Latest / "What's Next? Conversations with Boomers" / Summertime Sadness: Seasonal Depression in Warmer Weather with Jackie Adams

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Summertime Sadness: Seasonal Depression in Warmer Weather with Jackie Adams · "What's Next? Conversations with Boomers"

• 0:15
  You are listening to What's Next?
• 0:18
  Conversations with Boomers.
• 0:20
  And I'm Barb Demaray, your host.
• 0:23
  We've got a really interesting episode today.
• 0:26
  We've got Jackie Adams back, our odd friend, mental health therapist.
• 0:31
  Jackie.
• 0:33
  We're going to be talking about summertime depression.
• 0:38
  And this was Jackie's idea.
• 0:39
  And when she suggested it, I thought, really?
• 0:42
  I didn't even know there was such a thing.
• 0:44
  We've certainly talked about seasonal effect disorder.
• 0:47
  And of course, most of us think that it only applies to winter.
• 0:52
  But I was wrong.
• 0:54
  So welcome, Jackie.
• 0:56
  Thank you, Bob.
• 0:57
  So nice to have you back.
• 0:59
  Thank you.
• 1:00
  So Jackie and I were talking about doing an episode on how do we handle all of this horrible news that we're bombarded with 24-7.
• 1:14
  And Jackie thought it was a good idea, but it made her think about seasonal affect disorder during this summer and how the two can be tied together.
• 1:25
  The news is really depressing.
• 1:27
  You're already depressed.
• 1:29
  So how do we handle this?
• 1:31
  So we're sort of going to mesh the two together or incorporate the news piece with the summer depression.
• 1:40
  Okay, Jackie, how is summer depression different than winter depression?
• 1:46
  There are things that are very different and things that are very similar.
• 1:49
  First of all, seasonal affective disorder is seasonal affective disorder, which we understand, right?
• 1:57
  But we always look at it as a winter problem, right?
• 2:00
  People get the winter blues, people are sad in the winter, it's cold, it's dark, the days are long, it's gray, all the things that we associate with winter.
• 2:10
  And we incorporate that into what we associate with depression.
• 2:14
  Things like people stay in bed longer, people eat more, people just don't feel good about themselves, they isolate and all the regular, what I would call symptoms of depression.
• 2:26
  Then what happens?
• 2:28
  There are those people who, when the spring and summer begin, they all back into their seasonal depression or summer sadness, summer blues.
• 2:43
  And I can say that the majority are women, however, to define that it's pretty much the same winter and summer.
• 2:54
  What happens is women report more than men do.
• 2:58
  And that's general across the board with any kind of mental illness, domestic violence.
• 3:02
  We see that all the time.
• 3:04
  One of the things, though, that does strike me, and again, men have that same thing, but one of the symptoms of this is basically having some social pressures, which leads into body image, right?
• 3:20
  I'm supposed to be happy, I'm supposed to be enjoying the sunshine, I'm supposed to be wearing less clothes, all the what I think I should be doing because everyone else is doing it.
• 3:33
  And so body image becomes a big part of that, again, especially for women.
• 3:38
  And it's true, that becomes social, right?
• 3:40
  How do we socialize more in the summer?
• 3:42
  We're outside, you know, we're wearing less clothes.
• 3:45
  So that's one of them.
• 3:46
  The other thing is during the summer, there is change in your sleep patterns most of the time, right?
• 3:53
  Because now that the days are longer, people tend to change their sleep schedules.
• 3:57
  So they're going to bed later.
• 3:59
  Yeah.
• 4:00
  I mean, especially for you, Barb, think about it.
• 4:03
  It stays light up in BC for like ever in the winter.
• 4:07
  Because I remember, I mean, in the summer, excuse me.
• 4:09
  I remember being when I lived there, it was like almost midnight one night, and it was still like not completely dark.
• 4:17
  So, but you know, you got used to that.
• 4:20
  When you live there, you're used to it.
• 4:22
  General, I mean, people are used to the summer coming around and the weather changing, and they might have changed in their sleep patterns, and then which leads to a change in their normal schedule and the routines, right?
• 4:35
  So that's really what summer depression is about.
• 4:38
  Like those are symptoms, those are things that happen to everybody, and most of us adjust.
• 4:43
  And then there are those people who really can't adjust.
• 4:46
  So they change their schedules, they feel pressured to do the social events, they feel pressured to not go out in long pants and long sleeves.
• 4:56
  You know, there's a lot of pressure that goes along with that.
