Retirement move: has it alleviated any health challenges or created any?
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New location = new plants = new pollen allergies. If you tend to have pollen allergies one place, you will tend to have new exposures and pollen allergies in a second place.
However, dry air may allow pollen, for example, to enter your airways more easily, so maybe more reactions. Moist air may mean more leaf mold, so more intense exposure in humid areas. It really depends on what you are allergic to. Cat saliva protein is the same everywhere. Food allergies don't change either, but maybe some foods are less likely to be encountered in some areas.
The worst allergens tend to be the ones you can't see. A lot of people think they are allergic to pine, but few really are. They can see the pine pollen at the time they are having allergy trouble, but it doesn't hang in the air long and unless you are out under pine trees while it is falling, you generally don't breath much of it. Ragweed is another story; it travels a long way in the air and the particles are so fine you may not even realize the air is full of it. Lots of ragweed in the SW, BTW.
Just curious if you rent or own in the Keys? My husband and I live in NJ, too and we are trying to make the snowbird versus permanent move to one place decision. Some say snowbirding is easier if you don't own two homes.
Back to the subject at hand, pretty much the only criterion I have for a retirement destination is SUN. (The warmth will naturally follow.) While I am sick of winters and snow for sure, it is the decrease in the sun during the winter that gets to me. The older I get, the worse my SAD gets. I used to pooh-pooh the existence of SAD until it hit me really hard. It took me a couple of years to figure out what was going on. I keep it at bay with a light box, but I want to be where it is sunny (or at least sunnier) in the winter. The first thing I look at when thinking about a retirement city is the number of sunny days the location has.
I know people who have helped manage depression by matching their home area with the climactic needs. They need sun and brightness or dark places come. It is really a very powerful thing. But the idea of a 'reverse SAD' is real too. Maybe its because brightness gives me major headaches, and I'm in the house next to the ac when its hot, but I look forward to fall and even winter. It's like life just slows and becomes very peaceful. I like it a lot more. I'm also very much nocturnal. It's pretty normal for me to be up until dawn and sleep then. But I'm energized by that time, and not bright daylight.
I have come to the view that what works for us works for us and we shouldn't feel like we have to be 'normal' since its supposed to be the 'right' thing. But then I'm fine with being one of the oddballs out there in life.
I know people who have helped manage depression by matching their home area with the climactic needs. They need sun and brightness or dark places come. It is really a very powerful thing. But the idea of a 'reverse SAD' is real too. Maybe its because brightness gives me major headaches, and I'm in the house next to the ac when its hot, but I look forward to fall and even winter. It's like life just slows and becomes very peaceful. I like it a lot more. I'm also very much nocturnal. It's pretty normal for me to be up until dawn and sleep then. But I'm energized by that time, and not bright daylight.
I have come to the view that what works for us works for us and we shouldn't feel like we have to be 'normal' since its supposed to be the 'right' thing. But then I'm fine with being one of the oddballs out there in life.
I have never heard of "reverse SAD", but what you say makes sense. Very intriguing. A friend of mine loves the fall and winter, too. She says it gives her time to slow down, sleep more, recharge. She has a lifestyle that allows her to do this; not everyone can more or less hibernate during the winter like my friend.
I am also not very nocturnal. I once took a job working 3rd shift and almost went out of my mind. I wish I were kidding. Just thinking of it makes me shudder. I always wonder how nocturnal people do what they do, and they probably wonder the same thing about diurnal people! I am kind of in the middle: my favorite shift to work is 2nd shift.
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