Winter - How depressed do you get? (Seattle, Spokane: apartments, houses)

[metoque]

Originally Posted by flyingsaucermom

I think weather/climate can have a (marginal) influence on obesity rates but other demographic variables such as income level (the big one) and education level (the other big one) have far more substantial impacts. HBO: The Weight of the Nation and any of your run-of-the-mill food documentaries streaming on netflix addresses this.

Just as an FYI, my comment wasn't intended to say that obesity is a problem in Seattle. I'm talking about body aesthetics, not medical health.

[cjg5]

Originally Posted by seattlerain

In all my life I've never heard anybody describe the climate here as extreme...

Yep. Seattle is only extreme in its mildness.

[Seminolepharmd]

My family and I just moved to the Seattle area last year in late September from Florida, so the lack of sunshine has been a huge adjustment. The last 2 weeks of September were very nice and then the weather started to change a lot in October. The fall season seemed to last just a few weeks and then winter hit all of sudden and it's been going on ever since.

The gloominess started to bother me around mid-December when there was only daylight (which looked like dusk) from around 8 am until 4 pm. I began to have a very hard time getting out of bed in the mornings and I very often feel sluggish. I exercise most days of the week and I still made myself get out and either jog or bike as often as I could despite not feeling like going outside in the rainy weather. Although I continue to exercise outdoors as much as possible, I definitely don't enjoy it in the winter here, which seems to last for a LONG time. I am a very outdoorsy person and I try but I just honestly don't enjoy being outside as much here in WA as I do in places with more sunshine.

I bought a sunlamp for SAD and I used it for several weeks and it did not seem to help me at all. I do agree with some of the above posters that some people can tolerate the climate here more than others; apparently I do not tolerate it very well. I feel like I have cabin fever all the time and I'm just itching for the sun to come out every.single.day and it just rarely does. Thankfully, my husband and I have careers that allow us to move fairly easily, so we probably won't be here for long. I have no problems with cold temperatures, but I NEED to see the sun more than it shines in WA. I know how beautiful the summers are here because I've been here several times during the summer months, but having this gloomy weather from November to who knows when just isn't going to cut it for me.

[west seattle gal]

Originally Posted by LPTP

How depressed do you get in the winter, on a scale of 1 - 10?

My husband and I have always loved Seattle and are hoping to make a move there later this year. The only thing that mildly concerns us is that neither of us have lived in an overcast/drizzly climate for a lengthy period of time and there is no way for us to know how we will be affected by it mentally. Neither of us mind drizzly rainy days generally. Both of us get a little blue in the winter no matter where we live. Right now we live in Northern Virginia and the winters here have been mainly cloudy and also just flat out ugly - all the trees are dead, the water is brown, the lawns are brown, everything looks murky, dead and just depressing. (It doesn't help that the people aren't the warmest either.) I'm from UT and I felt at least being able to look at the beautiful snow-capped mountains helped me out of my winter blues. I feel like what affects me more than anything is the scenery rather than the overcast skies, so I'm not really worried, but I would hate to get out there and find that I just can't take the winters.

So I'm curious, how depressed do you get in the winter? How do you deal with it? We already take Vitamin D and are going to invest in a sunlamp. Do you feel like the beauty of the pines and the water and the more lush environment there make winter more tolerable?

Thanks for any input! We just keep doing research and don't know if it would be an issue for us or not. We are headed there next weekend and I'm secretly hoping the weather is bad because somehow every time we go we luck out with great weather that isn't really typical. Not that I'm complaining

I become depressed every year around Feb, but then it lifts by May. Mine is a dysphoric type of depression. Seattle feels like a fishbowl in the Winter.

[cjg5]

Originally Posted by Seminolepharmd

I just honestly don't enjoy being outside as much here in WA as I do in places with more sunshine.
...
I NEED to see the sun more than it shines in WA.

You are only considering one side of Washington. East of the cascade crest the sun shines much much more than it does to the west.

[nullgeo]

How depressed do I get in winter? Why not at all ... I spend winters in Hawaii.
Aloha

[Inkpoe]

Originally Posted by cjg5

You are only considering one side of Washington. East of the cascade crest the sun shines much much more than it does to the west.

But there's no good Seattle substitute on that side and that's what people are looking for.

[mrman78]

So far, I've felt fine year round and haven't experience any SAD, etc. I moved here last April. Yeah, I prefer when there's some sunshine because it's so pretty out, but it seems there are at least some sun breaks every few days. It's the temperature I pay more attention to though as I hate being hot! I don't know if this last year has been unusual, but I feel it wasn't as gloomy as I was expecting. I'm also from the UK originally, so guess this kind of stuff is in my genetics and doesn't bother me as much. I don't feel it's gone more than a week and a half without some kind of sun break or something. I still get outside and do many things when it's cloudy/drizzly since the temperature is still mild. The only days I don't like are the stormy/heavy rain types since that really does stop you from getting outside! However, those are usually pretty well spaced apart.

[cjg5]

Originally Posted by Inkpoe

But there's no good Seattle substitute on that side and that's what people are looking for.

Culturally there is no place quite like Seattle that way, but it also isn't the dead, isolate, hostile wasteland full of rednecks and country bumpkins that some would have you believe it is either. There is plenty out that way, much more than added hours of sunshine per year, to make for a happy life.

[tickyul]

Originally Posted by cjg5

Culturally there is no place quite like Seattle that way, but it also isn't the dead, isolate, hostile wasteland full of rednecks and country bumpkins that some would have you believe it is either. There is plenty out that way, much more than added hours of sunshine per year, to make for a happy life.

I grew up in Seattle....lived there for over 30 years. I MUCH prefer Spokane Weather and almost everything else compared to Snobeattle.