Plan Your Light

As October ends, the seasons are shifting; some toward longer nights, others toward brighter days. Wherever you are, your body feels that change. Today's issue explores how these transitions affect our mental health and what it means to stay balanced.

Today’s Quick Overview:

🔬 Science Spotlight: What your skin reveals about mental health…
🗣 Therapist Corner: Understanding and preventing seasonal affective disorder…
📰 Mental Health News: Flow state; Performance psychology…
🫂 Community Voices: “The day I realized ‘later’ was never coming”…

Let's find what's at your edge and what's holding your center:

What's at your edge as this week closes - the temptation to push through tired, or the vulnerability of reflection? And what's strong at your center - gratitude for making it through, or relief that rest is finally here?

Difficult periods require different strengths. Which one would you most like to cultivate?

My Name is Therapy Poster

Download your free My Name is Therapy Poster — a friendly guide that shows how therapy helps you name feelings, build coping skills, and reframe thoughts in a safe space. Print it or save it as a gentle reminder that therapy is about progress, not perfection.

Answered by: Heidi Behrendt, MSW, LICSW

What Is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and Why Prevention Matters?

Across the globe, seasonal changes affect daily functioning. Snow, ice, and bitter cold temperatures limit mobility and outdoor time, as do monsoon, hurricane, and tornado seasons. SAD is technically not a diagnosis on its own—it's diagnosed as Major Depressive Disorder that occurs about the same time of year for two years in a row, with symptoms subsiding or completely disappearing when the problematic season is over.

While SAD is most noted for the reduction of daylight, it can also occur for some individuals with the onset of spring and summer. From a global perspective, SAD affects individuals in every corner of the world and describes a process of external seasonal changes creating an imbalance in our circadian rhythms, better known as our internal clocks. The goal is to find routines, strategies, and support to help your internal clock adjust to the external clock we call a season.

To add a bit of humor, because humor is always good medicine—I have a small dog who started staring at me, jumping around, and climbing on me around 3:00 PM about a month ago. It took me a solid week to notice the change in daylight and realize he was quite sure it was time for food. Animals don't have the guidance or burden of clocks, schedules, and tasks—they also work to adapt to seasonal changes.

Understanding SAD

The phenomenon of SAD is not overly researched, and literature tends to be sporadic or limited to areas where there are high prevalence rates. That said, some of the research that has been done has been helpful in promoting early detection, leading to positive guidance on prevention and treatment.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, "It is estimated that millions of Americans experience SAD, although many may not know they have this common disorder." It's human nature to find explanations for how we are feeling: "It's just the winter blues"; "I'm just hibernating"; "This is just me—I get into a mood"; or "It's just the holiday stress."

Somewhere along the way, autumn and early winter festivities celebrated across the world became lumped together for this heightened sense of "Holiday Stress." Becoming hyper-focused on managing the stressors involved with family and friend gatherings masks early detection.

Many people have undiagnosed and untreated SAD, which means many have struggled with depressive symptoms at about the same time each year and have adapted to and normalized their suffering. The message here is: you don't need to struggle or suffer.

How Seasonal Changes Affect Your Body

Seasonal changes affect our biological functioning. Years ago, if you looked up the forecast for the day, you would see a temperature range of high and low.

Today, a weather forecast includes traditional temperature range along with barometric pressure, humidity level, UV index, and air quality—all of which affect daily functioning. The weather is just as complicated as the biological changes that happen in the brain and body for those who are sensitive to seasonal changes.

For example, less daylight causes some individuals to produce less serotonin naturally. Serotonin is the chemical in the brain that works to regulate mood. Early detection matters! Not to put a label on you, but to help you understand that SAD is a serious condition that can respond to prevention and treatment measures. It's all about how to adjust your internal clock to the changes that occur externally.

Taking Your Own Temperature: Mood and Symptom Tracking

Using weather as an analogy, early detection and prevention begin with taking your own individual temperature daily (also known as mood and symptom tracking). This is a quick scan before launching into the day to determine energy level, mental sharpness, and physical and emotional status.

When you take a few moments to notice where your functioning is physically, emotionally, and intellectually, you are better able to plan the day ahead. This sets you up to meet the day with a higher level of success and satisfaction while affording yourself the kindness and patience that you likely would unthinkingly offer to those around you.

In this brief assessment, you might notice patterns such as:

For a more structured self-assessment, you can access the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), routinely used by a wide range of health providers.

Making Changes and Finding Support

Making changes to your daily routine can be very frustrating. Change itself is the one constant in life, and yet change in daily life is the most difficult to adapt to. To cause further frustration, the coping skills and patterns you used in a previous seasonal change might not have the same effect. Adapting and changing daily patterns is just hard. It's a time to learn how to be kind to yourself and/or loved ones who may also suffer.

Like any other condition, you deserve support and guidance to explore patterns and changes you can make in your daily routine to combat the symptoms.

For example, someone working to adapt to a reduction in daylight hours might try supplementing with a therapeutic, full-spectrum lamp, increasing their activity level (which tells their brain to increase positive chemicals), improving their dietary intake, and regulating their sleep through sleep hygiene habits. If you or a loved one's symptoms are severe, it's important to seek support through your medical provider or engage in counseling.

"Knowledge is power"—Sir Francis Bacon. Allow yourself to notice changes related to seasons, changes in your mood, and overall functioning. When you take the time to notice changes, you can work to make small adaptations for improved functioning, but you also have more concrete information to give your medical or mental health provider to better understand your experience.

