Topics: How to Cope with Seasonal Depression, Winter Depression Explained, Seasonal Affective Disorder

How to cope with seasonal depression…

Feel like your brain’s been put on airplane mode this winter? Me too – slogging through gray mornings with zero spark.

In this episode of Feel Good Nakd, I’m stripping down the science behind Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and sharing my potent tips to boost your energy, focus, and joy even when daylight is hiding.

Expect bite‑size sunshine rituals you can do from your kitchen, nature‑powered mood boosters you can sneak into any room, and the surprising truth about why only a small slice of us actually qualify for S.A.D (yet so many feel its drag).

In this episode:

• 🤯 The weird science behind why you feel “off” — and how to flip the script
• ⚡️ A 3‑minute sunshine hack to reboot your circadian clock and shake off winter fog

• 🌱 Unexpected indoor nature tricks (yes, plants count) that supercharge your mood

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or watch the full episode on YouTube — and share with a friend who needs this dose of sunshine!

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Episode 302: How to Find Joy

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MORE ABOUT THIS SEASONAL DEPRESSION PODCAST EPISODE

“I’m sharing three key concepts: understand what SAD really is, integrate mindfulness and self-care into your day, and harness the healing power of physical activity and nature.”– Chardét Ryel

•  What’s the difference between Seasonal Affective Disorder and just feeling the winter blues?
• What are the telltale symptoms of SAD I should watch for?
• Can quick mindfulness rituals really help my winter depression?
• How do melatonin and serotonin shifts drive winter low moods?
• What small lifestyle tweaks can minimize seasonal depression?

Have you ever noticed how your mood seems to dip the moment daylight fades? Do you find yourself reaching for extra blankets, dragging your feet through gray afternoons, and wondering why you can’t shake this inexplicable heaviness? If so, you’re not alone — and it’s not just a case of the winter blues.

Winter Depression Explained: What Is Seasonal Depression, Really?

Seasonal affective disorder (often shortened to SAD) is far more than a passing case of “winter blahs.” When we talk about what is seasonal depression, we’re exploring a real shift in our brain chemistry triggered by reduced sunlight, shorter days, and colder weather. It’s that creeping sense of fatigue, brain fog, and even changes in appetite that linger long after the holidays end — and it can feel isolating when everyone around you seems unaffected.

“It’s a lot more than just, I’m hibernating for the season — that is Seasonal Affective Disorder,” I share in the podcast, because acknowledging it is the first step toward relief.

Seasonal Affective Disorder: Why Some of Us Feel It More

In our conversation, we dive into why seasonal affective disorder impacts roughly 3–7% of the population (and why it might feel like so many more). From disrupted circadian rhythms to shifts in melatonin and serotonin levels, seasonal depression is rooted in biology as much as environment. Yet the good news? Understanding these drivers means we can fight back — and reclaim our sense of purpose, no matter the weather.

Spotting the Signs of Seasonal Depression

Recognizing winter depression explained in yourself often starts with tuning into subtle signals: low energy that doesn’t lift with caffeine, a heaviness in your chest, or an overwhelming urge to skip social plans. You might experience sleep disturbances, shifts in appetite, or an almost magnetic pull toward isolation. These aren’t character flaws — they’re clues from your body that it’s time to take action.

“If you’re feeling low energy, brain fog, and the only culprit is the weather — you might actually be experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder,” I point out, because sometimes the simplest acknowledgement sparks change.

How to Break the Winter Blues Cycle

Rather than prescribing an exhaustive list of fixes, I share high‑impact, bite‑sized rituals designed to reignite your spark. Think of them as your winter depression first‑aid kit — micro‑habits that shift your internal clock, boost mood chemicals, and reconnect you with the world outside your window. You don’t need special equipment, a vacation, or months of commitment; you just need a willingness to try something different.

The Power of Light, Movement, and Connection

From three‑minute sunshine resets that hack your circadian rhythm to indoor nature hacks (yes, your houseplants can help), the episode unpacks actionable ways to transform your environment — and your mind — even on the coldest days. I also talk through why gentle movement and fresh air can release endorphins powerful enough to dissolve that winter malaise.

