Understanding Winter Blues vs. Winter Depression: Symptoms, Causes, and Effective Treatment

Do I have winter blues or really winter depression…

Just like with a dip or depression, the severity of the depressive symptoms determines the difference. When you have the winter blues, life is less sunny than in spring and summer, but you still function.

However, people with winter depression experience the symptoms in such a way that they hardly function. Such winter depression can turn daily life upside down: normal daily activities become an enormous challenge and for a large part of the year you cannot continue with certain things. This has consequences for your job, studies, family life and social contacts.

Did you know that a burnout has many similarities with a (winter) depression? Do here the test to find out whether you may be dealing with a burnout.

Winter blues or winter depression, what’s the difference?
Lack of daylight seems to be the main culprit in the case of winter depression. Some people are more sensitive to this than others. The degree of sensitivity partly determines the severity of the complaints and whether we speak of a winter blues or winter depression.

Read more: Causes of winter depression

Winter depression
Winter depression involves all the symptoms associated with ‘normal’ depression. However, a number of things are typical of winter depression:

• Falling back into depressive mood when autumn arrives and recovering when spring begins.
• Your day and night rhythm is disturbed, you are extremely tired and always sleepy.
• Your weight increases (a lot) in the winter due to the need for carbohydrate-rich food, you snack because you experience a lack of energy.

Read more: Symptoms of winter depression

What can you do?
Because the amount of daylight plays a major role in the complaints, light therapy is an effective way to treat winter depression. Mentaal Beter offers a therapy that combines light therapy and psychotherapy. Depending on the severity of your complaints, this combination therapy is tailored to your situation.

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2023-12-22 09:39:19
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