• 4:58
  And if they don't join their friends or something, then they may even have kind of BOMO about not being there.
• 5:06
  So that all leads to being depressed.
• 5:09
  The other thing that I was going to talk about was how do we change it?
• 5:15
  You know, and is some of it truly summer blues, summer sadness?
• 5:21
  Is it a deeper depression?
• 5:23
  And then that's when it's different.
• 5:26
  But people literally feel this as the spring comes and we move into the summer.
• 5:31
  And that's why seasonal affective disorder.
• 5:34
  It's when the seasons change, whether your winter or your summer.
• 5:39
  Well, we do do things differently with the changing seasons.
• 5:43
  As you say, spring and summer, people are outside more, we're dressing differently, we have less clothes on, there's more socializing.
• 5:51
  And I have to say, it never occurred to me that this is something that people would feel depression over.
• 5:59
  I mean, when you were talking about, you know, wearing less clothes and, you know, sleeveless things.
• 6:05
  I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm more conscious of myself.
• 6:08
  Oh, look at my arms, my bat wing, like, oh, and now they're all wrinkly and you know, but I I just okay, uh nothing we can do about it is, you know, I have to, we're not 25, so our bodies are not going to be the same.
• 6:23
  That's but I guess there are people that I'm I'm gonna I'm not even going out.
• 6:27
  I can't stand to look like this.
• 6:29
  Yes, and there are many.
• 6:31
  And then, you know, their anxiety is heightened, they're restless, and even though you know they want to be sleeping, they have trouble sleeping, and that's one of the differences between winter and summer, right?
• 6:43
  The winter seasonal disorder, those people usually sleep more.
• 6:47
  Summer, you sleep less, winter you eat more, summer you eat less.
• 6:52
  Like those are the differences in some of the symptoms, right?
• 6:56
  So that's how you can tell.
• 6:58
  Loss of energy, it happens to both, but in different ways, right?
• 7:03
  So loss of energy, we look at in the summer as really, really hot, really humid.
• 7:08
  You lose your energy and you fall into it.
• 7:10
  Now, other people, and I actually can cite myself, when we lived in Florida for many years, I remember that when we started to get into the very hot weather, and that could be April, May, definitely by June.
• 7:27
  The first few very, very hot days, I always played tennis, and I would come home and I would be like, I am so exhausted, I need a nap.
• 7:37
  And that was not how I was.
• 7:39
  And it just used to get me so upset.
• 7:41
  And then I realized, okay, the first week of the heat, you're taking a nap, and then you're you got through it.
• 7:46
  You can carry on, right?
• 7:48
  But that's not what happens to people with this depression, right?
• 7:50
  They lose their energy and then they just fall into it and say, Well, you know, I shouldn't be out in the humidity.
• 7:57
  Probably not.
• 7:58
  But, you know, it's the same like anything else.
• 8:00
  I mean, some people love the winter and some people like the summer, and some people don't like either and prefer spring and fall.
• 8:07
  So it's just that feeling differently and then, you know, falling into the isolation part of it where just like in the winter, you're just not going to go out.
• 8:17
  Jackie, are people with seasonal effect disorder more likely to be people that live alone that don't have somebody to kind of vent with?
• 8:26
  No.
• 8:26
  Not necessarily.
• 8:28
  I mean, with any depression, right?
• 8:30
  You could be in a relationship, you could have kids at home, you could have a partner at home.
• 8:36
  Thing is, it starts to affect them as well.
• 8:38
  But no, people who have depression have depression, right?
• 8:43
  And it's the same.
• 8:44
  It doesn't matter if you're alone.
• 8:45
  And in most cases, when you have depression, whichever way, you'd rather be alone, right?
• 8:50
  Because nobody's going to tell you, get out of bed.
• 8:52
  You need to go see a therapist, go do this, go do that, whatever.
• 8:56
  So I don't think it matters whether you live alone or you live with somebody else.
• 8:59
  What about is there a particular demographic that is more prone to summer depression?
• 9:05
  Yes.
• 9:05
  And I think this is interesting, but based on the symptoms I gave you, you'll connect the dots.
• 9:12
  Young adult women between the ages of 20 and 30, mostly, the 20s and the 30s, right?
• 9:19
  Why?
• 9:20
  I mean, think of what I told you happens.
• 9:23
  Body image, social interaction.
• 9:26
  Again, those are like symptoms of depression where you're not good enough, you're not as good as the next guy, the expectations are high for you to be doing X, Y, and Z, and you're not, because you don't want to be there.
