Pt 1: How to Fight Off Seasonal Depression | Dr Mark Rackley

Hello and welcome to the StompCast of me, Dr. Alex George. This is the podcast where I go for a walk with a guest to find out how we can use their expertise to help us become a healthier version of ourselves, both mentally and physically. This week I'm stomping with Dr. Mark Rackley. Mark is a chartered psychologist and well-being expert with over 20 years experience in this space.

With his extensive experience in schools, hospitals, drug clinics and trauma centers, Mark has so much knowledge to share across so many topics. It was hard just to pick one. He has so many tools and techniques that can help anyone, whether you're struggling today or you're looking to build your overall mental fitness. This episode is going to be for you. If you have a moment, please grab your iPhone or either mobile device and leave us a review and a rating on that platform. It really helps us reach more stompers. Thank you.

Mark, welcome to the stomp cast, and what is, let's be honest, a beautiful day. It's a sunny, gorgeous day. Ironically, we're going to be starting this conversation talking about seasonal affective disorder, changing the seasons, but actually, it is a stunning day. I feel pretty grateful today. I feel like the universe is conspiring against us. It should be pouring down right now, to us. No, we don't want that. Especially because you're dressed in a very nice, very white train with lovely jackets, right?

I think I'm actually glad for you that it's, it's not. It is a little car. I didn't bring an umbrella. Yeah, well, we'd have found something a little hard. We have had to stomp in a certain direction because we've got this massive tent that's playing what I think is drum and bass music. Yes. So if you hear any drum and bass in the background guys, I'm really sorry, we've not adapted the stomp cast. It's not like a new... Is that a soundtrack? Yeah, it's not a soundtrack.

there is just some sort of festival preparation happening. So anyway, it's all going on. That is the stomp cast. We record this podcast outside. We're not in a studio. We have to deal with all sorts of dogs, kids, music, storms. You think about it. Anything, anything you can think of, we've probably dealt with it. So welcome to stomp cast. And you said just before we started that I could really pick your brains. That's good news. That's exactly what we're going to do.

There's a lot of feedback I've had from listeners that I'm saying that they really love it when we kind of deep dive into topics that kind of a part of people's everyday lives. But perhaps things we don't really spend much time thinking about, or at least perhaps there is not as much conversation providing good advice on these topics. So, you know, starting point of this and in part one, I really want to kind of talk a little bit about this idea of seasonal affective disorder, seasonal depression.

or changing of the seasons and new changing, because whether you're someone that's been diagnosed with that, people can diagnose with that, whether you're someone that actually, on a couple of hours of lower level, just feels a bit meh going into those seasons. It really can affect people. Someone the other day, literally a few days ago, said they already have started feeling it. I definitely notice it. A day like this is slightly different, but I definitely notice it.

with the changing weathers and things. So, you know, you've got a huge amount of clinical experience. You've got your clinic over in a pattern that you've been working with various groups of people over a long period of time. Can you hear that? I want to say too long time. You're looking very young and young. You're a young man. You're looking after yourself very well. I run this morning. It's on my brain a bit like in a triple expression. OK, fine. You're ready. So, it's enough for me talking now. I'd love to hear a little bit from you. Just like from your expertise. What are we talking about? And why does this phenomenon happen?

and that sort of affects so many people. So nerd alert, I love science. Psychology is not an exact science but it is a science so I like to give the background info as a kind of where we got with all of this and how we understand it and of course it's always changing so first of all

full disclosure, we don't know why this happens. So we have a couple of hypothesis in terms of what we think is going on, but fundamentally we don't know why. But that's okay. So season effect disorder or sometimes it's called winter blues. Now that is different, so that's not a diagnostic. You can't be diagnosed with winter blues. Season effect disorder is more of a kind of a

It's one of the catch-all when it comes to how some people, sorry, their mood can be affected by the change in the seasons, but the actual diagnostic for it, as in the DSM, which is the diagnostic statistic manual, which gives us all the different disorders. It's actually called major mood disorder with seasonal pattern.

So, to get that diagnosis, you have to have a major depressive episode over two years that's seasonal in its effect. Right. So, as it is tied to the chanyons? Yes, for two years.

