S.A.D.

very very very annoying. So um, hopefully we'll be in studio coming up because I it's like, what a what a dumb bit right like moves to l A. Oh my god, it's so loud, but for real. So anyways, Hello guys, how are you hope you've had a wonderful week. Um, I've actually had a really wonderful week, and I wanted to talk about something today that is applicable to me having a good week, um, and are unapplicable to living in l A. So l A is one of those

beautiful places. What is with what is scientifically called a Mediterranean climate, and that basically just means that it's the same here all year round, and it's always sunny, and it's always warm gets cool at night. So you can still wear your cute jackets. But it's like it's just you know what it's going to be. I personally fucking love that I don't have to put away my clothes for the Season's like my whole closet is out. I feel like I have less ship because of that, and

I can just dress the same every day. But um, it never rains here except for apparently the entirety of so far, And I did not realize how quickly one can get a vitamin D deficiency from it being rainy. And I feel like I've gotten really used to the sunshine when I'm in Nashville, or especially when I was in Maine, Like I knew what to do to kind of keep myself feeling good during those really like you know, as the days get shorter and it's just very dark,

especially in Maine. I mean like it's almost to the point where you can see the northern lights, so the days are really short. Um, but yeah, I got it here. So what we're talking about is this lovely little thing called seasonal effective disorder. It affects many, many many people. Um. One of my my only favorite thing about it is that seasonal effective disorder is abbreviated as sad l O

l um. But it is it's just like this, like when people say, like, oh, I have a winter blues, like it's actually like a real thing and it happens to pro vitamin D deficiency, and like I think that

little things like cold shitty weather definitely don't help. Um. But I'm gonna tell you guys some things that I do to manage that, because in addition to like regular depression, your girl has seasonal depression too, And just I mean god, I saw Peach PRC, who's one of my favorite artists on TikTok post is something about how she's been diagnosed with the whole alphabet, and like girls saying same, I have been diagnosed with so much of the alphabet at some point it's just like a d H D B

P D L g B t Q and I could keep going um. But anyways, so I O N S A d UM. But like it's just it's interesting because I felt like I've I've dealt with it so much more living other places and living in l A, I forgot that it can still happen. So I had to dig out the old um little tool kit for how to manage this. And we had our first like real sunny day today. It stopped flooding, so that's nice. But um, yeah,

we're going to dive into this. I'm assuming that it affects a lot of you guys that you might know about. There's probably quite a few people listening who it doesn't affect. But if any of this resonates with you, you now know what to call it. It's not a scary thing. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. It just straight up just that you're not getting sunlight. And yeah, so we'll be with that, okay, and we are back.

So on this episode, we're talking about seasonal depression and I'm going to give you the like actual Mayo Clinic medical definition of this, but this is from Mayo Clinic dot com dot com um. Seasonal effective disorder, or s a D, is a type of depression that's related to changes in seasons. S a D begins and ends at about the same times every year. If you're like most evil with s a D, your symptoms start in the fall and continue into the winter months, sapping your energy

and making feel moody. These symptoms often resolved during the spring and summer. Months, um it is. That's why they have these little thing called depression lamps, which I'm going to dive into in a while because that's like my favorite way to deal with this. But it's just like you're not getting sunlight, and we need some light. We're like little plants, you know, we need water, we need food, we need sunlight, we need you know, a stable environment.

We need some rain for sure. But just like it's just been too much. L A has just been doing

the most and I'm not about it. Um So. The signs and symptoms of a s A D may include feeling listless, sad, or down most of the day, nearly every day check check, losing interest and activities you once enjoyed, having low energy and feeling sluggish, having problems with sleeping too much, experienced carbohydrate cravings, over eating and weight gain, having difficulty concentrating, feeling hopeless, worthless, or guilty, and having thoughts of not wanting to live like that's not badly

we need the sunlight. Is it's like constrained up make you like I want to unlive yourself, like really and it's like I don't know, it's just it's been so like just out of character for l A and it just caught me completely off guard and I was just like sleeping, like and it makes you feel lazy, And I think that's the hardest thing about any sort of mental like issue that involves being like sad and getting depressed.

It is like you feel fucking lazy. That's also something that I feel like with my a d h D. And it's like just you don't want to make excuses for yourself, but it's like, I'm not I don't know that I have a d h D, so that I can be like, oh, I'm not lazy. I have a d h D. It's like, okay, I have a d h D. This is how I'm going to do things that don't make me feel lazy and make me feel productive. Okay,

I'm not lazy. I'm dealing with seasonal effective disorder. So I know that that's why it's happening, and I can take these steps to fix it. So it's about getting to a solution, not getting an excuse. But it is like enough that if you didn't know you had this, or you're like didn't realize that's what it was, you should give yourself a little bit of a break. Right now, um, because it's just your little plant and the plant isn't getting what it needs, so the plant goes to sleep.

The plants little leaves, they wilt, and it's just an unhappy little plant. And I like being a happy little plant. That's my that's my favorite thing to be honestly, And speaking of plants, my basil plant is not having any of this bullshit either, so UM, I'm gonna have to get my basil plant and depression loop. Um. But depression lamps are something that the mid daylight. Uh. I actually use them just when it's like dark in general, and like I need to wake up, I'll do my makeup

in front of one. Um. Because it's like your circadian rhythm is controlled so much by like sunlight and all of these things, and your circadian rhythm is like your body bodily cues. I'm not a doctor. I'm giving this definition. Feel for to challenge me on this, but I'm like sure,

I'm going to describe it correctly. But it's like when you get hungry, when you get sleepy, how long you sleep for when you naturally wake up, like when you have bursts of energy, when you have like hills and valley is of energy and it's just like the little clock that your body runs on for all the little things. It needs to be a little plant, and mine got

fucked like so fucked up. And so this lamp helps you wake up that if it's early and the sun isn't out, Like, I personally do not know how people use blackout curtains. If you use blackout curtains, I don't understand you, because like, if I use them, I will sleep until five PM. I will wake up completely disoriented. Actually, I'm going to tell you guys a story that if

my mother happens to be listening, Mom, please pass forward. Um. But one time back in my cowboy days, I I was at a bar with Lauren Elena and she is such a fun person to go out with. And I had been going through this little breakup, not the big one, but like another one that was like affecting me and like I was just feeling bad. And I met this guy at a bar. I was drinking Makers on the Rocks, which is like my depression drink, like shout out to Makers.