• 9:37
  You know, all the things.
• 9:38
  And then you're certainly not getting sleep, then you're not eating because you're depressed.
• 9:44
  It's just that, like I said, in the summer it's different than in the winter, especially with the eating patterns, which I think is interesting.
• 9:50
  Social media must really fuel this.
• 9:53
  And that is bingo, another one.
• 9:56
  Yes.
• 9:57
  Because where do people always have like these expectations?
• 9:59
  They look on their whatever they're looking at, Facebook or whatever, and they're seeing, oh, all these people are doing all this stuff.
• 10:04
  And oh, and they're all having so much fun.
• 10:06
  And oh, I don't want to be there.
• 10:08
  If I go, I'm not gonna feel good, you know, all the things that depressed people tell themselves.
• 10:15
  Do you find that there's more depression now since social media?
• 10:20
  I mean, certainly in that demographic, everybody is on it night and day and constantly comparing themselves.
• 10:29
  Do you find that that leads to more depression?
• 10:32
  I will say that depression and anxiety are so heightened.
• 10:38
  And yes, would I blame and look at social media?
• 10:42
  Absolutely.
• 10:43
  And if you remember during COVID and everybody was isolated, right?
• 10:48
  And people had social media, but guess what?
• 10:50
  They were using their social media really just to give out ideas like how to make sourdough bread, or this is what how I set up a jungle gym in my house for my kids, or like that was what it was.
• 11:01
  It wasn't like practical things here, and we're doing this and we're having a blast, we're out with all of our friends.
• 11:08
  So during COVID, things were pretty calm, I would say, on the social media front, comparatively.
• 11:14
  And I still have clients that cite this, they're like, Oh, I still wish we were in COVID.
• 11:18
  I was happy, I was home, I was really oh yeah, oh my gosh, yeah.
• 11:24
  It's like I was home, I was with my kids, they were there, nobody went anywhere, we just had fun, and I was like, Okay.
• 11:31
  And so I know is it shocking?
• 11:33
  It's just kind of shocking.
• 11:35
  But those people who were so thrilled, of course, during COVID are introverts, right?
• 11:40
  They want to stay home, they want to have that pressure to have to go out.
• 11:44
  Everybody's going out, I don't want to go out.
• 11:46
  So when we came out of COVID, depression and anxiety went through the roof.
• 11:50
  Everybody was medicated.
• 11:51
  I mean, I am telling you, people called out of the woodwork.
• 11:55
  I think I need medication.
• 11:56
  I think I need medication.
• 11:57
  And honestly, I remember there was like a statistic from a pharmacist, maybe.
• 12:03
  They were filling more prescriptions for anxiety than they had in years.
• 12:09
  Wow.
• 12:10
  Well, it was a big transition for all of us, depressed or not, going from six feet apart and being in your bubble and all of this, to suddenly being, you know, you felt vulnerable for one thing.
• 12:24
  You know, is this okay?
• 12:25
  Is this a, you know, are we going to get something?
• 12:28
  This is really interesting.
• 12:29
  But what about our demographic?
• 12:31
  I mean, we use social media differently.
• 12:34
  We don't compare as much, although I'm sure there are people who do, but I'm not so sure.
• 12:40
  Tell me if I'm wrong, that in the 20 and 30s, so this is the Gen Zers, they kind of measure their worth against somebody that they see on social media or people that they see that they're accomplishing this, this, and this, you know, they've got a perfect body.
• 12:57
  I don't know if we do that so much, do we?
• 13:00
  I don't think so.
• 13:01
  But you know what, to my own surprise as a therapist, I have women, only women who've done this in my experience in my office, that use Facebook like I have never seen before.
• 13:15
  Even today, I had somebody in my office and she was just citing everything that went on on Facebook between her family and what she said and what they said.
• 13:23
  And I was just like, wow.
• 13:26
  And then I have another woman that actually has been my client for about three or four years.
• 13:32
  Every time anything occurs in her life, she runs to find a Facebook group, a lot of times for information, but some of it is just again like Natter, in my opinion, and just gossipy kinds of stuff and who's stalking who.
• 13:48
  And it really is interesting.
• 13:49
  And that's our demographic.
• 13:51
  Okay.
• 13:51
  Those are women, the ones I'm thinking about right now, are like 60, okay, 60, 65.
• 13:56
  So close, right?
• 13:58
  Yeah.
