What Your Houseplants Can Teach You About Managing Seasonal Depression
As I write this, I just woke up from a nap.
It’s early afternoon and the dog jumped up to lick my face to tell me she needed to go outside. (Somebody should have told me before I got a dog that dogs interrupt your afternoon naps.)
I hadn’t felt particularly tired before I laid down, but once I got horizontal and got a glimpse of the gray skies outside my window, it felt right. This is how I typically find myself most days from November-April, a marathon of endurance for most in Northeast Ohio and everywhere else it gets cold and gloomy six months out of the year.
Seasonal depression used to creep up on me pretty regularly, until I finally learned how to make peace with it, at least until I can move to a locale a little more sunny year-round.
But if you’re like me, and have filled your home with an array of houseplants over the past few years, you have a living example in front of you as to how to survive the winter with most of your sanity intact. The same things I do for my plants during the colder months, I do for myself.
SEARCH FOR THE LIGHT
Most of the plants I own (pothos, peace lilies, tradescantia zebrinas, dracaenas, among others) need a certain amount of light to stay lush and vibrant. Same goes for us. In the winter months, I need to supplement what little light they receive with grow lights and position them in optimal spots to capture the fleeting moments of light (and let myself soak up some rays too)!
KEEP EXPECTATIONS LOW
I’m regularly take December-January off as part of my yearly sabbatical, which means I don’t expect myself to be “productive” during that time. It’s less email and fewer Zoom meetings and more naps and increased walks with the dog. With our plants, their growth will slow during the winter months, if they don’t go dormant. You won’t see as many new buds popping through, no matter how well you maintain your watering and fertilizing schedule [a lot of folks don’t recommend fertilizing in the winter but I sporadically…shhh!]. Same goes for us! Winter can be a delightful time of recognizing our own needs and validating our own pace.
GATHER TOGETHER
I don’t know if I read it somewhere or if I just did the experiment and discovered it worked, but I started grouping my plants together during the winter months and as a result, they died less often. Why? Well, I’m thinking it might be because it made it easier for me to keep an eye on them. Rather than wander around 15 different places in the house to care for the plants, I only had to stop at three, making it easier for me to notice when one was droopy, in need of water, more light, etc.
(You know where I’m going with this?)
If leaving your nice warm home to meet up with friends sounds hard, understand this: it’s about being seen. The thing we all want and need, yet we resist. But part of making it through seasonal depression is about adjusting our behaviors so we can produce happy chemicals while the weather tries to kill us. So meet up for coffee, go to brunch, invite your friends over to sit and watch Tubi movies — whatever you need to get that boost of serotonin.
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Tara Pringle Jefferson is the founder of The Self Care Suite and an advocate of slowing it allllll the way down between December and April.
