With the arrival of autumn, many people notice unpleasant symptoms: drowsiness, decrease in mood, sleep disorders. It so happens that when such symptoms appear, a person tries to find a logical and easily removable reason and blames the “autumn vitamin deficiency” – vitamin deficiency. This connection between mood and the level of vitamins in the body is an extremely common myth, clinical psychologist Oksana Afonina from the BestDoctor group of companies told socialbites.ca.
“The only vitamin that most Russians are deficient in is vitamin D, so endocrinologists recommend not to stop taking protective doses of vitamin D throughout the year. With a nutritious and varied diet, deficiency of other vitamins can be prevented, and then you can completely forget about the “autumn vitamin deficiency”,” he said.
But the “autumn blues” are still a real problem.
“Autumn blues” does not come to everyone’s mind, which leads us to the patient’s personal history. It is important to find the trigger that starts the process of lowering your mood. Autumn itself does not carry any message; We ourselves paint this time of year in sombre tones with an associative thought pattern,” said the psychologist.
Afonina suggested a simple exercise: you need to write 10-15 associations with the word “autumn” on a piece of paper. Then group these words in pairs and make another association for each pair. In the end, only one word will remain. If you look at the resulting associative sequence, at each group separately and at the last word, then most likely the person will remember the event that will be the trigger of the “autumn blues”. It is important here to work on the problem, to review and re-evaluate past events from today. Perhaps this “time capsule” carries a valuable message that went unnoticed due to past grievances and childhood fears.
“It is also important to remember that these symptoms may be caused by seasonal affective disorder, that is, recurrent depressive episodes at certain times of the year. This condition can be difficult and lead to loss of performance, loss of enjoyment of previously loved activities and reluctance to live. If you suspect this condition, you should consult a psychotherapist,” he concluded.
Former nutritionist listed Nutrition rules to be followed in autumn.