Welcome to Joy Lab!: Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Aimee (2): Well, Hey everyone. So Aimee here, uh, first what's coming here in this episode is a chat that we had in our community. And we just wanted to share it here as well as it is so much about taking care of ourselves during the summertime. And so just wanted to share some good information that we hope can nourish you during these last bits of summer. Um, and then second. We have some exciting updates happening here at the Joy Lab podcast and at the Joy Lab program as well. So, this will actually be our last Saturday episode happening here on the Joy Lab podcast. We are going to move these Saturday episodes into a new podcast, our Natural Mental Health podcast. And that will be launching soon. So, stay tuned for these Wednesday episodes that we'll continue here at the Joy Lab podcast. And we will give you an update on when that Natural Mental Health podcast is set to launch. We're really excited about it.
So stay tuned, but for now enjoy this wonderful episode that we hope nourishes you as you enjoy these last bits of summer.
Aimee: We are, sort of in the peak of summer, the dog days of summer. And we wanted to answer some questions about what that might mean for self care. So, um, the first question I want to dig into, and I'm going to kind of just grill Henry on all of them. Get ready, Henry.
Henry: I'm ready.
Aimee: community members, just my own questions that I want to ask, ask you as well. And just common questions that come up during this time of summer. So the first thing I want to dig into is this idea of reverse SAD, reverse seasonal affective disorder. Is it a thing? Is it an Instagram thing? A scare tactic? Like, what's going on with that? I think it would be helpful for some good, solid information on what that means.
Henry: Well, since I'm not on Instagram, I can't really comment about that.
Aimee: TikTok. I
don't know.
Henry: So, um, it is a thing and it, I think it, there's good science behind it, but also just a ton of observation. And, you know, people are often surprised by this people who have it. They, they kind of wonder what's the deal.
Everybody else is feeling so great in the summer. What's wrong with me, but it is a thing. And I think it, it affects a much smaller percentage of people than winter SAD, SADS does. Living where we do, way northern U. S., you know, nearly everybody is affected by winter to some extent, maybe not clinically, but you know, we, we feel it.
Uh, but in the summer, it's, it's a much smaller percentage of, of folks. I, I'm just guessing right now that it might affect five to 10 percent of people. But there is a very distinct pattern. I often see it in, in my clients, I see it more in folks who have what you might call some mood instability or, or, just a lot of up and down in their moods, not necessarily bipolar, but just, you know, where the mood is not always as stable.
I also see it more in people whose mood tends to get just a little more agitated or revved up, if you will. And I think that there's something to the intensity of summer, the really intensity from all angles, you know, you're, you're getting just so much more light. And, and for some people, they are very sensitive to, to the bright light that happens in the summer.
I think too, that some are sensitive to the heat of summer and there's, there's really long standing observations that violence, for example, increases in the summer, um, violent crimes. And I think people that, not that there's a direct correlation between reverse SADS and violence, but just the, the sense that there's a, there's a greater degree of agitation or just getting revved up, your system can get kind of revved up.
So I think heat has an impact. I think the bright length of the days has an impact. I also think there's something to be said for just the lack of structure that a lot of us have in the summer. This, this affects me. If I, if I just get out of my usual rhythms and I just almost always do in the summer, I like it at first and then after a while, I just don't feel as good.
And I have a lot of clients who are students still or who have young kids, you know, who are home in the summer and just everything kind of changes. And, think so many of us enter it with this fantasy that gosh, it's summer, it's going to be so great. I'm going to get all these things done. I'm going to have all this fun.
And a lot of that might be true, but it also can just kind of wear us down. After a while.
Aimee: Yeah, I went to a, on Wednesday, a farmer's market. On Thursday, an outdoor concert. Friday, a Saints game. Saturday, a barbecue. And by Sunday, I was like, I do not like people. I think summer is a terrible idea. I mean, so fun stuff can be tiring, especially if you need to be alone for some recuperation. And, um, yeah, it can be hard to say no to social engagements.
And At the same time,
yeah. At the same time, realizing maybe that's what you need, a little pause. So...
