Early September found me once again in the BBC Radio Nottingham studio, on the Morning Show with Fran. Our subject was the effect of the changing seasons on people who experience the August Bank Holiday as marking the end of the summer, a return to work and the beginning of the long, dark haul towards Christmas…..

Many people enjoy autumn, with its misty mornings, crisp sunshine and beautiful foliage. However, many more feel their hearts sink as they contemplate the prospect of chilly mornings and shorter daylight hours, with little or no time off from work until the Christmas break. The roads get busier as the autumn term starts; summer holidays become a fading memory, and there may seem to be little to look forward to.

This time of year brings fears for some people of the onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a form of depression experienced by approximately 2% of the population, with a further 10% who present with just some of the symptoms (eg lethargy, increased appetite and anxiety) and may feel they have the ‘Winter Blues’. One theory is that reduced sunlight impacts the processing of serotonin in the brain (serotonin is a neurotransmitter associated with wellbeing and efficient transmission of messages through the brain); it is also thought that light stimulates the hypothalamus in the brain, which is responsible for mood, sleep and appetite and is sensitive to melatonin levels (melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland when it gets dark to help us sleep) – and people suffering with SAD may produce too much melatonin in the winter months. They consequently almost want to hibernate, feeling constantly tired, tearful, moody, stressed and forgetful, having difficulty concentrating, poor quality sleep, appetite changes and loss of pleasure in favourite activities.

People who are already feeling depressed, stressed or anxious may also notice an increase in symptoms at this time of year.

However, some people who would not normally consider themselves to be affected by the changing of the seasons, also experience particular feelings of dread as they contemplate returning to work after the (long) holidays.

There may be a number of reasons for this:

1. Performance Anxiety: often associated with people who have ‘full-on’ jobs or are high-flying/ambitious, but not exclusively so. Tendencies include a mad rush to get everything sorted before going on holiday – last minute phone calls from the airport to work to check on minutiae. Finally can’t contact the office any more…and RELAX ! (and then they may fall ill with flu-like symptoms – almost as if the ‘flu’ had been biding its time, waiting for the person to slow down/stop!). Intermittent worries whilst on holiday may include thoughts like ‘hope things are going to plan/ x has done what he should /they remember to do x  etc’ . When it is time to return to work the person with performance anxiety may feel sick, tummy churning, sleep poorly etc. Typical thoughts include: ‘I bet it has all gone wrong and they are blaming me/ what didn’t I remember to tell them?/ what if xxx happened?/ what will they be thinking of me?/ they will have discovered that x is so good at replacing me that they won’t need me any more…’ Lots of self-blame and self-criticism (insecurity)

2. Unresolved stressful work-place issues: typically, relationship difficulties with manager or close colleagues (= affecting self-worth/sense of unfairness); boredom or hate the job (= very stressful); too much to do/too little time to do the job properly (= sense of personal inadequacy, frustration, unfairness); communication problems at work (=frustration); redundancy worries (= helplessness). On holiday the person may be thinking/saying ‘I wish this could go on forever/ I could live here/ don’t want this holiday to end’ and may start to become sleep-disturbed, moody and become especially irritable on the morning of the flight home, for example. The juxtaposition or contrast with the holiday experience in which all the work issues were put on hold to the back of memory, can produce a sense of being overwhelmed ‘can’t go back/face this again’ and can sometimes result in the person putting off the return due to ‘sickness’ in which there are real physiological symptoms (as well as psychological unfinished business).

Working with the Dread

1. SAD and associated Winter Blues – light-boxes and/or anti-depressants to counter the chemical effects on the brain of melatonin surfeit and serotonin inefficiency; Cognitive-Behavioural therapy to explain the links between thoughts/behaviours/feelings and physiology in depression and structure a programme of activities and negative thought -challenging;self-help by seeking maximum natural daylight, exercise, balanced diet especially vitamins C and D, avoiding stress and seeking support from others!

2. Perfomance Anxiety – possibly incorporating self-help techniques auch as negative thought-challenging, but in addition developing a self-soothing capacity eg a gentler, warmer, wiser ‘other’ self, an imge which acknowledges the hidden key fears (rejection, exclusion, shaming) and gently and firmly challenges them, putting them in perspective as magnified, generalised and the product of fear, terror, even, and belonging in a past time, not relevant now, offering a more positive, realistic picture of what awaits at work. One to one therapy ( a Compassion-focused approach, or Humanistic/Person-centred approach) can help with this.

3. Unresolved Stressful work-place issues – most of these hinge on the person’s sense of powerlessness. The fear of change has created procrastination and avoidance of taking control of the situation. Books such as ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ (Spencer Johnson 1998) shed more light on the strategies we can use to sabotage ourselves and keep ourselves stuck. Surrendering our power to others and tolerating the intolerable arise typically from impaired self-valuing, often itself the product of past deficits in key relationships, eg parenting/abusive partnerships. Developing the courage to change what we can – which is potentially lots – also requires the capacity to self-soothe and self-encourage. Again therapy can provide the environment we need to develop this capacity.