“A simple, 3‑minute ‘sunshine reset’ can be a game changer — no light box required,” I reveal, because sometimes the smallest steps lead to the biggest breakthroughs.

Why This Matters (And How You Can Start Today)

Whether you’re new to the concept of winter blues or you’ve been quietly struggling for years, learning what is seasonal depression is your roadmap back to vitality. You don’t have to wait for spring to feel alive again — you can reclaim your energy and focus right now.

Ready to dive deeper? Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube for the complete toolkit of insights and real‑life strategies. Share this with anyone who’s wrestling with their own winter mood — let’s brighten up these darker days, together.

Transcript on How to Cope with Seasonal Depression

Chardet Ryel (00:00.226)
Seasonal Affective Disorder Winter Depression. How do you manage it? Why do we get it? And how many people are really struggling with it?

Chardet Ryel (00:16.364)
Get ready to feel good naked. I’m your host, Chardét, and if you’re here right now, it means that you are ready to strip away all the crap, all the rules holding you back from feeling good in your body, in your mind, and in your life. Let’s get into it.

Chardet Ryel (00:33.868)
This is kind of an episode mostly for those of you who are really feeling down right now. Be it still winter for you, spring, and even for some people summer, but you just feel like that lack of energy, that loss of focus, maybe apathy. You don’t really wanna do things. You don’t really wanna see people. And it’s a lot more than just, I’m hibernating for the season. That is seasonal affective disorder. And we’re gonna go all into it today to help.

you. What really amazes me about, let’s call it winter depression, is that it’s actually not a ton of people who experience this, which really surprised me. So it’s different estimates from three to seven percent, depending on the country that you live in, of people who experience this kind of real low-ness during the colder months. And I thought it would be much higher because personally,

I can’t imagine not feeling this way when you’re in an environment where it’s cold, it’s dark, and you just have no energy. But it’s not a huge percentage, and I wonder if that’s perhaps why there’s not a little bit more resources on how to help. If you live with someone or you have friends who don’t experience this, like me, they don’t understand why you feel so down. And it does seem like something that you should just be able to shake, but you’re not able to.

Coming back into winter and dark gray skies and rain, I felt my motivation drop, my energy drop, difficult to wake up. I don’t feel really excited about things. And even just recording this podcast episode was so hard to do.

Now I can only imagine, in fact I know because I lived decades of this, of how that builds up over time. And if you live in a place which is experiencing winter and cold and darkness for three to five to sometimes six months of the year, this builds up for you. This is a real mental health issue and something that it would be helpful to understand a little bit more. The first thing I’ll always say, and we know this to be true if you have the resources to do it as well, caveat there, do your blood work.

Chardet Ryel (02:48.417)
See if anything is missing, any nutrient deficiencies, anything like that is always super helpful beyond all else. We’re gonna assume that we’re working through that, that that’s okay, your baseline is fine, and it’s not that. In this episode, we’re gonna go over three things. One is the what is seasonal affective disorder? What are the symptoms? You might already know, but it’s helpful to really understand what’s going on with the brain chemistry here.

Two, how can we bring some mindfulness, some self-care into this to really combat these seasonal blues, especially with the weather changing so much these days, we just don’t know how long it’s gonna last. This episode I’m recording the day before spring, but I look out the window and you would never know it. And then lastly, we’re gonna talk about physical activity and the healing power of.

nature. I mentioned to you that I’m experiencing seasonal affective disorder and I recognize it because I spent years living in very cold places. I also lived in London for nearly seven years. Everyone knows about the vitamin D deficiency there and how much sunlight we really crave and miss. So I have put in my time. I have experienced that stuff and I know that I just do better in a warmer, sunnier climate. However, it’s not always possible to have that all the time.

So when I came back to the winter here in Europe, I immediately experienced this haze, like this not being able to think as clearly, this drop in energy. When I was on the beaches, I was running in the morning, exercising in the afternoon, still ready to go to hikes. I had so much energy at that time, completely difficult to even walk outside now.

