Summertime gets a lot of hype. Warmth, sunshine, vacations, parties and picnics… all promised to bring rest, rejuvenation, a brighter mood… So you might be asking yourself, why don’t I ever feel better in the summer? Why do I always feel worse in the summer? Is it just the mosquitos, sunburns, chafing swimwear, and record breaking heat? Or is there something else going on?
Many of us have heard about seasonal depression. (Once known as Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, this seasonal mood disorder currently appears in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a specifier, “with Seasonal Pattern,” which gets tacked onto the end of a mood disorder –such as, “Major Depressive Disorder with Seasonal Pattern”…but I digress) (APA, 2022). The seasonal depression that most of us have heard of is the kind that comes around in the winter months, when it’s darker and colder and there is less Vitamin D available to us from the sunshine. But seasonal depression doesn’t only happen in the winter; there are a subset of people for whom depression crops up annually in the summertime instead (NIMH, 2023).
Summertime seasonal depression can have all the familiar hallmark symptoms of non-seasonal depression, such as a loss of motivation and energy, feelings of sadness and hopelessness, loss of interest in once-loved activities, difficulty concentrating or completing tasks, anxiousness, pessimism, changes in eating and sleeping patterns, and thoughts of death or suicide (NIMH, 2023). For those who experience summertime seasonal depression in particular, some common symptoms include insomnia, irritability, and a decrease in appetite (whereas wintertime seasonal depression more commonly includes hypersomnia–AKA oversleeping–and an increase in appetite) (NIMH, 2023).
For those who experience summertime seasonal depression, symptoms usually resolve when the season changes back to winter (Shidhore & Mangot, 2024). But in the meantime, what can you do if you are experiencing depression symptoms this summer? And what can you do to interrupt the cycle, so that you don’t dread summer coming back again? Instead of waiting for winter to arrive each year, there are some manageable steps to take that have been shown to help. A vast body of research has shown that mental health counseling, or talk therapy, helps to treat and resolve mental health struggles, including seasonal depression (Cuijpers et al., 2018).
Working with a counselor can help you identify the causes and triggers for your symptoms, the strengths and skills you possess to manage them, and support you in finding resources and solutions for getting you back to feeling like yourself again–no matter the season.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787
Cuijpers, P., Karyotaki, E., Reijnders, M., & Ebert, D. D. (2018). The effects of psychotherapies for depression on response, remission, reliable change, and deterioration: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 62, 1-13
National Institute of Mental Health. (2023). Seasonal Affective Disorder. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/seasonal-affective-disorder
Shidhore, N., & Mangot, A. (2024). Sunshine and Sadness: A Case Report on Summer Season Depression. Cureus, 16(12), e75190. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.75190