Why Spring Depression and Anxiety?

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spring blossomsI’ve always found it curious that more suicides happen in the spring than in any other season. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Health Statistics, suicide rates are lowest in the winter months and highest in the springtime.

What’s so bad about April and May? The sun is out, winter coats have disappeared, people start throwing Frisbees, even our dogs are strutting down the streets with wide grins. Why the anxiety and depression? Continue reading …

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Therese Borchard
I am a writer and chaplain trying to live a simple life in Annapolis, Maryland.

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10 Responses
  1. Bravo! Reading this helps understand my own tendencies.

    According to Native American medicine Spring is more deadly than Winter. In Winter the body wears down it’s stores, but it’s the blustery changes of Spring that causes its demise.

    I work with horses, and horses also go through what you’ve described here. They go through a kind of eruption when Spring rolls around, bucking and pawing and challenging the rider. Especially on days of change — wind, barometric pressure, weather. Perhaps we humans share more with our animal roots than we know.

    And oh how light affects us. With the horse, their hooves and coats and hormones change with the seasons. Their entire metabolism changes! Certain diseases rise with the seasonal changes, just like with us.

    How much we’ve forgotten of our Native past! Honor it. Plan for it. For it’s when we’re taken aback by it that we really start to freak out.

  2. I like your theory. Allergies cause depression anxiety and chronic fatigue, due to the immuno-inflammatory cytokine response, which worsens depression anxiety symptoms. At the same time, everyone around you is getting happier, while you are feeling even more miserable, leading to a sense of hopelessness.

    An anti-inflammatory diet, high in omega 3 fats and low in inflammatory omega 6 fats, can boost your immune system and decrease your allergic response. Diet not only helps depression anxiety. It also helps fight allergies.

  3. Jane

    My anxiety is worse in the spring. I think it’s because everything seems very harsh and open. Also Spring is enlivening and in an anxious person it enlivens the anxiety. Also as everything gets brighter it makes agoraphobia worse.

  4. Sabah

    I am feeling depressed. I think because Spring looks all nice and every one is happy & I am feel miserable. I think it’s my parents fault. I am from another culture my body is use to warmer climate that is why I am depressed. Could this be the reason why so many in the States are depressed ? ” We human are like trees we can’t be planted in every soil or climate” my mom says. Ok, so why did they move?

  5. Margreet

    I agree with Jane, everyting is too harsh, too raw during the spring. I feel exposed and vulnerable while in winter I always feel safe and happy. Luckily I know from years of experience that around the end of may I usually start to feel better, but still tough weeks ahead. Good to know that there are more people with the same problem.

  6. Erika

    My body just freaks out during Spring. I don’t feel upset, nervous, or sad…but I have an extreme sort of response going on inside. My muscles are constantly twitching, I feel super dizzy and almost drunk when I walk around, I’m extra fatigued, any sort of cold makes me shiver like crazy, and it’s much harder to fall asleep. This is the third Spring in a row now where I’ve noticed this. At first I didn’t make the connection. I thought something was horribly wrong with me. But now I know it’s definitely the time of year.

    1. Erik

      Hi Erika,

      I am the same way right now. It’s been a year that I was diagnose with anxiety and had my first panic attack last year. I guess I always been an anxious person if I can remember but since I am getting older my bodies resistance to stress has decreased. . Every spring Im like this. I also link it to my spring allergy. Now that I know I am not the only one during spring I feel better. Perhaps all these years I was not paying attention to it that I have overcome. I also know that summer and winter I get better but anxiety is still there. If you want an email buddy you cam message me.