{"id":228,"date":"2023-01-31T14:02:50","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T14:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/?p=228"},"modified":"2023-01-31T14:02:50","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T14:02:50","slug":"seasonal-depression-how-to-get-out-of-a-funk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/2023\/01\/31\/seasonal-depression-how-to-get-out-of-a-funk\/","title":{"rendered":"Seasonal Depression (How To Get Out Of A Funk)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Seasonal Depression<\/h1>\n<p>It&#8217;s everyone&#8217;s least favorite time of the year, SEASONAL DEPRESSION. This is when my seasonal depression hits hard. I&#8217;ve always had seasonal depression, but it only got worst when quarantine happened. Now I&#8217;m doing good at managing my seasonal depression but it can always kind of kick me at the worst times. Here are some things that I like to do to get out of my seasonal depression.<\/p>\n<h1>Change of Scenery<\/h1>\n<p>For me, if I&#8217;m in one spot and one place for too long I start to feel I don&#8217;t want to do anything. During winter break, if I wanted and needed to get out of the house I would hang out with friends, or go to my local coffee shop. Sometimes I would take my car and drive around listening to music. Changing where you are can significantly affect your mood and how you feel. Surprisingly I didn&#8217;t have much seasonal depression when I was home but being back on campus I always try and change my scenery at least two to three times a day. This is a great way for you to be able to not dig yourself into a hole. Plus, having multiple happy places is a great thing for you mentally and physically.<\/p>\n<h1>Do Things That Make You Happy<\/h1>\n<p>One of the ways I was able not to be in one of my depressive episodes was I wrote a current original book I&#8217;m working on. I finished the first draft and it still needs a lot of editing but I did get it done. Writing makes me feel super happy because when I write I feel so much better just in general, whether that&#8217;s just journaling or drafting up a future book, it helped me with my seasonal depression.<\/p>\n<p>Another thing I did was recharge my social battery by hanging out with friends. Specifically, my best friend who goes to a different college came down and we hung out after Christmas and just tried to hang out as much as possible. Being able to hang out with friends is a great way for you not to fall into a funk and it improves your overall feeling. Even if you don&#8217;t feel like being social, just start out with studying or not even doing anything too stressful with someone you love.<\/p>\n<p>I also read, watched tv shows\/movies, and played games. I mostly read audio books because I couldn&#8217;t decide on a physical book then, but since I&#8217;m back on campus I have a physical book in mind. I love reading and it helped me escape my seasonal depression. Mostly because when I read, I feel myself looking into the character&#8217;s world. This helps me not get too sad during the cold months. Criminal Minds was my top show throughout the break along with other shows. For me, a comfort show is a way for me to put myself in a good mood. Whether it&#8217;s a show or even a movie, sometimes rewatching something that you love is the best thing for you. I like to also keep myself busy with computers, and video games. I played a lot of Mario Kart over break because I wanted to do something that was fun and not too boring. I don&#8217;t like to play too many boring games because it puts me into more of a funk.<\/p>\n<p>All these things helped me a lot on break not to fall into a depressive state. Being able to find something that makes you happy is hard, but once you do find it, don&#8217;t ever let it go. Finding things or people that make you happy will help you not fall into a depressive state.<\/p>\n<h1>Stop And Take A Breathe<\/h1>\n<p>I know that this sounds like an obvious solution to the problem but it&#8217;s more complicated than it looks. I get that this is also a controversial thing to say to someone nowadays but I promise it can help. When I use to have mental breakdowns a lot, I&#8217;d find it hard to breathe and decided to take the time to calm myself down and take deep breaths. It helps me a lot in stressful situations and whenever I can&#8217;t get to sleep. I also understand that if you can&#8217;t find something to help slow you&#8217;re breathing, try putting something near your heart like if you lay down, grab a stuffed animal or something to help you out. If you find yourself not being able to breathe just stop and take some deep breaths.<\/p>\n<h1>Closing Thoughts<\/h1>\n<p>Seasonal depression is nothing to mess around with. It&#8217;s hard sometimes with the weather not being the greatest but it doesn&#8217;t mean that you don&#8217;t deserve love. Being able to use most of these methods will help you not feel down during these cold months. I hope you all enjoyed reading this post. Have a great day, week, month, and year my lovelies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seasonal Depression It&#8217;s everyone&#8217;s least favorite time of the year, SEASONAL DEPRESSION. This is when my seasonal depression hits hard. I&#8217;ve always had seasonal depression, but it only got worst when quarantine happened. Now I&#8217;m doing good at managing my seasonal depression but it can always kind of kick me at the worst times. Here are some things that I like to do to get out of my seasonal depression. Change of Scenery For me, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/sam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}