And I also experienced internal hormonal changes. My digestion got upset. My period came early. This is a very real example of how much the weather can impact us mentally, physically, within us as well, hormonally. So it’s a real, real issue here. And I think the first thing is just kind of understanding what does it look like? What are the biological and environmental factors that contribute towards it?

Chardet Ryel (05:02.253)
So I want you to sit down and see as we go through, do you experience any of these? Because you might be wondering, why do I feel so sad? Low mood, fatigue, lack of energy, changes in your sleep or your appetite. For example, I was sleeping pretty much consistently through the night, not anymore. Appetite, I was eating a lot more now, I don’t really want to eat as much.

and difficulty concentrating. If you’ve experienced any of these for a prolonged amount of time and there’s not another key thing except for the weather is crap, you might be experiencing this. So thinking about it now, think about what maybe your experiences with the winter blues, shall we call them, maybe even a spring blues for some of us. What do you experience? How does it impact you? Does anything that I’ve shared kind of resonate?

in terms of why you’re feeling this way, know, bringing that awareness. And if it does, let me know on Instagram, it’s Sharday. You can also see a link in the show notes. I want to know this because, you know, selfishly, I don’t want to feel like I’m alone in this three to 7 % of the population. Where are the rest of you? Because it does make you feel, again, very isolated if you think you’re the only one that’s experiencing this. Now, if we look at like, what are the biological factors that contribute to it? We all…

have some commonalities, but some of us are affected a little bit differently. So let’s kind of dive into why that is. First, your circadian rhythm is disrupted. Now this happens to everyone, whether you experience seasonal affective disorder or not. We have an internal clock, our circadian rhythm, right? This is why it’s so helpful and so healthy to get in a routine, waking up, sleeping, when you have meals, all this stuff.

We like having that structure. Our body really likes that homeostasis, sticking in one pattern of doing things. We thrive in that situation. In the winter, there’s less daylight. It disrupts that rhythm. It can lead to mood changes, sleep disturbances, and we all know how much sleep can impact everything else from our appetite to our hormones, even to our skin. So we see that disruption happen as well. But also during this time,

Chardet Ryel (07:16.855)
we have to bring in melatonin. And this is something that I found really interesting and I did not actually know. So during shorter days in the winter, know, less sun, our body produces melatonin for longer periods of time. Melatonin makes you sleepy. If you’ve ever taken tablets, you know, you travel somewhere, you have melatonin, bam, you know, you’re asleep. But it can also really make you have that grogginess. The next day, you might feel like a little bit

down, not as much energy, especially if you’ve taken more than you should have. This is happening during the winter. So you can see how some of us maybe are impacted more by a disruption in our circadian rhythm. Some of us are perhaps producing more melatonin or maybe we are more sensitive to it and therefore this could be contributing, but there’s even more. So this is why it’s not a simple one-off answer. It’s more just like, want you to understand this to know you are not alone.

Serotonin is another example. So you might have heard of serotonin. It’s a neurotransmitter. It helps us regulate our mood. If you have less sunlight in the winter months, this can lead to lower serotonin levels overall. When you have lower serotonin, it does often coincide with more anxiety. It’s not always right because again, this isn’t the whole world that’s experiencing it, but it is something that shifts in our body that some of us react to.

And then lastly, and this is perhaps the biggest reason overall, is you have a genetic predisposition to this. Certain environmental factors can stimulate our unique chemistry to react in this way. It would be if you are more sensitive to light disruptions, for example. And this makes sense because we see now there’s so much science coming out about how it’s very healthy for you within the first few minutes of waking up.

for your eyes to directly receive light from the sun, right? Not just through a window, but actually experiencing it. That can help signal not only that I’m meant to be awake now, but it also helps him regulate for sleep later on. And you’ve probably noticed this, that on the days that you spend outside more, that you got out a little bit earlier, you probably have a better.

