Can Your Diet Decrease (or Increase?) Seasonal Depression - aka SAD?

Here's what you need to know

As the days continue to get shorter while we creep towards the winter solstice, many people experience a significant shift in their mood and wellbeing.  While short episodes of the “winter blues” may be considered quite normal, Seasonal Affective Disorder is a more long-lasting and significant shift in mood that represents about 10% of all cases of depression (according to the Canadian Mental Health Association).

It turns out that your diet can play a significant role in both depression and SAD.  Here are some things to keep in mind as the winter sets so you can avoid the more serious symptoms of seasonal depression.

What is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)?

It comes as no surprise that the weather can affect how we feel.  But in the case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, shifts in  daylight and temperature that occur at certain times of the year can leave you vulnerable to episodes of depression. 

SAD is a type of depression most commonly associated with the dark days of winter.   Like other forms of depression, SAD comes with behavior shifts that can include:

• Difficulty sleeping,

• Loss of appetite,

• Feeling tired, down and hopeless,

• Avoiding social interactions,

• Binge eating sugar and starch, and

• Avoiding once favorite activities.

There is a cyclical pattern to this form of depression that is hard to ignore. But once you recognize the pattern, finding solutions that work for you does get easier.

Long dark winter nights and short days can contribute to Seasonal Depression. (Photo by Erica Marsland Huynh on Unsplash)

Missing Nutrients Affect Winter Depression

Nutrient deficiencies may play a role in winter depression.  The combined effects of loss of appetite and eating less healthy foods can wreak havoc with how your brain operates – impacting your food-mood connection.

Common deficiencies associated with SAD include:

• Essential amino acids

• Essential fatty acids

• Vitamins B, C and D, and

• Minerals like magnesium, iron and zinc.

Even if you think you are “eating healthy”, you may find that these deficiencies can creep up on you in the winter.  That’s because “fresh” foods are typically travelling further and being stored longer to get from where they are grown to your grocery store shelves during the winter than at other times of the year.

There is also growing concern that agricultural soils damaged by monocropping, tilling and chemicals may generate food crops that are less nutrient dense than in past times.

Select foods for maximum freshness, which means choosing foods that are in season, and otherwise opting for flash frozen or minimally processed alternatives may help to stave off nutrient deficiencies. 

Winter seasonal foods include:

• Root vegetables (beets, carrots, potato, turnip),

• Winter hardy brassicas (cabbage, kale, cauliflower, brussel sprouts),

• Winter squash (pumpkin, acorn, butternut)

• Storage alliums (onions, garlic)

• Nuts (hazelnut, walnut, hickory)

• Microgreens

• Lean meats and fish

Roasted root vegetables are packed with depression-fighting nutrients (Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash)

Foods that can contribute to depression and SAD include:

• Sugary foods

• Simple carbohydrates

• Alcohol

• Fast food

• Ultra-processed foods

It is important to note that some medications have depression as a side effect.   It can be really important to talk to your health care provider if your think your symptoms relate to the drugs that you have been prescribed.

Adjusting Your Diet To Ease SAD

While fasting and intermittent fasting are currently very popular diet trends that are espoused to balance hormones and improve mood, the jury is still out as to whether this is true for people with SAD.  Restricting calorie intake may deepen depression for some people.

If fasting worsens micronutrient deficiencies linked to SAD, then it may hinder mood management for some people.  Avoid skipping meals unexpectedly, and maintain a regular pattern of eating, drinking and sleeping.

Anti-inflammatory diets such as the Mediterranean Diet may positively influence SAD symptoms.

Other Supportive Measures for Winter Depression

There are other things that you can do to loosen the grip of SAD. Spending time outside in whatever sunshine is available can be very helpful for those suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Supplemental light therapy can also help regulate mood and hormone fluctuations.

Important supplemental measures include:

• Regular exercise for the release of natural ‘feel good’ endorphins

• Exposure to bright light (especially sunlight)

• Time in nature

• Use of supplements (especially Vitamin D)

• Regular self-care activities (like massage, yoga, meditation, art)

• Keeping social engagements

• Interacting with pets

• Vacationing in a sunny place in winter

• Using medications as prescribed by your health care provider

If you are a gardener in the summer, but find yourself overly depressed through the winter, a healthy houseplant habit might be the ticket for you.  Having a wide assortment of tropical and food-producing houseplants to care for has certainly helped me improve my SAD tendencies.

My go-to SAD adjustments include light therapy, supplementing Vitamin D and tryptophan, regularly spending time outside, walking my dogs, and focusing on seasonal foods.

Taking my dogs out in the snow helps me enjoy winter more (Source: Sue Senger)

It also helps that I moved away from the ‘wet coast’ and into the dry, sunny interior of BC.  That move drastically reduced the duration of my winter depression.  There is no comparison between living in a place with deep blue skies all winter long compared to the seasonal grey and fog of the coast.

My symptoms are now really focused around the two darkest weeks of the year and I am lucky enough to be able to reduce my work schedule to allow for more flexible activities then.

Does winter get you down?  Share your favorite winter-pick-me-up in the comments.