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Update 7/5/05
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Training strengthens seniors mentally, physically

By Alicia Castelli
Special to The Times
Long stretches of bad weather can make even the sunniest personality a trifle blue, yet as the grayest, slushiest, bleakest time of the year approaches, there is hope for beating the winter blahs.

“There is no question that weather can and does affect how you feel. When you wake up in the morning, if it’s a great, sunny day, you jump out of bed rather than drag yourself out,” said Marietta psychologist Anna Prince.

“A great many people are affected by weather. Sunshine perks us up. It’s one of the main attractions that Florida and the southwestern part of the country have.”
Dr. Kent Davis, a doctor of osteopathic medicine with Selby Family Care, has a master’s degree in psychology and agrees that long stretches of bleak weather, common during the winter season, can get us feeling down in the dumps.

“There has been some research into how the weather affects us,” Davis said. “Other than showing that the effect is real, it hasn’t really shown us why winter … can make us feel down.”

Davis recommends that people first check with their physician to make sure what they’re feeling is really the winter blahs rather than a medical condition such as hypothyroidism, anemia or clinical depression.

If it is just the overcast skies of winter getting you down, Davis has some practical suggestions for boosting spirits.

“The two things that help are exercise and light,” Davis said. “In fact, some people need to get a special light box that is super bright. This light box is for people who have a severe form of what we call the winter blues, and that is seasonal affective disorder.”

“It’s just a more severe form of the winter blahs. People who have a mild case of the winter blahs will get some relief by putting in 100-watt bulbs where they now have 60-watt bulbs. You could also try painting a dark room a lighter, brighter color,” Davis said.

But the simplest way, however, is to be exposed to more natural light.
Some suggestions are to take a walk in the sunshine during the middle of the day, like at lunchtime. This will combine getting more light and getting exercise. For a milder case, this may be all a person needs.

“It seems as if we’re just not made to spend as much time indoors as we do in these modern times,” Davis said. “Years ago, even in winter, people would be out and about.”

Prince has another suggestion.

“I found myself doing what a lot of people do and that was making a judgment about the weather,” she said. “I found myself saying, ‘Oh gosh, another gray day, how awful, what am I going to do?’ When I became aware of this pattern, I did something about it. Now I say to myself, ‘Oh gee, what a nice soft, day.’ I try to give it a good interpretation. We do have some control over the winter blahs, but in order to have control over it, you have to be aware of your thought patterns, and most of us are not.”
Prince refers to this as cognitive behavior therapy.

“You learn how to reinterpret what life is handing you,” she explained. “The cognitive part is to learn to retrain your thinking. Our culture teaches us to make judgments and have certain thought patterns. You can learn how to control these and even change them.”

She agrees with Davis about the exercise.

“The behavior part is doing something about it. Regular exercise, for example, will take care of a high percentage of people with mild depression. Many weight loss programs recommend you do the exercising first because once you start feeling good it’s easier to make the hard decisions about what you eat.”

Prince theorizes that there may be a genetic reason bleak weather can cause mild depression.

“Going way back to early humans, it’s quite possible that it was a desirable thing for people to get depressed during the winter. There’s not a lot of food in the cave at that time of year, so it would have been beneficial to slow down your metabolism and sleep more — common side effects of depression,” she said.

Prince said it is possible to be very active in the winter, but even cheerful people starved to death back then,” she said, tongue-in-cheek.

“Seriously, though, we’re living in an era when we feel like we have to stay busy and participate in everything all the time,” Prince said.

“Not that many generations ago, people lived off the land, and even the farmer took it easy in the winter.”