Seasonal Affective Disorder Treatment with Long Island Psychology
For some, the winter weather means more hot chocolate, fire places, and time with family. For others, however, the winter weather means feelings of sadness, low energy, an emptiness that is difficult to understand.
If you are someone that doesn’t always feel their best when the days get darker, it’s possible you may be struggling with something called “Seasonal Affective Disorder” – a unique form of depression that occurs only when the weather changes, and can make it harder to avoid holidays and other winter events.
What is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)?
Seasonal affective disorder used to be known casually as the “winter blues” because it seemed like people felt sadder and had similar feelings of depression, but it didn’t seem to have a clear cause. Even now, scientists are not entirely sure what causes seasonal affective disorder in one person over another, but they do know that it occurs when a person is exposed to less natural light due to changes in sundown.
Light boxes are one of the most effective ways to combat seasonal affective disorder. Yet many people struggle with this type of depression because of issues with their past, their coping, and more. Some people also experience SAD because of its relationship to other life events, such as:
- Past holiday experiences.
- More time indoors.
- Relationship with friends and family.
Our role as your depression counselor and therapist is to try to determine what may be triggering your seasonal affective depression, figure out what issues are holding you back from coping, and help you find ways to create long term changes that assist you in managing your symptoms.
Seasonal Affective Disorder Treatment on Long Island
If you struggle with SAD or you just find that you don’t feel your best during the holidays, please call our Long Island psychologists today at (516) 732-0273. We have offices in Garden City, Roslyn Heights, and Rockville Centre, NY, allowing those on Long Island the convenience of two different offices to help make travel easier.
We use an individualized depression treatment plan known as “Dynamic Experiential Learning” that integrates several popular styles of therapy in order to make sure that your specific needs, past, present, and future are all addressed in therapy.
We believe in making sure that each and every one of our depression clients is treated as an individual, and that we focus on the strategies that will help you understand yourself better, and ultimately help you with your depression symptoms.