So almost that allows two cycles of experience. Absolutely. You're trying to rule out the chance hypothesis, I guess. Totally. And also, like what you said, people can feel a bit... The changes of the seasons can be tough, but it's different. Kind of having a reaction to the bad weather or like a light or the fact that the change is affecting you that.

That can be challenging, but it doesn't necessarily cause disorder in people. As in, people with this major depressive disorder with seasonal pattern, they have depression.

What is going on here then? Because on what end you've got to people who are experiencing depression, clinical depression because of the seasons. So let's like perhaps, let's think about like what might be going on there, I understand obviously there's a definitive reason but there is a huge chunk of people, a really significant chunk of people that are sitting somewhere between a clinical diagnosis and their kind of perceived normality or that baseline.

So they're maybe not feeling to the label. It's like, I need to go to the doctor and be diagnosed or something. But they're not feeling great either. And that's already frustrating. It's like an anadonia. It's like a general mess. It's hard to put a bit of people listening. I'm sure they know what I'm talking about. The general rubbishness. So it's not quite so bad that you're like, I already want to get diagnosed here. But also, you don't feel great either.

where we came from, so how we forced out to understand the season of affective disorder. So there was a doctor called his son, him as well. He was from South Africa in 1984. He moved to the States from South Africa and he noticed that the changes in his mood

in the winter, because obviously South Africa is the weather's gorgeous all the time. He and his team started to research this and they came up with this idea of seasonal affective disorder. They brought out a questionnaire to study it, called the seasonal pattern adjustment questionnaire, which is still available. So if you want to look online at that, that'll actually be a psych questionnaire that you can take.

And there were the ones that kind of kicked off this idea that our mood changes or that the brain, who's having in the brain in the winter time. So at the moment, we have three, again, these are nuts.

set in stone, like I said, we don't really know the reason why this happens, but we have three working hypothesis that we think is the reason why this happens. So the first one is to do it to circadian rhythm. So the circadian rhythm is your internal body clock, we often call it just a Canadian pacemaker. So that's deepen your brain in the hypothalamus. And we know that that's sensitive to light. So that's the reason why jet lag is murder.

So when we travel and the internal pacemaker goes out wonky and we're awake when we should be asleep, we want to eat a foreign the morning, that is the internal pacemaker gone wonky and it takes time to read just and of course, like I said, that's sensitive to light. So we think that there's some disruption in the internal pacemaker in the winter time and as some people are more sensitive to this.

Second hypothesis is what we call the photo-period hypothesis. So that one is to do with your sleep hormone, which is melatonin. So melatonin is the chemical that gets released at nighttime, where it starts to make you feel drowsy, and while you're falling asleep in front of the sofa, on front of television on the sofa. And when melatonin, in the winter time, again, because of the change in the light,

and there's more darkness that we're producing more melatonin which makes us feel more lethargic, it drops our activity and it makes us feel a bit more slow down I suppose, which can also affect the mood.

The third one is a serotonin hypothesis, so serotonin is a mood booster, it makes you feel good. We know that sunlight, UV light produces more serotonin in the body, which is why people know some holidays, some bathing, and so more serotonin.

produced in sunshine less of course in wintertime because just less light and we think that the lack of serotonin can also massively affect people's mood and of course it'll be becoming more sensitive to that due to part of that as well as vitamin D we know vitamin D and serotonin go hand-in-hand so there at the moment the three kind of working hypothesis that we think are responsible in the brain for

It's interesting. Big answer. But no, I think it's really important to think about it because it's kind of to me and I've kind of read about this to a reasonable extent. And it kind of what strikes me is that actually it seems to be quite a combination.

thing. The truth is probably it's a mixture of things. I flew back from Seattle a couple of weeks ago speaking out there and the jet lag absolutely destroys you. So you're like bam, so that's a real good example of what the circadian rhythm being thrown at.

then you've got the serotonin side of things as well and the melatonin side. So it feels like it's probably a bit of all of it. Perhaps there's a predominant factor for some people more than others. There's also this element, I believe, and certainly in myself I think plays into it, is like if you have a hyper acute awareness of how one feels all the time.