• 13:58
  And I just find it shocking, to tell you the truth, because I feel like, aren't we over that?
• 14:04
  Like, I know.
• 14:05
  I I am sometimes amazed at how much people expose of themselves on a public platform.
• 14:11
  The first thing that comes to mind is, don't you have any friends?
• 14:15
  Like, ooh, just kind of going into depth around how they're feeling and everything they ate.
• 14:22
  And I don't know.
• 14:24
  And then I had a woman that I actually would post, and she is my age.
• 14:28
  This was, I don't know, when maybe I even first got on Facebook, which I'm not a big social media person.
• 14:34
  So I remember she would post something, and then she would constantly look at how many likes she got about her post.
• 14:41
  Oh dear.
• 14:42
  And talk about talk about taking up your time.
• 14:45
  Yeah, well, and of course, certainly younger people are doing that all the time.
• 14:49
  And that's another measure of their worth.
• 14:51
  I got X number of likes.
• 14:54
  But we still have that happening to people our age, believe me.
• 14:58
  I know.
• 14:59
  And I find that a little frightening.
• 15:02
  No, I do too.
• 15:03
  Yeah, yeah.
• 15:05
  So you were saying that it's I I found this interesting that it's mostly women, but not that it happens to women more.
• 15:12
  It's because women report more.
• 15:15
  And that's the case across the board with all mental health issues.
• 15:19
  What is the treatment?
• 15:21
  You know, you encourage people to spend certainly a little less time outside if the heat really affects you.
• 15:31
  You encourage people to go to bed at their normal time, darkening shades if they're early to bed people and still light out, right?
• 15:39
  Make sure you have blackout shades.
• 15:41
  Go to bed.
• 15:42
  You're normal.
• 15:43
  Stick to a normal schedule that you would have and worked for you.
• 15:47
  Because as soon as you start to change your schedule, a lot of times that causes anxiety and depression, right?
• 15:55
  I'm not getting enough sleep.
• 15:56
  Number one, I'm not doing as much exercise because I go outside and it's too hot.
• 16:01
  Well, you need to figure out how are you going to do that?
• 16:04
  Because that is also so helpful in general with depression.
• 16:07
  So a lot of the practices that we suggest aren't really all that much different from any depression.
• 16:16
  Journaling, putting down how are you feeling today, monitoring, how are you feeling?
• 16:20
  What was the weather, right?
• 16:22
  Like there's a monitor.
• 16:23
  So you can start to see how I was feeling.
• 16:26
  Oh, that was a rainy day.
• 16:28
  I was doing pretty good because I stayed home, right?
• 16:31
  Or a lot of that kind of stuff, you know, and then trying to be on a regular eating.
• 16:37
  You know, think about this in the summer, especially around here.
• 16:41
  I mean, I live at the shore.
• 16:43
  And so there are bands at the beach, there are bands everywhere, really.
• 16:49
  And people come out and they're sitting in the sand and they're listening to music.
• 16:52
  And the number one thing they're doing is they're drinking, right?
• 16:55
  So people are out there, they're drinking, they're eating, and it disrupts their normal schedule, right?
• 17:01
  Because if I'm depressed, but I decided I'm gonna go with my friend, she's encouraged me.
• 17:07
  I think I can do it.
• 17:08
  I'm gonna go listen to music with her.
• 17:10
  And I get out there, number one, the heat is exhausting me.
• 17:14
  Number two, I don't really think I should drink because that's it's a depressant.
• 17:19
  And number three, now I'm around people I don't really want to be around, and I think I should really be home, right?
• 17:25
  So it causes this anxiety and this depression.
• 17:29
  So you have to take kind of baby steps, right?
• 17:32
  You want to do better, but don't ever throw yourself into like that situation where there's too many things, right?
• 17:39
  There's the heat, there's the drinking, there's the social interactions that maybe you're just not ready for.
• 17:46
  So too much.
• 17:47
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely too much.
• 17:49
  And it spikes your anxiety.
• 17:50
  And you know, you have to try and self-regulate, really.
• 17:53
  Like, what can I do?
• 17:55
  What can I do?
• 17:56
  What should I push myself to do?
• 17:59
  Because sometimes in any depression, I say this to clients, you need to push yourself through.
• 18:05
  Now, if it's so bad, you need to go to therapy, you need to find an you know, a medication that's gonna work for you, the same as anything else.
• 18:14
  But I think, and this is an opinion as a professional, that people who have seasonal depression are not keen on taking an antidepressant.
