Living With Seasonal Affective Disorder: Learning to Embrace Winter

The fog and rain roll into southern Oregon in the middle of October, bringing with them damp, gray days and long, cold nights. Snow follows a few weeks later, blocking roads and making everyday activities a struggle.

Normally, Andy Neal, 39, a southern Oregon resident, is a self-motivated person. He’s a freelance model, podcaster, and production assistant, so he has to build his own work routine. But because of seasonal affective disorder, the fall and winter months take a serious toll on his well-being. 

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that some people experience in certain periods of the year, usually during fall and winter. 

It’s not the kind of “winter blues” that can be cured with a cup of hot chocolate and a cozy movie. Symptoms are more similar to classic depression than a fleeting bad mood and include hopelessness, low energy, loss of interest in favorite activities, and trouble sleeping and focusing. 

“I was a different person in the colder winter months than I was in the spring and the summer,” Andy says.

More than 10 years since he first started to experience symptoms of SAD, Andy has learned how to prepare for the emotional challenges that come every year with the fall. He’s even found ways to embrace southern Oregon’s chilly climate and tune in to the seasons instead of resisting them.

A change of scenery and mood

Andy grew up in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. “I was used to sun 350 days out of the year,” he says. 

In November 2007, shortly after getting married, he and his wife moved to her hometown in southern Oregon. It happened to be an especially rainy, gloomy winter. The fog hung thick in the valley, and the darkness never lifted. “I think we went about a month without seeing the sun,” Andy says. 

He started to experience a pattern that would creep up on him every fall. His motivation to do anything seeped away. He stopped leaving the house. It was hard to get out of bed. He would go days without mustering up the energy to shower or change his clothes.

Andy also says it triggered his binge eating disorder (BED). Andy was officially diagnosed with BED in 2018 and has been in recovery ever since. He says that growing up, he always turned to food as a way to manage problems. 

“For so long, especially in the winter months, I would eat and eat salty and sweet foods, because that's what made me happy: That's something I could control,” he says.

Andy’s relationships suffered, too. “I was short, I was mean,” he admits. “It affected my relationships with my family, with my friends, with work. I was just a mean person. I wasn't good to be around.”

Andy started to dread winter. During the first few years of experiencing SAD, he didn’t know what was happening. But once he learned about the condition, he started to prepare himself.

Strategies for coping with SAD

SAD is somewhat predictable: It hits around the same time every year. Knowing what was coming, Andy started to take steps to help prevent the worst of his symptoms.

At first, the most effective strategy he could think of was booking cheap flights back to the Southwest for weekends in the winter, just to warm up and see the sun. He also tried a light therapy box, but it wasn’t effective for him.

He started self-treating with vitamin D supplements, which he says have helped his mood. He advises consulting a medical professional before you start taking supplements, as it’s possible to take too much vitamin D.

Andy discovered the thing that has most helped him tackle SAD in 2019: At a career crossroads and feeling lost, he started seeing a therapist. She suggested he try hiking.

As a self-described city kid, Andy did not think of himself as outdoorsy. He also felt self-conscious that he didn’t have the same body type as the typical hiker he imagined. 

However, Andy followed his therapist’s advice. “I went up to the Pacific Crest Trail, hiked 3 miles, and fell in love with hiking,” he says.

Hiking and being outdoors have since become a major part of Andy’s life. He models big and tall clothes for outdoor brands, and he started The Hiker Podcast, recording his excursions and interviewing other hikers around the world.

Andy says that hiking has directly helped with his SAD in two ways. 

First, fighting the inertia to move around lifts his mood. “It's a way to get the endorphins running, get myself out of bed in the morning,” he says.

And becoming an outdoorsman has forced him to get more in tune with the weather. Andy says that SAD no longer sneaks up on him, because he’s constantly checking the weather to plan his hikes. 

Instead of shutting out the cold and spending months hunched up on the couch, he finds joy in going outside. “Once October and November hit the Pacific Northwest, I was done, I was inside, until I discovered hiking outdoors and how healing and amazing it is,” he says.

Spending so much time outside has taught Andy to appreciate winter weather rather than try to fight it. “I've learned to not only be OK with the shorter days, the colder temperatures, and gloomier winter skies, but to embrace it,” he says. 

Last year, he took his kids sledding for the first time, and he even bought snowshoes. “I'm actually considering cross-country skiing, which would have been ridiculous to anyone who knew me in the past,” he says.

Overcoming the stigma of SAD 

Andy isn’t completely free of SAD. He still gets down in the colder months. However, in the years since that first Oregon winter, he’s learned to notice his thought patterns and to address them. He’s grateful to have help from his family, too. 

“If I'm being grumpy, my kids and my wife all say, ‘Daddy needs to go on a hike,’ ” he says. “Because they know that I'm a much happier person when I'm outdoors.”

For people who are new to hiking but want to see if it helps them manage SAD, Andy recommends starting as slowly as you like. He was a total hiking novice when he went to the Pacific Crest Trail. “Just go for a walk,” he says. “Enjoy it. Work your way up. Don’t think that you need to go conquer the Appalachian Trail on your first hike.”

Take your SAD seriously. It’s not a character deficiency or sign of weakness. Ask for the help you need, including medication, if necessary. 

“It's OK to not be OK,” Andy says. “It doesn't make you any less tough. When the winter and the shorter days come, I get sad, I get depressed, and it's hard. And there's no shame in that. You're not alone, and there is help out there. Don't be afraid to get help.”

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Written by:

Natasha Lavender

Natasha Lavender is a freelance writer who has written about health, business, and pop culture for GoodRx, SELF, British Good Housekeeping magazine, Brit + Co, Elite Daily, Looper, Grunge, and Buzzfeed.

Edited by:

Tanya Bricking Leach

Tanya Bricking Leach is an award-winning journalist who has worked in both breaking news and hospital communications. She has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years.

Reviewed by:

Sophie Vergnaud, MD

Sophie Vergnaud, MD, is the Senior Medical Director for GoodRx Health. An experienced and dedicated pulmonologist and hospitalist, she spent a decade practicing and teaching clinical medicine at academic hospitals throughout London before transitioning to a career in health education and health technology.

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