Getting Professional Help

Unfortunately, there remains a significant lack of education around SAD and stigma around mental health and wellness. Finding a good therapist who understands SAD can be beneficial to navigating this seasonal disruption to mood and overall functioning. Like most disorders, some people have severe symptoms that affect day-to-day life, while others have milder symptoms. Symptoms are disruptive, no matter the severity.

A therapist will work with you in therapy sessions to learn coping skills, explore light therapy, help you establish routines for movement and daylight even when it's gray, and help you work with your Primary Care Physician to monitor Vitamin D levels, which are often a significant component of SAD.

For more information on SAD, please visit the following link. For assessment and prevention for SAD, work on finding a therapist who can collaborate with you to reduce and manage your symptoms.

Heidi Behrendt, MSW, LICSW, is a licensed psychotherapist with over 20 years of experience in mental health and human services. Ms. Behrendt primarily serves the greater Littleton, NH area with her office located in Franconia, NH. She is licensed in NH, VT, ME, and FL for clients who winter in Florida but want continuity of care. Ms. Behrendt works with elementary-aged children and adults through the lifespan.

Connect with Heidi:

Your Skin Might Be Sending an Early Warning About Your Mental Health

The Research: Scientists found that people experiencing their first psychotic episode who also had skin conditions, like rashes, itching, or light sensitivity, faced dramatically higher mental health risks. After four weeks of treatment, 25% of patients with skin symptoms reported suicidal thoughts or attempts, compared to just 7% of those without skin issues.

The connection isn't coincidental. Your brain and skin develop from the same embryonic layer and share inflammatory pathways. When your skin is reacting, it may be signaling that your nervous system is under stress, too.

Why It Matters: This research suggests that physical symptoms we often dismiss might actually be early indicators of deeper mental health vulnerability. If future studies confirm these findings, dermatological issues could function like an early warning system, helping identify people who need more intensive support sooner.

Try It Today: Pay attention to persistent skin changes, especially if you're already managing mental health challenges. Rashes, unexplained itching, or increased sensitivity might be your body communicating that something needs attention.

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I can trust that difficult seasons eventually shift, even when I can't see the thaw coming. What feels permanent right now is just one chapter, not the entire story.

Think of one hard period in your life that felt endless at the time but eventually passed. That transition reminded you that change is constant, even when it's invisible.

It's okay to be tired of waiting for things to get better. Impatience with hardship doesn't mean you're failing; it means you're human.

Identify one area where you're feeling stuck or discouraged. Instead of asking "when will this end," ask "what small sign of shift can I notice right now?" Look for the earliest, tiniest indication that movement is happening, even underground.

"The Day I Realized 'Later' Was Never Coming"

Shared by Emma, 31

I had this running list in my head of things I'd do "eventually." Visit my college roommate in Portland. Learn to play guitar. Take that pottery class. Call my high school best friend.

The list kept getting longer, but nothing ever got checked off. There was always a reason: I was too busy with work, saving money for something else, waiting until life calmed down a bit. Then my dad had a stroke last month. He's okay now, but it shook me. He'd been saying for years he wanted to take a trip to Italy with my mom. They were waiting until he retired, until they saved more, until the timing was perfect.

I looked at my own list and realized I'd been doing the exact same thing. Waiting for some magical moment when I'd have more time, more money, more energy. But that moment doesn't exist. Life doesn't calm down. You just keep getting older, and the list keeps getting longer.

So I texted my high school best friend. We're getting dinner next week. I signed up for the pottery class that starts next month. The guitar's sitting in my Amazon cart. Not everything has to be perfect or convenient. Sometimes you just have to do it now because later might not come.

Share Your Story

Have a mental health journey you'd like to share with our community? Reply back to this email. All submissions are anonymized and edited for length with your approval before publication. Each published story receives a $10 donation to the mental health charity of your choice.

Picture bare branches in late winter, looking dead and brittle against gray skies. But beneath the bark, sap is already beginning to move. Buds are forming, invisible but inevitable. The tree doesn't force spring to arrive; it simply prepares quietly, trusting the season will turn. Tonight you can remember that transformation often begins long before you can see evidence of it.

Spend three minutes writing: What difficult season am I in right now, and what might be quietly preparing to emerge that I can't see yet?

Close your notebook and ask yourself: Where have I been treating this hard time as permanent when it's actually temporary? What small green shoots of change can I notice if I look closely? How can I trust the cycle even when I'm tired of winter?

"No winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn." — Hal Borland

The season you're in won't last forever, even when it feels like it will.

Video: "Rewiring the Anxious Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Anxiety Cycle"

Watch: "Rewiring the Anxious Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Anxiety Cycle" (Therapy in a Nutshell)

Emma McAdam explains how neuroplasticity, or the brain's ability to rewire itself, can reduce anxiety. The anxiety cycle works like this: you encounter something, interpret it as dangerous, feel anxious, escape, experience relief, and your brain concludes "avoiding worked, so let's increase anxiety next time." This creates a spiral where avoidance literally rewires your brain to be more anxious. The solution starts with small, manageable steps and practice daily; literally laying down new neural pathways over time.

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Coming Monday: Why gift-giving season fills many with dread and worthlessness when we've learned our value depends on price tags, and three guilt-free ways to thrive through the holidays without overspending.

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*The Daily Wellness shares educational content only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice and diagnosis. Please consult a licensed provider for personalized care.