• 18:24
  Why?
• 18:26
  Because in their mind, and it has happened over the years, right?
• 18:30
  Well, when the season's over, I'm good.
• 18:32
  So why would I start on medication?
• 18:34
  So you're suffering really through something that you don't need to suffer through.
• 18:38
  Oh boy.
• 18:39
  How long does it last?
• 18:41
  Do people have it for years and years and years?
• 18:43
  Do some people have it just for a season?
• 18:46
  Yes, and no, right?
• 18:47
  There's reoccurrence.
• 18:48
  I think we talked about this with seasonal effective disorder in the winter, right?
• 18:53
  White lights and stuff like that.
• 18:54
  Now, in the summer, you're getting plenty of vitamin D.
• 18:57
  So the fear is that I had it this summer, I'm gonna have it again.
• 19:03
  So we think about, and we all think about this, Alita, I think so, and I know I think about this.
• 19:09
  We start to kind of come out of the winter, we're like, Yep, I've got to work and I've got to lose some weight.
• 19:14
  You know, I need to start exercising more when it gets warmer, all of the things, right?
• 19:19
  So you're preparing and you think you're gonna do better.
• 19:22
  However, nine times out of ten, you didn't do the prep, right?
• 19:26
  You didn't prepare.
• 19:27
  You kept talking about it, but you didn't get there.
• 19:30
  And now the summer comes.
• 19:31
  Now you're disappointed in yourself.
• 19:33
  You don't like being in the summer heat anyway, and it just, you know, it goes downhill from there.
• 19:38
  So it's very important for people to keep a schedule that they normally keep.
• 19:45
  Their routines definitely get disruptive if you think about this, especially if you think about that demographic of maybe not so much 20-year-olds anymore, but in your 30s, right?
• 19:55
  Now your kids are home from school, you're on vacation, which is disruptive.
• 20:00
  Like things that we may think take its normal course, it's disruptive to people with seasonal depression.
• 20:08
  So they have to try as much as they can to keep their routines, to stay cool, to hydrate all the time, to speak to your best friend, get somebody who understands but can help you take what I said before, those baby steps.
• 20:24
  You know, okay, let's just go do this.
• 20:26
  Or maybe, yep, it's a hot, sunny day, but let's go to the mall where there's air conditioning.
• 20:32
  Let's walk inside.
• 20:34
  Let's, you know, just different, but keeping within your own parameters and boundaries that are important to you.
• 20:42
  Do you ever suggest to people maybe this isn't the climate for you?
• 20:45
  Maybe you need to move to Washington or Wisconsin or something.
• 20:52
  I don't think that's usually feasible, but living in Florida, I struggled so much.
• 20:56
  I cannot stand the heat.
• 20:58
  My daughter, who is way worse than I am, has never returned to Florida since the day she came to New York City to go to college.
• 21:08
  She came back one summer, and that one summer was enough for her.
• 21:11
  She's like, I can't do this anymore.
• 21:12
  And she never returned.
• 21:14
  And now she still, although lives in the northeast, struggles when it's very, very hot.
• 21:19
  She just it's not her climate.
• 21:22
  I don't like extreme heat either.
• 21:24
  I just get so lethargic.
• 21:26
  I don't feel depressed, but it just completely zaps my energy.
• 21:31
  You know, we don't get that kind of heat here.
• 21:33
  Okay, let's move on to the news.
• 21:37
  How does that impact people that experience seasonal effect disorder?
• 21:43
  Regardless of the current climate, we have had 24-7 news for a long time now.
• 21:49
  But now the 24-7 news is all depressing and it seems to get worse by the day.
• 21:56
  How does this impact people with depression?
• 21:59
  So it's my belief from the get-go that number one, having 24 7 exposure to news is not healthy.
• 22:09
  And when you back because we are a little bit over 70.
• 22:14
  When you think back to when you grew up, your parents, certainly mine, there were three main TV channels, two, four, and seven where I was from.
• 22:23
  Yours might have been different.
• 22:24
  And they had six o'clock news and 11 o'clock news.
• 22:27
  Yeah.
• 22:28
  So that's it.
• 22:29
  That was the time they got to see the news.
• 22:31
  Period.
• 22:32
  We now have 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 22:36
  We can find news wherever we look.
• 22:40
  Yeah.
• 22:41
  And does it add to depression?
• 22:45
  Yes.
• 22:46
  I believe so.
• 22:47
  If you are the depressed person and news is one of your triggers to make you feel even more depressed, more sad, more upset, then yes.
