Feeling low as the days get shorter?
It’s half past four on a Tuesday afternoon, the streetlights are already on, and if you live with seasonal affective disorder, the day can feel over before it’s begun.
You left for work in the half-light. You’ll get home in the dark. And somewhere over the last few weeks, you’ve noticed you’re not quite yourself. More tired than you should be. Less bothered about things you normally love. The duvet is winning more arguments than it used to.
If that sounds familiar, here’s what we want you to know first. You are not broken. Your brain is responding to a real change in your world, and it’s doing exactly what brains are built to do.
For some people that response is mild and passes. For others, it becomes Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. Every autumn, here at Inspired to Change, we hear from people who feel this shift and assume it’s just them. It isn’t.
In this blog, we’ll explain:
- the difference between the winter blues and SAD
- what’s happening in your brain when the light drops
- what the NHS offers
- practical ways to help yourself, starting today
- how solution focused hypnotherapy can help you get better, cope better and feel more like yourself again
Because there is always a way forward. Winter included.
Winter blues or Seasonal Affective Disorder?
The winter blues are common. You feel a bit flatter, a bit slower, a bit more inclined to stay in. Life still works. You still get things done, and you still have good days.
SAD is different. The NHS describes it as a type of depression that comes and goes with the seasons. For most people it starts in autumn or winter and lifts in spring. A smaller number of people get it the other way round, feeling low in summer instead.
The key difference is impact. With SAD, the low mood doesn’t just colour your days. It starts to get in the way of them: work, relationships, sleep, eating and the things that usually keep you going.
It also follows a pattern. The NHS may diagnose SAD when someone has had depression symptoms at the same time of year for two years or more. That’s why it can take a while to spot. Many people only recognise it when they look back and think, “Hang on, this happens every year.”
What causes seasonal affective disorder? What’s happening in your brain
Nobody knows exactly what causes SAD. The best explanation we have is that it’s linked to the drop in daylight over the winter months.
Here’s the simple version. Your brain runs on a body clock, a roughly 24-hour rhythm that tells you when to feel alert and when to wind down. Daylight, especially morning light, is the main signal that keeps that clock on time.
When the days shorten, that signal gets weaker. The NHS explains that this may change brain chemicals such as melatonin and serotonin, which affect your mood and your sleep.
- Melatonin is the chemical that tells your body it’s time to sleep. With less daylight, it can hang around longer than it should, so you feel sluggish and sleepy in the daytime.
- Serotonin is one of the chemicals that helps us feel calm, positive and able to cope. Daylight is one of the things that supports it. So are movement, connection with other people and doing things we enjoy.
And here’s the catch. Just as the light drops, many of us also stop doing the other things that support our mood. We see fewer people. We move less. We hunker down. It makes complete sense, but it can quietly make things worse.
The good news hidden in that catch is this: you can’t change the season, but you can change a lot of what happens around it.
How common is seasonal affective disorder in the UK?
More common than most people realise, though estimates vary.
The Seasonal Affective Disorder Association puts seasonal affective disorder at around 2% of the UK population, with around 20% experiencing the milder winter blues. Other UK estimates for SAD itself are higher, at around 7%, or roughly one in 15 people.
Whichever figure you go with, the message is the same. If winter hits you hard, you are far from alone. Even on the lowest estimate, well over a million people across the UK are feeling something similar right now.
Signs of seasonal affective disorder to look out for
This isn’t a test, and it can’t tell you whether you have seasonal affective disorder. Only a GP or qualified health professional can do that. But these questions can help you notice your own pattern. Think about how you are in the darker months compared with the lighter ones.
- Is your mood lower for most of the day, most days?
- Have you lost interest in things you usually enjoy?
- Do you feel tired no matter how much you sleep, or find it much harder to get up?
- Are you craving carbohydrates and sweet things more, or noticing changes in your weight?
- Are you more irritable, or finding it harder to concentrate?
- Are you pulling away from friends, family or plans?
- Do you feel guilty, hopeless or worthless?
- Does this seem to happen around the same time each year, and lift as the days get longer?
If you’re nodding along to several of these, and they’re getting in the way of everyday life, it’s worth talking to your GP.
Two other things are worth knowing. Summer-pattern SAD can look quite different, with more anxiety, poor sleep, agitation and less appetite. And people with bipolar disorder are at higher risk of seasonal changes in mood. If your mood swings high as well as low, please speak to your GP rather than trying to manage it alone.
