health Resources Inc., an Edmonds mental health and chemical dependency treatment facility with three area clinics.
While many businesses are struggling, Jantz has rarely been busier.
"The World Health Organization tells us depression is the fastest-growing disease, and recession enhances depression. We find so many families affected by unemployment," he said. "Our ways of coping are not good."
He’s seen an increase in domestic violence, emotional abuse and alcohol dependency.
Layer upon economic problems the anxiety since Sept. 11 and seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, that many experience every year, and you have a lot of people in a lousy mood.
Jantz sees a boost in SAD symptoms. "They’re sleeping all the time on one extreme and have insomnia on the other," he said. "And since Sept. 11, Americans have turned more to comfort foods."
It’s common to crave carbohydrates in winter. "The overeating is greater than normal," Jantz said, and weight gain is adding to the depression.
I doubt none of this. I had a recent day so dreary I booked a getaway to Laguna Beach, Calif. We can’t go until April, so I’m eager for blues-busting advice.
At Starbucks in Everett’s Claremont Village, Stacia Allen chatted while awaiting a mocha frappuccino — with whipped cream.
"I want sun, or else I get really depressed," said Allen, a native of Prosser in Eastern Washington. She moved here in August to be near her Navy boyfriend.
To survive her first wet winter, she said, "I go tanning about three times a week." It’s light and heat she’s after, not a tan.
Walt Sumner, 48, of Everett travels to feel better. "We’re going to Whistler to ski. Winter sports are great," he said. "A February trip to Arizona always helps."
Escaping the gloom at Alderwood Mall was Celeste Olanu, 46, who moved from Guatemala 30 years ago. This winter is the hardest yet, she said. Olanu was in Central America last month, and since returning has only wanted to go back.
"Even weathermen get winter blues," said Jim Prange, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle. "I keep waiting for that nice, sunny day."
After two drier-than-normal winters, this one is gray and wet.
Prange said that as of midnight Tuesday, the Seattle area logged 22.2 inches of rain since Oct. 1. An average year sees 18.4 inches. "Last year, since Jan. 1, we’d had 2.37 inches by now; this year it’s 3.75 inches," he said. "Skiers love it."
Come summer, we’ll have a decent water supply, but that doesn’t lift spirits now.
Jantz offered help to see us through until spring.
After Sept. 11, we got hooked on everything from sugary foods and alcohol to isolation and endless TV news, Jantz said. "We created new habits that were not necessarily the healthiest."
The move away from those habits begins with simple steps.
Jantz suggests we walk 20 minutes at least every other day; drink a liter of water daily; and focus on relationships rather than isolate ourselves.
Medications and natural supplements can help; for some, a medical evaluation is in order.
"One other thing," Jantz said. "Find a way to be future-oriented. What you do now will make a difference in the future. Doing it now will help prevent future regret.
"I think we need to make a decision for personal happiness and joy," he said.
Feeling better?
This won’t help: My daughter, spending her first winter at college in California, was all excited to tell me: "Mom, I don’t have it. You know those blahs we get every year? It’s January — I don’t have it."
I had to bite my tongue before snapping back at her, "Well, when it’s nice here, there’s no place nicer."
Contact Julie Muhlstein via e-mail at muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com, write to her at The Herald, P.O. Box 930, Everett, WA 98206, or call 425-339-3460.
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