And you're very, you know, some people kind of go, I'm not 100% today, get on with it. And other people are like more aware, like I'm very much a sensitive person to what's going around. But also my internal thought process, my internal feelings are very connected to all of that. And I think sometimes when that gets thrown out, you're stuck in wider feelers, wider feelers. And sometimes that also plays into it, doesn't it? Because then you're focused on that. Totally. And that's again to do interesting, you know, I think you'll find this quite fascinating.

The rates of sad are higher in people with ADHD. Wow, that is interesting. And the reason we think for that is because you know one of the symptoms in ADHD is the delayed sleep onset time is what we call it, where of course the brain is not slowing down at night, it's more active.

So we think the combination of the more active brain falling asleep a little bit later and then the increased melatonin that we know the rates of SAD are three times as higher in people ADHD as they are with people who don't have ADHD. That's fascinating. What about men and women? What about, do you see kind of a general more first split between them? More women.

Yeah, so more on women and also if there's an underlying mental health condition, so if somebody's struggling with depression or bipolar disorder or if there's already a compromise brain, then we know the rates are higher in people or people are more susceptible to the effects of the seasonal change rather than people who say don't have a mental health condition. It's quite interesting but that does actually make some sense though, doesn't it? A susceptibility point doesn't make sense. Well the brain is already struggling.

then if you don't follow those chemical changes and also the fact as well that like we're a whole kind of lifestyle changes in the winter like we're blessed we're outside in October but that's quite rarely if we're going to be inside more often now we're not going to be seeing people as often so all of those environmental changes make a big difference too

Because of course, like, you know, in the kind of summer when the weather's good, like, today, people are, well, right now, on a Friday, when you joke about people going outside, you know, look in the park, there's loads of people outside, with a dog, with a costume, yeah, socialising, it was that working outside. Lots of people are outside and things today, but when the weather changes, you do become, it's been more time perhaps alone. I wonder, like, you're just having less

connections, perhaps I wonder as well in activity levels, things like we know the things that kind of build resilience, things like movement, exercise, walking. It does become more of a pain to go outside in the rain, as opposed to a nice, beautiful day like this. Your barrier is to movement, perhaps.

or less. Totally, totally. And that's why you've got it, like when you're treating SAD, we say we're the patient, you've got to get them to think of opportunities where they can change the environment. Because we know like if the brain is in one environment all the time, just cope very well. Because it starts to actually get agitated. It needs stimulation, it needs change. Really? Oh, absolutely. So is that why, like, working from home is challenging them? You're working with home and living?

Very much so. So the brain thrives on simulation and if it doesn't get simulation changing of the environment it actually gets bored and when it gets bored then our mood drops and it gets scratchy and agitated and we're not the best version of ourselves. So we need to change environments all the time.

And especially with people at ADHD, they really need that. I know just a lot. I mean, myself, I mean, I find that I thrive best when I'm in like five, six different places in a week, you know, last January, like I won't sit. I mean, even when I was just studying at uni, I kind of, I would never learn something in the same space. There's also quite good research, but when you're trying to learn something, try and break it down and learn it in different places.

I used to play tennis against a wall for some difficult things to kind of really get in my head and then go outside and learn something different. But I just find it so hard being in the same space and the pandemic was terrible for that. Oh, absolutely. Without that, just in a massive number in everyone's mental health. And do you think that also is partly what messed up people's mood and the pandemic then was being in that same space, the sleep side of them with that? Oh, totally. Yeah, totally. Because the pandemic was like, that was a game changer. I was working all the way through that.

And even for me, like, I had patients come into my office. I was sat in front of a computer screen for a year, looking at my patients on a screen, and I felt the effect of that. I was like, this is when I wasn't seeing you at the doctors in my clinic because we couldn't mix. So even that, like, I know it's the effect of my own mental health. Like, that was really tough, but when people were thinking of the world, we were in lockdown.

It's not natural to be punished people by putting them into prisons and locking them down. I mean, all that is a number in their mental health. So absolutely, the rate of mental health skyrocketed through the pandemic here.

Best thing then about what we do about this, because I think we're going, in this episode, being made or recorded in early October, we're going into the kind of winter season, autumn and winter is upon us. What can you do, you know, say, particularly for people, I guess, that are, yes, maybe diagnosed, but also for a lot of people that are in that middle point we talked about as well. What can we do to kind of increase, may I use the word resilience, I guess, to this? Like, what can we do?