Seasonal affective disorder treatment: what the NHS offers
If you think you might have SAD, the NHS recommends speaking to your GP. They can talk you through what’s right for you.
- Your GP. A good first step. They’ll usually ask about your mood, sleep, eating and how things change through the year. They may ask you to fill in a short questionnaire.
- Talking therapies. These include CBT and other approaches. In England, adults can refer themselves to NHS Talking Therapies without seeing a GP first.
- Light therapy. This means sitting near a special light box for a set time each day, usually in the morning. It isn’t usually available on the NHS because the evidence isn’t strong enough yet, but many people find it helps. If you buy one, the NHS suggests choosing a light that’s 10,000 lux, UV-free and UKCA or CE marked.
One more thing the NHS points out: many people need support every winter to stop symptoms coming back. That’s not a failure. It’s simply planning ahead, the same way you’d get the winter tyres on before the first frost.
How to help yourself with seasonal affective disorder: 12 things to start today
Here’s where that good news comes in. None of these need willpower you don’t have. They just need starting small.
In solution focused hypnotherapy, we talk about three things that help the brain feel calmer and more positive: positive action, positive interaction and positive thinking. They’re the same three things that tend to slip quietly away in winter. So that’s how we’ve grouped these tips.
Pick two or three to start. Small and steady beats big and abandoned.
Positive action
- Get daylight early. Try to get outside within an hour or two of waking. Even a grey British morning gives your body clock far more light than an indoor room. The NHS recommends getting outside in daylight every day.
- Let the light in at home. Open the curtains first thing. Work or eat near a window when you can.
- Keep moving. Regular exercise is one of the NHS’s key recommendations. It doesn’t have to be the gym. A brisk walk, a dance in the kitchen or a swim all count.
- Keep a steady rhythm. Get up, eat and go to bed at roughly the same times each day, weekends included. Your body clock loves routine.
- Think about vitamin D. The government advises everyone in the UK to consider a daily 10 microgram supplement in autumn and winter. It’s for general health, not a cure for SAD, but it’s a simple step.
- Go easy on alcohol. It can feel like it takes the edge off, but alcohol is a depressant and it disrupts sleep. Both work against you in winter.
Positive interaction
- Keep some plans in the diary. When it’s dark at 4pm, cancelling feels easier. Try to keep at least a couple of things each week. A coffee, a walk with a friend or a phone call all count.
- Do something kind for someone. Helping others is one of the quickest ways to lift your own mood. Drop round a meal, send a message, offer a hand.
- Tell someone how you feel. You don’t need to have it all worked out. Saying “winter’s hard for me” out loud to someone you trust can take some of the weight off.
Positive thinking
- Notice what went well. Each evening, write down three things that went well that day, however small. It trains your attention towards what’s working, which is exactly what a low mood makes hard.
- Plan things to look forward to. The Danes are famous for hygge, making winter cosy and sociable on purpose. Candles, good food and good company aren’t indulgences. They’re mood support.
- Ask yourself the solution focused question. On a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is feeling the way you’d like to feel, where are you today? Then ask: what would one point higher look like? What’s one small thing that would help me get there? Focus on that one thing.
Bonus tip: if winter gets you every year, start your plan in September or October, not January. It’s much easier to keep good habits going than to restart them from a low point.
Hypnotherapy for seasonal affective disorder: how solution focused hypnotherapy helps
Solution focused hypnotherapy helps you change how your brain responds to winter. It works alongside anything your GP recommends, not instead of it. And it won’t change the weather. But it can change how much the weather runs your life.
Why winter fills up your stress bucket
Here’s how we explain it to clients.
Your brain has two broad ways of working. When you feel calm and in control, you’re mostly using the intellectual part of your brain, the part that thinks things through, sees options and comes up with sensible answers.
When stress and anxiety build up, control starts to shift to a more primitive, survival-focused part of the brain. Its job is to keep you safe, not happy. So it does what it has always done when things feel threatening: it pulls you towards depression (withdraw, stay in the cave), anxiety (worry about everything) or anger (snap at people). It also tends to see the glass as half empty.
We picture this as a stress bucket. Every worry, every negative thought, every hard day adds a little more. Normally, good-quality sleep helps empty it each night. But winter makes that harder. Less daylight unsettles your sleep. You do less, see fewer people and have fewer good moments. The bucket fills, and the primitive brain takes more control.
That’s not weakness. It’s a very old brain doing its job in a very modern winter.
