Six Causes of Summer Sadness

Yes, summer sadness is a thing. It’s not just you. It’s not quite the same as winter SAD but summer can set off a whole ocean of conflicted or unhappy feelings. I’m no expert other than knowing how it is to feel underwhelmed by summer sometimes and definitely a winter SAD sufferer, so please add in all your own tips that you feel might help in the comments section.

Routine Disruption

You’re just ticking along nicely, and along comes some good weather and sunshine and all routines go out of the window. If you’ve got young children, for example, try telling them it’s fine to go to bed in daylight. It just feels all wrong – I remember it felt wrong when I was a child! Early daylight can mean you wake earlier, disrupting your sleep so you don’t get quite enough each night. If you wake at a 5am dawn, your mind can easily go into overdrive, worrying and stressing. Tip: If you find yourself waking too early, pop on a podcast or watch a TV show on your phone or iPad with earphones. It’s brain custard we’re looking for here, not challenging viewing, to distract from negative thinking. The more you are prepared to just go with it with early waking and accept that you are resting if not actually sleeping, the more likely you are to nod off again or at least relax with the situation.

Social Pressure

Instead of looking forward to going home after work, a warm spell can make you feel you should be out having an amazing time, drinking Pimms in cool outside bars or locating the nearest lido. Co-workers ask how you spent the gorgeous sunny evening and you’re embarrassed to say you watched Coronation Street as per, because it doesn’t seem quite worthy or interesting enough of a way to spend a ‘sunny’ evening. Tip: Don’t bow to competitive summeriness – say you made iced tea and leave it there. It’s nobody’s business but yours how you spend your time, unless you genuinely feel you’re missing out in which case, see Hopelessness at the bottom of the page.

Body Issues

The blessing of winter, despite the cold, is that you can harbour unshaven everything without even thinking about it under woollies and jeans. In summer, you’re positively expected to transform your top, middle, legs and feet into a walking beachwear shoot. Arms, legs, cleavage and toes are all expected to be bare, smooth and tanned and that in itself is a challenge if you feel self-conscious about your body. If you have particular body bugbears, facing your morning wardrobe can make you feel unworthy and bring safely over-wintered body worries leaping to the fore. Tip: A couple of maxi dresses are the answer to everything – the cover all your worries while looking completely right for the season. If the season has triggered bigger issues about your relationship with your body, acknowledge them as momentum to get help to tackle the feelings. Body acceptance is far more important than what you wear or whether your legs are a bit stubbly but feeling less self conscious about how you look while you tackle that will help. (Image from Hush HERE but Boden has decent options HERE ).

Overheating

Feeling uncomfortably hot all of the time is horrible – it’s a very different thing to having a gentle warm breeze blowing over you on a beach to having to cope an with a daily commute in a country to which air conditioning is considered exotic. People deal with heat differently – some literally sail through it claiming to love the hot weather and bask like sharks at even a shaft of sunlight. For others, it causes worries about sweating, looking red and flushed and even exacerbating existing skin conditions. Tip: The reality is that all the water in the world won’t make you cold but you can take at least the edge off overheating. Carry a cold compress with you in a canvas bag that you’ve had in the freezer overnight. It will take you through your morning commute and if you have a freezer at work, you can top it up there. Have a cool shower before you leave the house, and invest in a cooling stick or spray. They’re momentary in effectiveness but it’s a good moment!

InstaBlues

Social media does nothing to help the cause of those who feel sad in summer. Watching perfect people on perfect beaches wearing perfect bikinis having a wonderful time – no. Instagram isn’t a motivator when you’re feeling down – it serves up daily helpings of the life you feel you should have, the body you don’t have and the food you know you should eat but don’t. Knowing that it’s an illusion for the most part doesn’t help the feelings that you’re somehow missing out on something major, which in turn leads to feeling excluded from some secret wonderful life. Tip: If you feel emotionally wobbly in summer, disable the app for a couple of months or unfollow anyone that you know could trigger these feelings. You can follow them back when they’ve returned from a summer in LA or Ibiza or wherever. Use Twitter instead which is far less visual and be picky about who you follow or let into your timeline. You have to be your own happiness monitor on social. (Bikini mine, £26 ish, from M&S HERE).

Hopelessness

Hopelessness is very close to helplessness. How do you unlock the fabulous summer life that everyone but you is having? It’s incredibly isolating to feel the whole world but you is having fun. The reality is that many people have these feelings so finding something over summer that you know you will really enjoy puts a kind of purpose to the months. So, whether it’s that you set yourself a five musical challenge (go see five musicals), a five museum challenge (self -explanatory from here!) or even try five cocktails you’ve never had before (not all at once obviously)… you will have achieved and experienced. Grow herbs in a window box or garden, enrol in summer classes, get a new recipe book and experiment with different foods… it doesn’t really matter what you do other than that you’re doing it. Tip: Achievements are key to battling feelings of not being able to help yourself during summer, and they absolutely do not need to be high achievements or noble experiences. You can kick climbing Kilimanjaro off the list! Smaller effort achievements absolutely count. Talk through with a friend or family member what are reasonable achievements for you during the summer and get planning – sometimes it’s just that little mindset switch that can take the edge of feeling hopeless in summer.