I love Makers, but that's my depression drink. If you see me chasing shots of Makers with Makers on the rocks, like, call my therapist right now, I need to go home. Um, And that's what I was doing when I met this guy and he was like from Kentucky and he was like, oh, it's like super hot. They're drinking whiskey and I was like I know, right, And anyways, ended up going home with him, mostly despite my ex boyfriend. Turns out he

lived like across the street from him, so faml about that. Um, but this man had blackout curtains and I did not mean to spend the night after whatever canudie took place that evening. Okay, if you'll hear that noise, that is the kind of noise I'm talking about. There's like an ice cream truck that comes around at exactly every single day and I'm just like I can't that's okay. Anyways, losing my train of that. Um. But anyway, so this guy,

like after dinner, I wasn't gonna stay over. I meant to call an uber and then my phone dies and I didn't really notice, and I was like definitely tipsy. I mean like I was there because I wanted to be there for better for worse, but like I was not. I was not a sober co owl that evening. Um, and I wake up the next morning thinking it's like you know, I was like, oh my god, it's probably like six am. It's normally like you know, I just want to dip, like when I'm not in my own bed.

I wake up really early because I'm like, I just I want to be home. And then, um, I plug in my phone, find a charger digging through this man's room. He's still down asleep and I turned on it's eleven am. I straight up slept in a stranger to home until eleven am because he had blackout curtains. And aside from that really nice guy. Actually, the bizarrest thing is I found out way after the fact that he went to

all twelve years of school with my current boyfriend. So anyways, that was awkward, but I was like, why would you have blackout curtains? And honestly, that's not the reason I never talked to him again. The reason I never talked to him again is because I was well. I was telling him his blackout curtain stucked because he did end up waking up as I was trying to sneak out, and I was like, wow, you know, like I have a house and he was like, oh, like, do you

have any cats? And I was like yeah, and he's like, I'm allergic and I was like, well, it seems like this one isn't going to work out, but I'll see you on the flip side. And that was that. And then he talked to Lauren Elena a while later and was like, oh my god, I really hope like Kaylee doesn't think I'm like that kind of guy. And Lauren laughs and he's like, no, no, she's that kind of girl. Oh my god, cowboy is yea. So now that we've

had of the fact that I hate blackout curtains. Um, another really good thing aside from not having blackout curtains and having a little depression lamp, which you can get on Amazon for like next to nothing, um, maybe twenty dollars. It's so worth it. You can also use it as a ring light if you really feel inclined. It's a really nice, like soft datelight. Look. So I'll use my depression lamp on making tiktoks, which is just so chaotic and so on brand um, but I'll make like little

things where I'll reward myself. And this has a lot to do with like a d h D and all that too, But I'll make like a list of really small things I can accomplish, because I think sometimes all come up with like these big, grandiose things I need to do, like I need to like film a really big TikTok and do all these edits and blah blah blah blah, when really I just kind of need to like repost an old TikTok just to get something up.

Like ideally I make some new content, but I'm not going to do that if I'm not feeling great, and so I need to have these small things that I can do that don't take a long time and don't like feel insurmountable, and then I'll reward myself. So I created like this little list, and um, I think I'll dive into this more on another episode because it also does pertain to a d h D. But each like task has a little um like point system, and so when I reach a certain amount of points, like I

get a treat. So if I do um three or more, I get three or more points, I get a little snack, and that those snacks are fruit by the foot fruit roll ups and um gusher's I get the Variety pack, and I have to do three things before I get them, and I if I do five or more, I get to play fifteen minutes timed of one of my stupid little iPhone games that I love so much and I have a problem with. So I'm like trying to curb back, and I feel like that was a great way to

do it. It's like it's a little reward. And then if I do ten or more, I get to book a yoga class, and I love booking yoga classes. They get to be kind of expensive, so I can't just do them all the time. But I feel like if I accomplish things like that's a really nice little treat and that makes me like get out of bed. And also like I'll buy the more expensive coffee stuff because having something that makes me want to get out of bed is really great. That's why dogs are awesome, because

you have to wake up. UM. But little things like that, and then also just like you know, journaling and remembering that it is called seasonal effective disorder because it only lasts first season and you can figure out ways to handle it. UM depression lamps, I mean, I think are the biggest one. Not everyone needs to get on antidepressants during that time, but it might be severe enough that you might need to do that. That's between you and

your doctor. But you can read about this, UM. You can treat yourself for it with like like you know, behavior modification and the lamps and whatnot, UM without getting officially diagnosed. I mean, it's just a very common thing that a lot of people have, so I feel free to go read more about it. But me finding out that this is something I dealt with was really helpful, and I just constantly need to remind myself, Like every winter when I start to feel like this, I'm like, Okay,

you don't hate everything, everyone and everything about yourself. You just haven't seen the sun in several days. And that's a really nice grounding thing to remember. UM. But thank you guys so much for tuning in. I'm Kaylie shure. This is too much to say, and I will see you next week. Don't ask me questions now, turn it out you