People often associate the fall season with crisp air, pumpkin patches and warm cinnamon-flavored drinks. While there are many positive things that are common during this time of year, they don’t automatically make the difficult stuff go away, like your depression symptoms. 

Seasonal depression, clinically referred to as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), affects approximately 5% of the U.S. population in any given year, but mental distress doesn’t have a time frame. Whether you’ve been experiencing persistent depression symptoms for a while or you experience them on a seasonal cycle, coping strategies can help support your mental health as you approach the last few months of the year.

Read on to learn practical coping strategies for depression that can help you through the fall season (and many seasons afterward). 

5 practical coping strategies for depression to incorporate into your fall season

Developing and practicing coping strategies is an essential aspect of your mental health journey, but they can range in practicality. For example, spending time in nature can help to reduce stress and feel a sense of belonging, but that’s not always easy to do if you live in a big city. If you’re at a holiday dinner with your family and you’re feeling distressed during the meal, you might not be able to suddenly excuse yourself without drawing unwanted attention.

Here are practical coping strategies for your depression that can help you during autumn:

• Ground yourself in the moment.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed by negative thoughts and emotions, it can feel like you don’t know which way is up or like you’re unable to climb your way out of that headspace. Grounding techniques can help you to shift your mindset to the present moment and interrupt your ruminating thoughts.

You can focus on the present moment to work through negativity with a variety of techniques, including:

• 5-4-3-2-1 technique
• Counting backward from 100
• Listing categorized favorites (movies, foods, songs)

• Write it out.

If you feel like you don’t have a way to express your thoughts, putting them on paper can make a difference. When you’re experiencing depression symptoms, writing out your emotions or keeping a journal can help you let out your thoughts that might not be easy to verbalize or make sense of in your head. Because when the words are for your eyes only, they don’t have to make sense — they just have to alleviate the weight on your mind.

You’re likely to find a way to write out your thoughts no matter where you are, whether it’s on your phone’s notes app or on a scrap piece of paper in your room.

• Open up to a trusted person.

Experiencing depression symptoms can make you want to withdraw or put up emotional walls to reduce the risk of feeling further distress from others (or causing the distress). Even if the phrase “talk to someone” might seem broad or disingenuous, opening up is an effective coping strategy for many people.

Whether you meet for coffee with a friend, send out a text to a family member or reach out to a mental health professional, anytime you can talk about your challenges provides an opportunity to feel validated in your emotions and support from those who have your best interests at heart. 

• Adjust your negative thoughts.

If you’re experiencing depression, it feels like the floodgates have opened for negativity and unhelpful thoughts. Even though you can’t control the initial thoughts that pop into your head, you can control how you react to them. When you’re having the same negative thoughts over and over, you can try to take control of those thoughts and adjust them to something more positive, alleviating the distress. 

For example, if you keep thinking, “My friends don’t really want me at their Halloween movie marathon, they’re just being nice,” you can change it to, “My friends must really value my company because they made sure to let me know that I’m invited.”

• Step away from your phone.

It can be a challenge to pull yourself away from the draw of your phone. We all hope that the next social media post we see or the next video we watch will give us the laugh or positive emotions that we’re struggling to find in reality. However, excessive smartphone use has been associated with worsening mental health conditions, including depression. 

If you’re trying to manage your depression symptoms, try to put your phone in another room for a while, or set app time limits to reduce excessive scrolling. Instead, try to fill that time with other activities that help mood regulation and stress management (e.g., reading or puzzles).

If you’re having trouble enjoying the fall season because of your depression, it can be beneficial to book a therapy appointment. But if the depression is interfering with your overall quality of life, such as your productivity and sense of self, Lightfully’s four levels of care can provide you with the higher levels of support you may need, including:

• Residential Treatment
• Partial Hospitalization Program 
• Intensive Outpatient Program
• Virtual Services (vPHP/vIOP)

Change is possible. When you’re ready to take the first step, reach out to our Admissions Concierge Team. We’ll take the next steps together, toward the fullest, brightest version of you.