By Alliance Communications Coordinator Amy Durr
Heading into 2025, “33% of Americans are making a mental health new year’s resolution, a 5% increase from last year and the highest result the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has seen since it began polling on the question in 2021,” GlobeNewswire reports.
GlobeNewswire continues, “Younger people in general were more likely to report making a mental health resolution, with 48% of 18-34-year-olds saying so, versus 13% of those 65 or older.”
Resolutions aimed at better mental health include exercise, meditation, spending more time in nature, taking a break from social media and journaling.
I don’t quite qualify as “young people” any more, but the end of Daylight Savings Time still feels like a kick in the teeth every year. I’m careful to enjoy the “cozy nesting” of winter, as well as watch for signs of depression.
Winter Funk or Depression: Take Steps to Heal Your Spirit
Mental health resolutions may help with the “winter funk” many Americans experience as the days grow shorter and temperatures turn colder. The shorter days of wintertime cause some Americans to sleep more (41%), feel fatigued (28%), feel depressed (27%) and lose interest in things they like (20%), the poll also reports.
These winter blues are usually mild, but a smaller percentage of people might slip into a form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), the APA says.
SAD usually occurs when there’s less sunlight, and then improves with the arrival of spring. Symptoms include gloom, loss of interest in pleasurable activities, and changes in appetite and sleep.
“It’s helpful to keep tabs on your mood,” APA President Dr. Ramaswamy Viswanathan. “If you’re feeling very poorly, consider talking to a mental health clinician, and also know that spring is only a few months away.”
Fighting the Funk
Light therapy with a light box is the standard treatment for SAD currently, and antidepressants can also lessen symptoms.
Alternative therapies include dawn simulators, social activities, yoga, meditation, aromatherapy and supplements like St. John’s wort, according to the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.
Mindful Wintering
Along with therapies, mindfulness about winter is a way to give yourself a new mental frame. Plants and animals rest during the cold season, and humans used to out of necessity.
“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through.
“Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible,” says author Katherine May in her wise book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.
Mindful knitting, tackling a long novel or cooking hearty, nutritious food are all activities that sound much better in winter than in summer. And if you imagine winter as your time in your butterfly cocoon, what transformation can you make in 90 days?
About the APA Healthy Minds Polls
These results were drawn from the APA Healthy Minds Monthly Poll, which was fielded by Morning Consult Dec. 7-8, 2024, among 2,220 adults. APA’s Healthy Minds Monthly tracks timely mental health issues throughout the year. See past Healthy Minds Monthly polls.