Health

10 Ways to Get Your Mojo Back When You Feel Down This Winter

For when it's not actually the most wonderful time of the year

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For so many of us, fall is magical, a season which offers us respite from summer's relentless heat and humidity. There's so much to enjoy about the season: sweater weather, warm beverages, holidays, vacation time. But for some of us, as the mercury drops, so does our mojo.

I'm one of the estimated 10 million people in the U.S. who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or S.A.D. People with it are prone to bouts of depression starting in fall and usually ending come spring. It can start off with feeling generally bummed, but can (and has) evolve into real feelings of hopelessness and thoughts of suicide, and can include symptoms like irritability, difficulty concentrating, weight gain, appetite issues, malaise, social anxiety and hypersomnia, which is a tendency to sleep too much.

In the past, S.A.D. has caused me to become hermetically sealed to my couch in a sweatpants-and-ick-covered malaise only broken for bathroom breaks or Seamless delivery. But over the past year or so, I've learned to live with my seasonal mood-altering buddy — so much so that I'm able to mitigate the symptoms quite well.

Before you seal yourself into your home to languish until the return of summer, try some of these mood-boosting mojo makers through the colder weather months.

Images via Imaxtree

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