Chardet Ryel (09:33.067)
sleep and a more stable mood. That’s not a coincidence. So you can imagine if there’s less sunlight coming in in the winter for your eyes to perceive, that is going to impact your body. You are going to feel it. Even people who don’t have this mood disruption are going to feel less energy. That’s why we all like to hibernate wearing all of our leggings. But I’m actually wearing, you know, long johns under this to stay warm.

In addition to the sunlight exposure, know, overall weather has an impact. It’s colder, it’s rainier, it’s snowing. We’re not going outside as much. We’re not in that natural light. We also are getting more isolated. We’re not with people as much, especially if you aren’t living with someone, you might feel this a little bit more. And then lifestyle shifts. If you’re not as active because it’s not as easy to go outside, that of course is going to impact your body and impact your mood. We know how important movement is.

or mood that changes during the winter. Now let’s move into part two of the three parts of this episode, which is about mindfulness and self-care techniques to help you. I’m going to share with you two days, one in a summer climate and one in a winter to really illustrate how we can kind of maybe take some of that summer activity into our winter life to boost our mood. So when I was in Brazil, my time looked like this. I would wake up,

do my morning routine, go for a beach run or a beach walk. Feet on the sand, hearing the waves, not a lot of people around. Then I would come back and do my normal day. In the middle of the day, I would go to the gym. I work for myself, so that’s a nice luxury to have, but even when I didn’t, I would go probably in the evening. And then in the evening, I would go for a nice sunset walk, again on the beach. Weekends, I would go for a hike or go see people or listen to music.

Think about these things that I’ve done. I just want to pick them out. So I got out into the sun, into the light early in the day. I did movement. I went through my normal day. I continued to exercise. Then I went out and I experienced dusk light, which by the way helps you sleep when you experience it. And I also had my social interaction and my time in nature. Now, if I contrast that to what it’s like in a winter day here now.

Chardet Ryel (11:55.339)
What it’s like here is I wake up, I’m tired, I do my morning routine reluctantly. I don’t want to go outside and take a walk because it’s cold, it’s freezing, so I don’t get that light. I don’t get that movement. I drag myself to the gym most days. End of the day, I don’t go outside. I don’t get that sunset. I don’t go on hikes. I don’t experience nature. I don’t have as much of the social interaction because I don’t feel like it.

And above all, I want to say that’s okay. You know, we’re allowed to hibernate. We don’t have to be social all the time. Winter is a time to kind of relax. That’s fine. But if you’re coming out of it now into the spring, maybe you’re tired of that. And so I want you to see the difference in these two days and how just observing the difference is so key. I’m not going to pretend that it’s easy to go and do all the stuff that I did in Brazil when it’s freezing cold outside because yeah, it’s a lot easier to go take your morning walk.

on the sand in the sun than it is in the gray sky in the rain. So we have to kind of balance that. But it’s looking at what are some things that we can do to improve our mood. Things that, yes, take us outdoors, maybe a little bit of rain sometimes, but also that

We can do inside. What are some things that you can do inside that give you movement, that allow you to have some joy? think the biggest thing here is you will feel resistance to do anything in the winter. If you experience seasonal affective disorder, I don’t want to paint, I don’t want to write, I don’t want to work. But starting that, doing the smallest aspect of that can start to help you. So an example of this, and I want you to think about this, like think about

What is something that you could do that you know would elevate your mood? What’s like a small fraction of that? So for me, for example, in the warmer months, I really like painting. I open the windows and I just paint and I’ve got music going and it feels great. I barely have to wear any clothes. In the winter, I don’t feel like it as much because I to have everything shut up. I have to wear more clothes.

Chardet Ryel (14:00.545)
So I don’t have free movement as much. It’s more of a pain to wash the brushes and everything because, you know, it’s cold water. These are silly things. I shouldn’t even complain about them. But I’m just giving you an example of how that hobby, which brings me joy, seems overwhelming in the winter, which you might experience as well. One of the smaller things I can do now is, okay, let me just do a small, tiny sketch. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Doesn’t have to use all my equipment. Just a small sketch.

