Seasonal Depression and Sex

The transition to the fall / winter is synonymous with a lot of things — spooky season, cuffing season, and… a lack of sunlight. While we might not think of the weather as a factor in our sex lives, it can have a bigger impact than you realize. We’re going to get into some correlations between sex and Seasonal Affective Disorder (aka SAD or seasonal depression). But before we go any further, it’s always an important reminder that we’re not medical professionals. We’re here to help you learn about things happening in your brain and body, especially when it comes to sex. If you have any mental health-related questions or concerns, please chat with a healthcare professional.

Sad vs SAD

Seasonal Affective Disorder, Seasonal Depression, and SAD are all names for a specific type of depression that cycles with the changes in seasons. People can have SAD in the spring / summer or in the fall / winter, but it's much more common in the fall / winter. Ultimately, it’s short periods of depression that are influenced by the change in daylight. Although it’s short-term, it often occurs cyclically with the seasons and has the same symptoms as clinical depression. 

SAD can vary based on age, gender, and location. Women in their 20-30s living in northern states, and people with other mood disorders are all more likely to have SAD. For example, people in Washington are seven times more likely to have SAD than in Florida. Nationwide, about 5% of people in the US get SAD each year. This might seem like a small number, but that’s still over 16.5 million people. 

If you’ve noticed that as daylight changes, you have symptoms like fatigue, loss of interest, changes in appetite, lower energy, difficulty thinking or concentration, feeling sad or unmotivated, it could be worth talking to your doctor about Seasonal Affective Disorder. 

SAD & Sex

The brain is considered the biggest sex organ of the body due it’s function in receiving and processing every type of stimuli. So just as physical health can impact our sex lives, our mental health can impact it just as much. 

Whether it’s stress, clinical depression, SAD, other mental health issues, or just having things on your mind, everything comes into the bedroom with you. If your brain has other things it’s trying to focus on or a chemical deficiency / surplus, it can be hard to shift the attention to enjoying sex. This can present in a number of ways including not being in the “mood” for sex, inability to get or maintain an erection, or not being able to orgasm. All of these things are incredibly normal and don’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you. 

If this sounds like you or a partner, you’re not alone in experiencing it, and there are tools that can help. There are a few tricks we have that can help heat things up, especially in the cold months.

Light Exposure

It would be great if we could all live and work in places with perfect weather, but living life on vacation full time isn’t exactly feasible. When natural daylight isn’t accessible, there is research that supports the use of light exposure therapy to supplement it. A light therapy box is a bit like a solid ring light. It’s thought to help increase serotonin and decrease melatonin by emulating daylight when used in specific quantities. There are lights with higher watts and lower UV along with specific instructions on how long to use them and when. Chat with a doctor about their recommendations for a light therapy box.

Getting Outside

Some of us do live in better places for this than others, but even when it isn’t the best weather, getting outside can help significantly. Take a walk or a hike, sit at an outdoor heated brewery, or possibly just open your windows for a bit. While these things won’t eliminate SAD, they can give you a much-needed boost.

Vitamin D

Depending on where you live, it may be pretty common to have a vitamin D deficiency (we’re looking at you PNW residents or recovering finance guys). Taking a vitamin D supplement isn’t a treatment for SAD, but it can help with energy levels and decrease fatigue if you’re getting even less sunlight during the colder months. Don’t take vitamin D supplements without getting your blood levels checked. Your doctor will be able to run a blood panel and let you know what quantity is best for you.

Healthcare Support

There are times when we need additional mental health support. Just like a sports injury, we can’t always use home remedies to get us back to 100%. No one is giving out awards for “toughing it out,” and sometimes that will actually make it worse. 

Healthcare support can go a couple of different ways, with one option being medication and another being therapy. Both address different parts of overall mental health and are incredibly valuable. Medication can help provide the additional support that your brain needs whereas therapy can help provide a safe space to process underlying feelings and provide tools for everyday life. 

Neither therapy nor medication is one-size-fits-all. It may take some time to find the right therapist, psychiatrist, or medication that works best for you. Some mood medications can have sexual side effects such as changes in libido, so talk with your doctor if that is something you’re wanting to be cognizant of. There are lots of options, and ultimately these are all tools, so work with your doctor to find what works best for you and your lifestyle.

Forget Spontaneity 

We know, this sounds counter-intuitive. But it’s not what you think. This is a call back to two terms coined by our friend, Emily Nagaoski: spontaneous desire and responsive desire. Spontaneous desire is often what people think about when it comes to sex. That at any point in time, we could go from 0-100. Most of the time, that’s not the case, and this can change throughout your life. Some people do have that 0-100 spontaneous desire, and that’s great and perfectly normal. Others have a responsive desire where they need to have something to get them in the mood first. They are responding to sexual stimuli vs just spontaneously ready for sex. 

When we have external factors such as SAD, spontaneous desire can decrease because our mind is dealing with so many other things. This doesn’t mean sex has to be off the table, it may just require a shift in the approach to sex. 

Try scheduling sex, exchanging some (consensual) spicy content throughout the day, giving each other a massage, or taking sex off of the table. Sometimes telling ourselves that we “can’t” have sex for a couple of weeks with our partner can make us want it that much more. Try doing a mini-make out session without allowing it to go further or seeing how long you can go without touching each other with your hands during the make out. For a deeper dive into responsive and spontaneous desire, check out Nagoski’s book Come As You Are or our articles with Emily Nagoski, PhD and on The Myth of Spontaneous Sex.

Communicate

You didn’t think you’d get away from this article without a communication reference, did you? We reference communication in most of our posts because it really is that important, but we’ll keep this one short. If you’re experiencing changes in sex, whether it’s related to seasonal depression or not, talk with your partner about it. It will help get things out in the open and prevent potential misinterpretations of the situation. When our partners know that we have external factors impacting our sex life, this allows them to support us in it. Without looping them in, they may think that something is off in the relationship, that they are undesirable, or something is wrong with them. Alternatively, they might be unintentionally adding to the pressure of asking to have sex.

You and your partner are on the same team, so make sure you’re playing off the same playbook instead of playing against each other. 

So, if you didn’t think the sun has an impact on your sex life, there you have it. It has a bigger impact than we give it credit for. And as someone in our DMs said “we are all depressed and horny as we sit in the winter.” 

If you or a partner is experiencing SAD, clinical depression, or just having a season of feeling overwhelmed, there are many resources for support. Don’t try to tough it out, ask for help when you need it, talk to a medical professional, and keep your partner in the loop. And as a bonus … maybe take a vacation somewhere warm and sunny (just remember to bring your condoms and lube with you).