Henry: Well, Aimee, you are getting geared up for our element next month
Aimee: I don't know. I'm kind of fun out
Henry: By the time we get there, you're just going to be done
Aimee: changing our element to solitude for August, which is part of fun for many of us. So yeah, we'll dig into that as well. What does fun look like in its many dimensions? Um, so actually on that note of how many activities I did, I noticed as well I needed to sleep more to recover and just, so let's, let's explore sleep. Just generally, maybe during these hot months or during the summertime, maybe separate from how many activities you're doing and you need to give yourself some time to replenish, are there changes in sleep that are common in the summertime?
Henry: There are, which I do think plays into this whole reverse SADs element. For lot of people, I would say the majority of people, um, they just feel better. They're more energized, you know, they, they don't need as much sleep. And this is clearly a circadian rhythm, our relationship to light, you know, the fact that we are mammals and we're in these mammal bodies and we're just super light sensitive.
And so for most of us, this is great. You know, you can get up early, no problem. Um, you might stay up later because the, the sun might not be setting until 9, 9:30. Maybe even, before it really gets dark, it might even be 10 o'clock, where we live. So that all has an impact on our sleep.
Tendency to stay up later. Tendency if you're, unless you have really good, room darkening shades, the tendency is you're going to wake up earlier. And even if you linger in, in bed for a while, chances are your, your, your body is telling you it's time to get up.
Aimee: So Henry, are there some, are there some pointers there to support sleep in the summer, so that we're getting enough, but maybe with the acknowledgement that maybe we do need a little bit less?
Henry: Yeah. Yeah. Again, I think if you're in that, I don't know, 80, 90 percent of people who, who feel more energized and maybe just generally feel better in the summer, you don't need to probably change a thing. Just go with it, you know, enjoy it. Um, you'll, you'll be fine, you know, if you get a little bit less sleep than usual, but for folks who struggle, I think it really makes sense to pay attention to this.
And, you know, there's a couple of things you can, you can do that are kind of simple, but I think really helpful. And a lot of it still has to do with paying attention to light and light exposure. So, folks who enjoy camping in the summer, for example, where they are not using a lot of extraneous light.
They still get quite sleepy and tired, you know, shortly after sunset. So if they're staying up with a campfire or something, they're still gonna get, like their body's gonna tell 'em that they're ready for bed about an hour after sunset. And if they go with it, you know they're gonna be good.
For those of us who have the double whammy of the sun setting late and I kind of energized and I want to watch something or I, you know, just doing stuff around the house and you got all your lights and electronics on, that's, that could be a problem. So really, really being mindful about shutting down the electronics earlier, being in a darker room, less light, maybe get some room darkening shades for your bedroom and that can help on the other end as well.
So, um, making it seem more like a typical day where like in the spring or fall when the days are a little closer to equal. I also find it helpful, and I do this myself, to just help tweak my onset of sleep, this is a time when I like using just a little bit of melatonin and I do it kind of earlier in the evening, like around seven or eight o'clock and just a tiny dose like one milligram or even a half a milligram of melatonin. You don't need much for this. It's just a way of kind of signaling your body that sleep time is coming and you do it, you know, two, three hours ahead of time. And it just kind of helps to kind of normalize your circadian rhythm a little bit.
Aimee: That's a great, easy, quick piece of advice. Sort of on that note, let's talk about supplements during the summer months. So, are there some common shifts that folks can expect perhaps in what they might take in the summer compared to the winter? I know my supplement routine changes.
Henry: Yeah. I think that a lot of folks who use supplements through the fall and winter, they're doing so partly to protect themselves against seasonal affective disorder, winter depression. And I think it can be super helpful. But if that's the reason for using them, you might be able to drop some of them in the summer.
So the B vitamins, I think are a great example. I love B vitamins. I think they're great for, um, preventing winter depression. I think they're great for helping energy, focus, motivation, you know, just as a helping a create a foundation for your brain to work better. But in the summer, I drop that. I don't feel like I need it.
You know, most of us, again, have more energy in the summer. And also I think most of us just naturally tend to eat a little more healthy in the summer. So we simply may not need as much supplementation. The things I still, use myself, I still use magnesium, my favorite. I know, I know. Well, which is another thing that I think
really can help with my sleep.