And the hardest thing we have is the resistance we build in our minds because we tell ourselves, will not help me. So why even bother? How many times have you thought, I don’t want to go to this event or this thing or do this solo thing. It’s going to be so bad. Then you go and it actually gave you energy. Not always, but often. So thinking about what is an activity you would do in the summer indoors or that can be adapted indoors. And what’s like a small version of that?

because we’re not gonna do it 100%. Let’s be real. Now the last section here is about physical activity and the power of nature, which we know this stuff, it’s harder in the winter. You really want to integrate it though because we know that when we have movement, we know that when we’re outside, it can trigger endorphins, it can improve mental health. Here I’m gonna also recommend there’s an episode I just did, I recorded it while I was in Brazil so my mood was way up.

on bringing more joy into your life. It’s called something like not seeking just happiness. You’ll see it’s the previous episode, the previous one or previous two before. Listen to that, it will help. But when we’re thinking about, how can I have some connection to nature and how can I also have a bit more movement in these colder months where I’m not gonna always go outside? The one thing is of course, like if it’s not ideal weather, can you still go outside for a bit?

I did a run today, it was freezing, it was windy, it definitely was not the same as my beach run, but it did make me feel a lot better to do it. Another example would be small bit of yoga inside. Just, you know, some tiny bits of movement. For nature, are there things that you can do inside of your home that put you in contact with nature? Very obvious one here is plants. Just recently, I was trying to save my orchids, which never seemed to grow. DM me your tips.

Chardet Ryel (16:23.415)
If you’re a master gardener and I was trying to help them to grow and I realized like just putting my hands in the soil Was really therapeutic now. I’m not going outside I’m still in my apartment, but that feeling was very helpful So looking at is there a way that you can bring the outdoors? Indoors or perhaps maybe just like push yourself a little bit on those difficult days

It makes me laugh so much because in the summer, people love this idea of cold plunges and going out there and doing it. Of course, in the Nordic countries, it doesn’t matter if it’s warm or cold, you still do it. But when it comes to winter, like, oh, can’t take it. Don’t want to do it. I don’t want to be out in the cold. And believe me, I know I’m the same person. Like my ideal temperature is 75 degrees or higher. I just prefer that. I don’t know the exact Celsius one, but I would say like above 25 for me.

Maybe above 23. So finding these ways that you can bring the outdoors indoors, that you can have a tiny bit of movement. All this is to say, this whole episode is about helping you understand you’re not alone if you experience these winter blues and to give you some ways that you could perhaps bring some more mindfulness to how you’re experiencing things, but also to really help you. I know we probably have at least seven more weeks of this.

I would guess even more. Doing nothing is not an option. Even just one of the small things that I’ve recommended here, if they can help you, even if it’s just reaching out to someone else who you know is struggling and, you know, reminiscing, saying like, hey, don’t you miss summer? But recognizing that what you’re experiencing is very real. And if you’re around people who don’t feel the same, it can feel like it’s not, but it is. And these are some small ways to help. So I would encourage you to take one of them, be it.

buying a plant, getting your hands in the soil, mini yoga routine, going outside very briefly, any of these things that you think could really help you to do them. I wish I could say, just take this one tablet and it will fix everything. But we wanna make this really sustainable and holistic for you. So looking at how can I improve the environmental factors around me that are contributing.

Chardet Ryel (18:44.439)
towards me feeling this way and also acknowledging that you don’t need to do everything at the 100 % level you do in the summer. It’s okay to dial back a little bit. Thank you so much for listening. Please share this with anyone else in your life who you know struggles with the winter blues and I will see you in the next one. Follow Feel Good Naked in your favorite listening app.

And if you’ve enjoyed the lessons that you have found here, check out my book, Seven Steps to Feel Good Naked, Health and Body Confidence Without Dieting. I guide you through how to create gentle nutrition, movement that works for you, self-care you can do even when you’re busy. This is how you make a roadmap to help without all the struggle. You can find a link to the book in the show notes, or you can go to feelgoodnaked.com, Naked Without the E.