• 22:58
  I think in general, right now, the climate of many countries is overall sad.
• 23:05
  I won't say that people are extremely depressed, although some are, right?
• 23:10
  And the news just keeps pouring it into them, right?
• 23:12
  It just gets worse and worse and worse.
• 23:14
  And I don't agree with what's going on.
• 23:16
  And I have people that no longer talk to me because we don't agree on what's happening politically.
• 23:22
  It's changed my life.
• 23:23
  I mean, I hear these stories a lot.
• 23:26
  And even my own daughter.
• 23:28
  So this is, I'm going to use her again.
• 23:30
  Between the fact that she doesn't like the heat and the fact that she has actually stopped listening to the news completely, I could talk to her and say, Hey, did you hear that?
• 23:40
  And she's like, Nope.
• 23:42
  And I laugh because she's a brilliant individual.
• 23:45
  She has a very high-power job.
• 23:47
  She has children.
• 23:48
  She's social, all the things, right?
• 23:51
  She's not depressed.
• 23:53
  She's made these choices and she makes choices on a hot day what she is and isn't going to do.
• 23:59
  And she makes choices whether or not I'm going to listen to the television.
• 24:03
  I've had clients who do that, the 24-7 CNN or whatever is on.
• 24:10
  Fox News, that's a big one.
• 24:11
  People keep it on all day long.
• 24:14
  And their assignment from me, because now they're depressed and they're just in my office.
• 24:19
  And what are they talking about the whole time?
• 24:21
  The news.
• 24:22
  So, you know, I'm saying to them, okay, let's look at it.
• 24:26
  How many times do you tune in?
• 24:28
  How long do you listen?
• 24:29
  How many stories have you heard over and over and over again?
• 24:32
  And when they can say, I've heard that same story, blah, blah, blah, so many times a day, then what would it matter if you only listened to the news once a day?
• 24:42
  Once, yeah.
• 24:44
  Because now it's become a practice and a habit that needs to be broken.
• 24:48
  It is a habit.
• 24:50
  I went through a stretch where I was just not sleeping well.
• 24:53
  I wake up in the night, have to go to the bathroom, and then I couldn't get back to sleep for ages.
• 24:58
  And a few weeks ago, I decided no more social media, because I get a lot of my news through social media, through, you know, threads and YouTube and all of that after 9:30.
• 25:08
  And I'm telling you, Jackie, it has made a huge difference.
• 25:12
  And you know, I've read over, and I'm not depressed, but I really do enjoy having a good sleep.
• 25:18
  I do not like being awake from two till five.
• 25:22
  Or is it good for your health, Barb?
• 25:24
  That's very bad for your health.
• 25:26
  I know it is.
• 25:27
  I know this has made a huge difference, you know, and you read sort of tips on helping you sleep, or and I am prone to anxiety, is you know, get off your phone, get off your phone, get off your phone.
• 25:40
  And yeah, okay, sure.
• 25:42
  But it's absolutely true.
• 25:44
  It is because in reality, and think about this the last thing, whatever it is that you put in your head before you go to sleep, is there.
• 25:53
  So, in other words, see bad news if you're reading, say, a mystery novel, if you just heard something about somebody, and it's the last thing you heard or the last thing you saw, it makes a difference.
• 26:06
  Yeah, it's still rolling around in your brain, and that creates cortisol and all of that.
• 26:13
  And that's why calming apps that have different, you know, white noise or the variety of noises, or meditations to listen to, or stories to listen to.
• 26:26
  There's a variety of things to do to help sleep, which to me is so interesting.
• 26:32
  And especially now, when I think about I have seven grandchildren, they have all been born into white noise, they don't sleep without it.
• 26:43
  I want to say what's gonna happen to you because I really would love to see some research on that, like years from now, because all these kids are being brought up with their white noise, little noise machines, right?
• 26:54
  Everywhere they go.
• 26:55
  Yeah, I I know I find that interesting too.
• 26:58
  I do use the insight timer for a meditation, or lately I've been listening to bad time stories, and they've helped because I'm I'm asleep in five minutes.
• 27:07
  But our bodies are a little different than little kids.
• 27:12
  For sure, for sure.
• 27:13
  And I have clients that use white noise, or so I had a man in my office today, I thought this was interesting.
• 27:20
  He told me that he puts his radio under his pillow.
• 27:24
  So when he gets up at night to go to the bathroom, he comes back and he puts the radio on that's under his pillow so his wife doesn't hear it, apparently.