Aimee: good call.
Henry: And then, um, I still take omega 3, you know, for lots of reasons. I think it helps keep my aches and pains down among other things. And then, um, vitamin D is kind of an interesting one because most of us, I feel, can just go without extra vitamin D in the summer. But only if you actually get some sun exposure, you know, you, you do, you know, which, which is a, a double edged sword, right?
It's a mixed bag to get for some of us with really fair skin. Maybe it's not a good, healthy thing to do. Certainly our dermatologists would say no. But if you get even just 15 minutes of, of being outdoors between 10 and, three, let's say, chances are you're getting enough sun exposure, but if you know that you're somebody whose vitamin D levels are just chronically low, it might be that even with sun exposure, you just don't convert much into vitamin D. Your body just is missing something or it's not working quite right. There's been studies, even people who live in Hawaii who are outdoors a lot can be low in vitamin D because there's just something about the processing of it that doesn't work well for everybody. If you know that you're one of those people, stick with it in the summer, but you, you might be able to drop the amount from the usual recommendation of 5,000 units down to one or 2,000 units a day.
Aimee: Yeah, that's a great reminder to to get well, obviously to speak with your doctor before making any changes, but then get your D levels checked. Um, because and there's been some great conversations lately, I think, too, around vitamin D and sort of the research, the body research with, um, issues around correlation and causation.
I want to get into that because there's been, I know, it's just kind of some broad stroke assessments saying, you know, vitamin D isn't as beneficial as maybe folks have seen it. But there are some really important subtleties in those studies that I think are important to note, particularly for mental health and particularly when folks are deficient.
So we should do another episode on that. Okay, so before supplementation, how important, and you noted it, food is. Do you want to talk about a little bit more on dietary changes that might change in summer and how to support our system so that maybe we do drop our supplements?
Henry: Yeah, so, you know, I think one of the really compelling pieces of helpful information and research about diet is one that suggests that that we do best when we eat with the seasons. That eating the same 15 foods all year long, is probably not ideal for us because we might be missing on some nutrients, or you might develop some food sensitivities just to something your body gets exposed to every single day.
And I think that that's just a very easy and natural thing to do in the summer, to eat with the season, because it's just so bountiful and it's so delicious. And, so all of the, the fresh fruits and veggies that are everywhere, every farmer's market that are locally grown, and, you know, if you can get it and afford it, getting them organically grown, I mean, you're going to cover a lot of nutritional bases just by letting yourself enjoy the bounty of the season.
It's, it's just a super easy natural thing to do. If you do still have that reverse SADS we were talking about, where remember the tendency with that is to feel like your whole system is a little bit revved up or agitated, then I think the best way to eat is to have as many foods as you can that are kind of cooling that are light, that have a lot of water in them and that, that kind of help cool your body, if you will.
So eating according to the season is perfect for that. You know, all of the fresh, you know, water based fruits, the melons, the sweet corn, the tomatoes, um, and a lot of the fresh salad greens and such. I mean, those are all a good fit for that, but probably not having as many of the really heavy foods, you know, so maybe a little bit less meat.
Barbecues are something we love in the summer, and I'm not going to say don't do it for sure, but just kind of thinking about, proportionally, how much of your calories are you getting from meat versus non meat sources and, and for this purpose, for kind of calming down that agitation, eating a little more vegetarian forward diet is going to be a little bit better for you.
Aimee: Peaches on the grill, Veggies on the grill, elotes on the grill. Yeah, there's, it can be, uh, mushrooms on the grill. It doesn't have to be all meat, so you can keep those barbecues.
Um, awesome. I hope that this conversation on, um, just kind of these seasonal shifts that we have and how we can care for ourselves through them is helpful for you all. And with that, I think we'll just wish you these last few dog days of summer, the weeks of them, we hope they're full of watermelon, fresh foods and awe and laughter and fun.
Henry: Well, this, this just made me hungry.
Aimee: I know I was thinking about cherries and watermelon the whole time. We're going to have lunch. Thanks everybody.
Henry: yeah. Thank you everyone.
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