What we work on together
Our job is to help you empty the bucket and put the intellectual part of your brain back in charge. In sessions, we help you:
- Understand what’s happening. When you know why you feel the way you do, it stops feeling like a personal failing. Clients often tell us that alone takes a weight off.
- Lower stress and anxiety, so there’s less in the bucket to begin with.
- Sleep better. Hypnotherapy helps the mind settle, which can make sleep more restful.
- Rebuild positive action, interaction and thinking. We focus on the small, real steps that make the biggest difference to how you feel.
- Change what winter means to you. For many people, the dread of the dark months starts long before December. We help you build a more hopeful, more resourceful way of approaching the season.
What a session looks like
Each session has two parts.
First, we talk, but not about everything that’s gone wrong. We ask about what’s been better, however small, and what you’d like instead. We often use a simple 0 to 10 scale to notice progress and set the next small step.
Then comes hypnosis. This isn’t sleep, and you’re never out of control. It’s a relaxed, focused state, a bit like the moment just before you drift off or when you’re lost in a good book. You’ll be aware of everything, and you’ll simply relax and listen. Most people tell us it’s the most relaxing part of their week.
You’ll also get a recording to listen to at home most nights. It helps you relax, sleep better and keep the bucket emptying between sessions.
How many sessions?
Everyone is different. Some people notice a change within a few sessions. Others benefit from more time. If winter is a yearly pattern for you, a few top-up sessions each autumn, before the dark evenings set in, can help you stay ahead of it.
Research into hypnotherapy for SAD specifically is still limited, so we’ll always be straight with you about what to expect. What we know is that lowering stress, sleeping better and rebuilding positive habits are good for mood, and that’s exactly what our work focuses on.
Seasonal Affective Disorder: frequently asked questions
Is Seasonal Affective Disorder a real condition?
Yes. The NHS recognises SAD as a type of depression that follows a seasonal pattern. It’s not laziness, and it’s not something you just have to put up with.
When does seasonal affective disorder start and end?
For most people, SAD starts in autumn or winter and lifts in spring. A smaller number of people feel low in summer and better in winter instead.
Can hypnotherapy help with seasonal affective disorder?
Solution focused hypnotherapy can help you manage SAD by lowering stress, improving sleep and rebuilding the habits that support a better mood. It works best alongside any treatment your GP recommends.
Does vitamin D help with SAD?
The government advises everyone in the UK to consider a daily 10 microgram vitamin D supplement in autumn and winter for general health. It isn’t a treatment for SAD on its own, so speak to your GP if your mood is low.
Do SAD lamps work?
Many people find light boxes help, though the NHS doesn’t usually provide them because the evidence isn’t yet strong enough. If you buy one, choose a 10,000 lux, UV-free light with a UKCA or CE mark.
Can I have hypnotherapy online?
Yes. Solution focused hypnotherapy works just as well online as in person, so you can have sessions from the comfort of your own home. That’s especially handy on a dark, wet winter evening.
If you need help now
If your mood is very low, or you’re having thoughts of harming yourself or that life isn’t worth living, please don’t wait.
- Samaritans: call 116 123, free, any time, day or night
- Shout: text SHOUT to 85258 for free, confidential text support
- NHS 111: call 111 and choose the mental health option
- In an emergency: call 999 or go to A&E
Reaching for help when you’re struggling isn’t weakness. It’s one of the most resourceful things a person can do.
There is always a way through winter
Seasonal affective disorder is real, it’s common and it’s treatable. You are not lazy, weak or broken. Your brain is responding to the season, and with the right understanding and support, you can respond back.
When you understand what your brain needs and start giving it, winter becomes a season you manage, rather than one that manages you.
If you’d like support this winter, our solution focused hypnotherapists work across the UK, in person and online. Find a hypnotherapist near you, or get in touch by text, WhatsApp or call on 07780 592625 to book your free initial consultation.
Get better, cope better, be better.
Please note: as hypnotherapists, we don’t diagnose. If you think you may have SAD or depression, please speak to your GP or another qualified health professional. Hypnotherapy can work alongside the support they offer.
About the author
Gary Johannes is a solution focused hypnotherapist and the founder of Inspired to Change. He holds an MSc in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health from King’s College London, is a senior lecturer at CPHT Hypnotherapy Training and is a registered member of the National Council for Hypnotherapy. Gary also supervises over 100 hypnotherapists across the UK.
Last updated: October 2026