First and foremost, I'm just going to take a clinical approach to this. If you are noticing that your mood is really dropping and you're really struggling, then it is important that you speech your GP about that. Because, coming back to what we said about the serotonin hypothesis, you may need to go on an SSRI, possibly, just to give you that bit of serotonin boost so that you're not slipping into a depression proper. So I think it is important that if you are recognising that,

this isn't getting better, then just do keep an eye on that because we don't want people ignoring their mental health and then it kind of sliding into something more serious. The other thing you can do is, especially just stick them with sat, is the song evidence suggests that these light boxes, not the ones that emit you, they're not like a sunbed, but those light boxes can help the brain to kind of read just what we said earlier, just in terms of the light,

and to manage communicating a bit better. So that's one. The guy, Rosenthal, he talked about mindfulness and yoga. He said, if you can take a sun holiday, of course he wouldn't want that. That's going to be lovely. But there are kind of things that can help. But coming back into just the more practical things when it comes to winter.

The beauty of living in London is that the word is predictable. We know what's going to get worse. We know what's going to get bad. So you need to prepare yourself for that. Mentally prepare, but also think about what you can do to make the winter more bearable. I like the Danish approach and they've got that saying Hougat.

which became massive, it's written higgy, what is called huga. And in Denmark, which of course, they have much worse weather than we do. They get terrible winters. But the word huga, what that means, is protected from the outside world. So they basically make these, like, they make the inside of their houses beautiful. And I was there over New Year once, and you went out for breakfast and there was candles everywhere.

And it was just lovely. Yeah. Like it was really nice. So they know the shrinker internals. Yeah, and they just make, it's about kind of coziness and spending time at your friends. And despite the weather, you're still creating really pleasant environments and doing pleasant things. So you know, you know, what we talked about, you can be locked inside and, okay, fair enough, that's because the weather is rubbish. But you can make the inside really beautiful and cozy. So it feels nice.

It's a welcoming environment, even though the environment outside is hostile. So, the Danes are regularly ranked as the happiest people on the planet. That is very interesting, because that is interesting, because obviously it is complex, because obviously they're social structures and support systems are very credible. So, we do need to acknowledge the fact that they probably have some of the best

kind of social support systems and structures in the world. And it's a wealthy society. Very wealthy society. But even amongst that, you know, you think about the challenges of the extremes of weather they have and they seriously have a winter don't they? That is really interesting that they're able to adapt to it. Perhaps it's an element that they kind of, they do expect it in their future.

actively make changes. What are other things that we can do then? Have you seen things like, for example, does exercise help with it? What other things are we perhaps trying that do work that we should hunker down on? Because I certainly wouldn't even win to feel better when I get out for a run. It doesn't seem to help me, but I don't know that that is a...

Well, you can never go wrong with exercise. You just can't because we're built to exercise and we know that kind of coming back to serotonin, we know it releases more serotonin in the brain, which is why people get addicted to exercise. So definitely, if you can always exercise, the other thing to do to think about as well is there are things we might necessarily think of with a huge beneficial. So spend time with animals. Interesting.

Because... Yeah, you've got your own dog. So dogs, and cats of course, but dogs, they've done studies on what happens with dogs and humans. And you've got this chemical in your brain called oxytocin, which is your kind of makes you feel really nice and stupid bonding and love. And spending 20 minutes with a dog raises the oxytocin level in the human and the dog.

Well, yeah, that's science. I mean, it makes sense. I mean, even before I come out and do this, I always, obviously, do my rap prep and things for the episode, but I always sit with Rolo and we have cuddles, I thought he'd come. And you do just always feel, no matter whether you feel bad or whether you're already feel good, you always feel better.