• 27:34
  And it helps him go back to sleep.
• 27:36
  So I said, What is it you listen to?
• 27:38
  He goes, sports.
• 27:43
  I thought that was great, but he does go back to sleep then, listening to sports.
• 27:47
  Oh, okay.
• 27:48
  I thought that was funny too.
• 27:49
  But um, you know, so whatever works, I always say whatever works.
• 27:53
  He's also the same man that learned to meditate through the calm app.
• 27:57
  And he told me that when he gets very anxious or upset about the news, now he lives in a house, married forever, happily married, but they have very different views on politics.
• 28:09
  Oh dear.
• 28:10
  So he has this thing on his phone that it will give him like a one-minute meditation, and he said it can bring his anxiety from high to low.
• 28:20
  So I think that's yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:22
  So he's been practicing, which I is great.
• 28:24
  He's been my client a long time, and he struggled with a lot of things, and he's getting so much better.
• 28:29
  Oh, that's good.
• 28:30
  Good.
• 28:30
  I'm sure kudos to you, a lot of that.
• 28:33
  Well, maybe, but I mean, the news we're trying to stay on track a little bit here.
• 28:37
  I'm sorry for going off on a tangent, but the news is impactful.
• 28:41
  I don't care who you are, everybody has an opinion, everybody wants to talk about it today.
• 28:47
  Every time you turn around, at least in my country, I feel like we have an election for something.
• 28:53
  It's like an election for this, an election for that.
• 28:56
  You have to vote for this, do this, and there's a lot of turmoil.
• 28:59
  We know that.
• 29:00
  And I think it creates a lot of inner turmoil for people.
• 29:04
  It creates inner turmoil for me, but I think I'm not an American, I'm a Canadian.
• 29:09
  I don't know what I'd be thinking if I like this cannot be happening.
• 29:13
  This is my country.
• 29:14
  This is scary, beyond scary.
• 29:17
  I I it would freak me out.
• 29:20
  It's a lot for a lot of people.
• 29:23
  And it was different years ago, and now everybody is sort of in their corners, right?
• 29:29
  And I think for many, the boxing gloves are out all the time.
• 29:34
  Well, that in itself is depressing, that contributes to anxiety and depression, and it all politics certainly to my knowledge, never used to be like that.
• 29:44
  Correct.
• 29:44
  You'll hear people talk about it all the time that it wasn't like this.
• 29:48
  People disagree and we're great friends.
• 29:52
  Right.
• 29:52
  And even, you know, in the United States, when we had, you know, most recently, which is a lot of years ago, but the transition from different party presidents, they welcomed each other and they were friends, and they're still friends today, even though they have different views, they listen to each other and they share opinions.
• 30:13
  Yeah.
• 30:13
  And I think that's not just important in the USA, it's important all over the world, and we accept other people.
• 30:22
  Thing is, like, even in my practice, you know, I see everything in my practice.
• 30:28
  But I've preached, I guess, for years and years and years, when people come to me with problems and it involves another person or family.
• 30:37
  My philosophy is always the most important thing you can do for yourself and for anybody else is have a conversation to resolution.
• 30:46
  And even if the resolution is we don't agree, you've already had the conversation, you've heard each other, and you can still disagree.
• 30:56
  But people don't do that.
• 30:57
  They're people not willing to have a conversation.
• 31:00
  I see it all of the time.
• 31:02
  How do we deal with polarized political views when you're within the family, especially or with close friends?
• 31:09
  Because we're hearing it all.
• 31:11
  It doesn't happen here.
• 31:12
  Maybe it has, but certainly not nobody that I know.
• 31:15
  But I do know that it happens in the States all the time.
• 31:19
  And this is awful.
• 31:21
  And it adds to depression, certainly.
• 31:22
  There's no doubt in my mind.
• 31:24
  But again, we're what we just talked about, Barb, the last thing you hear and you go to sleep, right?
• 31:29
  Or the last thing you read or saw.
• 31:32
  If you're listening to the news up until the time you try and close your eyes and sleep, you're impacted even more.
• 31:38
  And it can very much affect your sleep.
• 31:42
  So, news, depression, anxiety, it's all associated to each other.
• 31:48
  You know, what happens in the world, what happens to us individually, what happened during COVID, right?
• 31:54
  We had people, and I just expressed that the introverts were happy, the extroverts were crawling out of their skins because they had to get outside or feeling too isolated.
