Winter blues are commonly felt by a lot of people especially in cold countries when it’s dark and cold outside and when you look around, even nature seems dead! Winter blues resemble depression a lot and the reason behind it is the lack of the sun! 

Believe it or not, just like plants, we, humans, also need the sun. Human bodies produce vitamin D after being exposed to the sun and vitamin D deficiency has an effect on our mental well-being as well as physical health. While there are plenty of scientific articles on vitamin D and its effect on depression, energetically, there is not enough emphasis on the importance of light itself.

Symbolically and energetically the sun represents light and warmth, which are both lacking during the cold seasons. Light doesn’t only give us visibility, it also gives us hope. When there is light, you see things, you are aware of things and situations and it can help you understand many things around you. When you are in the dark, you are deprived of all of those and the frustration can occur, fear can creep in and the more fearful you become, the more you feel left alone in the dark, the more hopeless you might also become and this is heavy on your psyche. 

As we know, our mental health has an effect on physical health so often symptoms of depression can include physical things like a change of appetite or change of weight and low energy level. Most of us have various ways to cope with this seasonal affective disorder (SAD), some ways are less healthy than others. Have you noticed that some smoke more often, some, often women, do more impulsive shopping, many have cravings especially for something sweet! So whether we realize it or not, we automatically try to cope with it because our survival mechanism kicks in when stress is detected.