It's a totally, totally because you've got unconditional love in a dog, but also like they create positive energy around you. I guess if you know, you say, well, wow, you better not have a dog. That's what I think is like the bore of my dog, you know, that could come in. Do you know what you get? No strings attached, right? It's kind of quite a nice relationship with a dog.

go out for a walk and kind of enjoy the kind of nice parts of it because it does make you feel better not also I've both said it before when I walk with Rolo you get chatting with people every time I chat with someone in the coffee shop this morning because I said hello to Rolo next I'll chat to them I'll wear you from what you're up to or what you'll be doing here today next you know you're half mad chat with someone always different walks of

So like this is a lady, not an healthy lady, but someone who's older than me kind of chatting to them and you always take something away from this experience. And that's a positive experience for both of you. Like you're going to remember that and this is going to make you feel good when you leave. So just that moment is actually hugely therapeutic. Do you know things, again, just the science behind it, things like doing some volunteer work, we know that by doing that acts of altruism,

make you feel good and make the people who are benefiting from your active altruism feel good as well so think about volunteering do the thing gratitude journals so three things in the day that you feel grateful for so right now I'm grateful that we're not getting rained on and it's a beautiful day but we can overlook things but actually if we stop and just think like what in my day made me feel good

And just those things can help connect us to more feelings of positivity rather than just focusing on the negative, which is, OK, the weather is rubbish, and I don't like that. Do you think some of that is then as well? The fact that, you know, we put so much pressure on this kind of doing stuff all the time on weekends, I think probably more than ever, it's like, because the parks are so short, but how everything is, you know, we need to be like, have packed weekends of all these different things.

And it's really bad in the summer. Actually, in some ways, I find summer can be a bit of a pain in the backside, because you spend, especially someone like me, you know, in my early 30s, you just don't have as many friends, as certainly friends. I think friends that are always available, and I've got my best friend who's got two kids under the age of two. He's a busy man, you know. I think it's different. Yeah, exactly. Luckily, I'm far enough away, they can't be. But it's kind of, it's a bit like that, and I think when you go into your 30s, but there's a lot of pressure to kind of always be active and social.

Perhaps, you know, someone said to me before that, kind of the nice thing about when you go into winter, you kind of go permission to, and you'll be careful not to end up blown enough connections. But permission to kind of ease the pressure off and go, well, actually, I could spend a Sunday, you know, watching Netflix, reading a book, doing kind of quite nice self-care without feeling guilt that, you know, the sunshine may have got to be outside. Oh my God, I feel so bad because it's Sunday and I wasn't at the door doing a run at 6 in the morning, you know.

So perhaps there's leaning into it as well. I wonder if that's also partly what they do out in Copenhagen at the place. They're just leaning into it. But the weather's bad. Let's lean into this rather than fight that process. Definitely. You said a very important thing. They were just self-care. So anything that's therapeutic is going to help your brain to feel good. It's going to give you those releases of serotonin and endorphins. So if you want to sit on yourself at a much Netflix or read a blog or go and

singing a choir or a bake or cook, it doesn't matter. It's what gives you that experience that makes you feel nice. And so that in and of itself is going to help you feel a bit more connected to your own life. So it doesn't have to be right massively social. It can actually be very personal. You can do it by yourself and it doesn't matter. Like I go running on my own. I don't want to run with other people.

because I like that experience. It's kind of my time. I spend my week talking to people. So when I go running, that's my time. It's almost like an element of being intentional what you do. I think a lot of the discomfort comes from my experience when you're not truly intentional. If you're doing a day of sitting around and enjoying being lazy, that should feel good. I read it somewhere before that when you're truly being lazy, you feel good being lazy because you're actually enjoying

doing nothing. There's a discomfort when you're not doing very much, but you feel that you should be doing something. So it's either be like, right, I'm going to this Saturday morning and I'm going to go along to the run club or chess club, whatever it is. You go to do that thing. But then if you're like, or on Sunday, I'm going to do actually nothing, like really do nothing and be like comfortable with that. Because that's what I find. And some of it I think comes from ADHD as well. But that feeling of like, I often feel like I'm kind of doing nothing, but I kind of feel I should be. And that's what creates discomfort.