• 32:05
  Yeah.
• 32:05
  Yeah.
• 32:06
  And other people like the isolation.
• 32:08
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:09
  Yeah.
• 32:10
  And I haven't ever met an individual with seasonal affective disorder like it, right?
• 32:17
  They're not happy.
• 32:18
  They just don't know exactly what to do.
• 32:20
  So, like I said, there are solutions.
• 32:23
  And as for the news, it's called taking as little as you can, taking what you think's important and throw out the rest.
• 32:30
  I think that's key.
• 32:32
  I mean, as you said, we all grew up with news twice a day.
• 32:34
  It was the same with us, yeah.
• 32:36
  Six o'clock at night and 11 o'clock at night, and that that was that.
• 32:40
  You know, you heard it on the radio also, but it wasn't 24-7 either.
• 32:45
  And nobody complained, gosh, I haven't heard the news for an hour.
• 32:49
  What's happening?
• 32:50
  I didn't say that.
• 32:52
  How did I miss that?
• 32:54
  How did I know?
• 32:55
  Yeah.
• 32:56
  Is there anything you'd like to add that is relevant to this conversation?
• 33:01
  I just want to say that although we picked out individual symptoms for seasonal depression, which you know is a little different in the winter than the summer, but depression in general encompasses a lot of those symptoms altogether, right?
• 33:18
  The anxiety.
• 33:20
  We either look at weight loss or weight gain, we look at sleeping.
• 33:24
  Are we sleeping?
• 33:25
  Are we not sleeping?
• 33:26
  You know, so in we'll call it a depressive disorder, not seasonal, they're very similar with symptoms.
• 33:35
  And the only thing different between winter and summer symptoms are the ones that attribute themselves to basically the weather, right?
• 33:45
  So less close, hotter temperatures, those types of things are different than in the winter.
• 33:52
  But all in all, it's still depression, although with seasonal effective, either summer or winter, there is an end.
• 34:00
  When the season changes, usually you're okay until the season comes around again.
• 34:06
  And again, the news affects everyone, and we all are impacted differently.
• 34:12
  And it's who do you have to talk to?
• 34:14
  And how do you release what you're thinking and who's listening to your opinion?
• 34:18
  And do you feel like you're being heard?
• 34:20
  You know, do you have an ally?
• 34:21
  Do you have support?
• 34:22
  Yeah, that's important.
• 34:25
  And you know, that goes back to the episode we did on friendship, right?
• 34:29
  Yes.
• 34:30
  When we have a close circle of friends, there are always people to reach out to.
• 34:35
  They know your history, they know you, they're there for you.
• 34:39
  And it's really important that we nurture and cultivate those friendships because everybody has ups and downs, maybe not to clinical depression, but difficult times.
• 34:52
  So this has been great, really, so informative.
• 34:56
  Thank you.
• 34:57
  Thank you always for having me on, and a huge thank you to you for being willing to come on.
• 35:02
  You're a huge asset to us, really and truly.
• 35:06
  So we will have you on again for sure.
• 35:09
  And yeah, I guess you're gearing up for the heat in New Jersey.
• 35:13
  Yeah, it's we've had an unusual season, to tell you the truth.
• 35:16
  We had two weeks ago, like 100 degree weather for so long.
• 35:21
  Oh my gosh, unbearable.
• 35:23
  And then it dropped right back down to 50s.
• 35:25
  Then it rained this entire past weekend and it was cold.
• 35:29
  And now we're getting more seasonal as far as like spring weather.
• 35:34
  It's not summer yet, it's like 70s, and it's gonna be chilly over the weekend.
• 35:38
  I just saw the news.
• 35:39
  And then apparently it's gonna rain a whole bunch again.
• 35:42
  So we've had a lot of rain as well.
• 35:43
  Yeah, we've had really up and down weather too.
• 35:46
  Really warm, like summer, and then raining and cold and bizarre.
• 35:50
  Okay, before I sign off, how can people reach you?
• 35:54
  Let's remind them again.
• 35:55
  They can reach me through my email, Jackie L Adams, counseling at gmail.
• 36:02
  And that is an email address.
• 36:07
  This episode was written and recorded by Barb Demaray, edited and produced by Aiden Glassy.
• 36:13
  As always, special thanks to our guests for making it possible.
• 36:16
  If you enjoyed and you'd like to hear more, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 36:22
  You can also follow the show on YouTube at what's next.convos with food.
• 36:27
  Thanks for listening.