Studies have shown that in areas where winters are long cold and grey the depression and suicide rates increase during those months. In those same areas, during the summer those rates decrease, which to me indicates that we have the same troubles throughout the year, but during the winter months when the outside is cold and seems dead the troubles are amplified to a point where some people can’t handle it. How do we help fix this problem?

Unfortunately I don’t think there is an absolute solution to it, but there are a lot of things that can help prevent tragedies such as suicide. One very important part of it is having family or friends that notice something wrong, and to take action. You need to be aware that there might be a problem and support that person through the winter months. If you feel that the issue is much worse than the simple season than drastic measures should be taken in order to protect that person against themselves.

If you think it is the winter blues there are things that can be done that may seem simple, yet very helpful. One aspect might be to just get their mind off of the season by preoccupying them with hobbies. If all they do is watch time pass of coarse it’s going to take forever. Maybe a trip to the hobbies store to pick out some things of interest would help pass the time faster. You can get them involved in lost hobbies they had before, or try some new ones. There are a lot of things that can be done inside, where you can get lost in for hours.

Another possibility is getting them involved in some winter sports. It might be a case where they just don’t know what there is to do in the winter, so they do nothing. If they don’t mind being out in the cold, there are plenty of things to do such as skiing, snowshoeing and even ice fishing just to know a few.

One of my favorite hobbies is photography. I think photography is so wonderful because it allows you to express your feelings. Not only can you do it outside, year round, but with digital photography now you can bring it inside and work on your photographs.

Any type of projects that you did yourself, that came from your own mind and creativity and were an accomplishment from your hard work are things that will help keep depression and winter seclusion away.

Modeling is another good one since you can model anything you want, you can do it anyway you want. In the end you can look at it and say “I did it, I worked hard on it and I like it”. With each new model you will get better and fix mistakes that you may have made on the past one.

I think the secret with all of these hobbies is to just keep the mind busy. Especially people who are very active in the summer and once winter comes they suddenly stop everything, they need to have winter activities to keep their mind active through the season. These are not solutions, but they may be able to help some people who just need to get through the winter blues.