You know, it's kind of like, it's almost an element of FOMO, isn't it? It's a fear that you're not doing what you should be feeling. What you should feel. And I think that is a challenge for people. It is. I think with that, Alex, like, if you need to give yourself permission to relax. And this is unfortunately, like, I do feel culturally in London as well. Like, everybody is so busy and everybody's doing lots of things. And sometimes, like, just stopping and relaxing and actually saying, you know what, I'm not going out tonight or I'm in today. It can feel like that, well,

that's not what you do, but give yourself permission to relax and give yourself what you need and that shouldn't feel guilty and that also shouldn't make you feel bad. Like Mo Gouda talks about, I think he was saying, but that gap of the happiness thing is what you expect and what you receive. If you're expecting something and think life should be a certain way, if it's not that way you think it's really bad but someone else they're looking at your

where you are and thinking, well, that's a bloody one for me, you know? Totally, totally. It feels like, you know, as we come down to part one, it feels like there's so much that actually goes on with this topic of like, you know, mood, the changes of your mood in the kind of winter time. It's kind of this, there's the scientific side, there's the psychological side as well, which of course is science, but there's quite a mixture of things going on.

But really there's some feeling of what you're saying, it's like acceptance of what is realising if this is much more than just mood change, like gentle mood changes, if it's someone that's experiencing a depression, so very low mood, you know, you're really noticing you're struggling, get the help. But otherwise there's an element of like, you know, realising, okay, this is what it is, what can we do to boost our mood, boost the way that we feel.

over that time. I guess, you know, just coming to the end of the path then, it could either just be a summary of what you said, or any kind of top tips, because I really do see people asking about this a lot going into the window, like, I'm struggling with a seasonal side of things, just to perhaps, you know, from your clinical perspective, what are the things that you really think?

make a difference. Again, it can be a summary. It can be a couple of new things. What do you think really can support people through this time? So I think you've got to prepare yourself. You really do have to prepare yourself. So if you know that you're more sensitive, don't wing it. Don't wait until you're in the thick of it. Make those plans. So if the plans

And again, this is personal, I would say, have a variation between active and passive. So we know activity massively helps the brain and helps your mental health. So if that is, over the winter time, you're taking a spin class, or you're taking Pilates or Zumba, whatever it is, but just do some activity, work the activity in. Have a think about what therapeutically works for you. So what activity, if you like knitting,

If you like a book club, if you like sitting in a board game cafe, it doesn't matter. Just do some include activity that you know makes you feel good and have some downtime as well. So what I mean by downtime is maybe think about some mindfulness, some yoga, some meditation, because that's basically like a massage for your brain.

It's just going to slow things down and help you to feel a bit more chill. I would also think too about the gratitude journals. They're excellent ways just of appreciating what's happening in your life and not overlooking that. And also just getting outside. So even if getting outside means you need to rug up fine. But when you're outside, you're changing the environment. That's naturally going to stimulate your brain.

One other thing I would suggest as well is how we dress can make us feel good or not. So if you like to wear certain things in the wintertime, wear them. They can mean dressing. Totally, totally because that is a thing. We know how we dress makes us feel a certain way. So have a think about that as well. So I would say really prepare some activity, some passivity and also think about the social side too.

So if you want to have people around for dinner, yeah, and also creating that internal environment in your home. So your home is a place where you feel comfortable. So if you are spending extended amounts of time there, that feels like a really welcoming place. Because it's really just to finish that point. It's really well kind of talked about, documented that there's actually, whether you're fortunate in this big home or you've got a very small home, making, within your means, making as comfortable as possible, really important. Totally. Just cheap hacks to do it, you know.

Don't have to go and buy these really expensive candles. No, absolutely. But as comfortable as cushions you can afford on yourself. Yeah. And just things that your favourite blanket. I mean, Rollo's got his favourite yellow blanket that I love as well. We jump under the blanket, he cuddles into me and we put the Netflix on. We're comfortable with your hoses. I really like the idea that when you're out exercising, you're pushing hard, you're working hard. When you're supposed to be cozy, be cozy. Yeah. Lean into the comfort. Yeah.

favorite dressing gown, whatever it is, and just feel really comfortable and cozy. I hope this is like a little warm hug as we end part one. We're going to come back in part two and talk about a completely different kind of topic. In a way, learned helplessness, which I think is a really fascinating topic.

You might not have heard of it before. That's okay, but you're going to hear a lot about it in a moment. So we'll see you later. Mind you with the science. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. And then in the third part, we're going to have a bit more of a general psychology check. But I want to talk about a little bit about things like meditation. I really want to talk to you about that, to get you a kind of take on it. So guys, there's lots to come. See you all soon. Goodbye.