Important NB: Summer depression is real – if you’ve tipped over the edge from summer sadness to full depression and you’re able to recognise it as such, you need to seek help from your GP. The further reading below will help you understand the difference.

Further Reading: The Cut, Everyday HealthSmithsonian, Dokteronline.

 


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18 responses to “Six Causes of Summer Sadness”

  1. Suzy

    Thank you so much for this timely article, Jane.

  2. Emma

    Thanks for this post Jane. I thought it was just me! I feel much better having read your post. I love your blog. I am about to go to Spain with my hubby and two boys and I am stressed to the max re holiday pics. I am as pale as can be and somehow I look even paler in summer gear – esp on camera ! I know it’s vain but I just really hate my holiday snaps.

    1. Jane

      It’s not at all vain.. I don’t like any pictures of me at all so I hear you! There is nothing like the glare of the sun that bleaches colour from everything, including people! If you have iPhone there is an app you can get called Warmlight that has a ‘contrast’ option – it will put the colour back.

      1. Emma

        Thanks Jane I’ll check that out. I’ve booked myself in for a fake tan at my local salon before we go. Might even get some new make up too to bring on a bit of bronze. X

        1. Honey McKinley

          You could always embrace the pale, Emma! I am whiter than an eel’s underbelly and burn in the merest hint of sun but refuse to use fake tan. I love being pale, looking different to others and being true to myself. So many women have told me they wish they could stop spending a fortune to look brown but they have freckles or skin isn’t 100% perfect or whatever and focus on hiding that rather than just saying that’s who I am.

  3. Jane

    Thanks for the article Jane, very spot on! I have suffered with depression for over 20 years and it is no respecter of season, it is just as likely to rear its ugly little head in summer as in winter. I learned a long time ago to not compare myself to others, although Instagram does mean I have to remind myself now and again. Instagram is an illusion, I just just imagine the mess just outside the shot when looking at people’s “perfect” pictures, like shoving everything under the bed to make the room look tidy!

  4. Gemma

    Brilliant piece of journalism. Thank you Jane, captures everything that’s hard about summer when you’re a bit wobbly, a bit lonely or just a bit too hot. X

  5. Troubleonline / Lee-Anne

    Brain custard – that’s what I needed early this morning when I awoke from horrid dream and couldn’t get back to sleep. Instead I surfed social media which I know is the worst thing in the circumstances even when I have my iPhone set to ‘nightshift’ to eliminate the blue light!

    Anyway brain custard is my new phrase of the month – I love it!!

    1. Jane

      Podcasts I like that are gentle and quite interesting are Stuff You Should Know and Stuff You Missed in History Class. x

  6. I feel sad already! So, it is real? Thought I feel worst because I am alone!

  7. Jaclyn

    Great article Jane. I’d add, don’t feel guilty about how you spend your time when it’s warm and sunny. Not everyone likes sitting outside, going on picnics, hanging out in beer gardens etc. Particularly relevant to introverts and those with social anxiety, because warm sunny weather seems to go hand in hand with lots of social engagements. If you want to go to the cinema alone or go shopping somewhere air conditioned (hello Westfield), go for it. There’s really no need to succumb to the weird pressure to ‘make the most of it’.

    1. Jaclyn

      Although you have covered that point in a different way.. ignore me!

  8. LilyM

    I really needed to hear this. Thank you, Jane ❤️

  9. Karen

    Such a good piece Jane. I identified with it so much. Thank you.

  10. I love how you always bring up pertinent topics that no one else seems to ever talk about, thanks for this! I personally don’t like summer much at all because I can’t stand the heat, I actually would much rather be cold, but I always feel like I’m the odd one out for saying that!

  11. Mandy

    Interesting post Jane!

    I carry a fan everywhere this time of year. I sit/stand on the overcrowded london tubes, get my fan out and waft. I reckon I could have sold mine on the tube a million times over the amount of comments I get. I pick mine up abroad (I have a large colkection which I match to my outfits!), but ebay sell cheap ones. If anyones thinking of buying, look for wood sticks, and a fully covered fabric, for the maximum waft! The pretty cut out ones do nothing! Something like this (I dont know this seller so cant recommend them, only this type)

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FANTASTIC-Wooden-Fabric-Hand-fan-various-colours-available/281138128435?epid=1756733304&hash=item4175236633:m:mmIO1Ihjk8HujoZlE7pLcOg

    1. Honey McKinley

      I do the same, Mandy! I can’t control my temperature due to medical problems so have a couple of pretty fans and carry one around in my handbag all year round. Before I got those I had some of the dirt cheap paper and plastic ones that don’t last long but are not too bad for wafting and means I didn’t fret if I lost one while having loads on hand to be able to give to friends in need.

  12. Gabby

    Even though it’s autumn and write dreary here in Australia, I loathe the summer for those very reasons you mentioned. The worst for me is the social pressure – I feel like everyone is judging me and I feel like l have to lie about what I’ve done over the summer holidays just so I don’t sound so fuddy-duddy! I work with quite a few bona fide beach bums and their constant questions and storytelling causes me a mix of anxiety about my own life and sadness about not being able to go on proper holidays. I just wish they’d sod off!!

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