SAD and its avoidance, part ++i
Saturday, December 21st, 2013 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lethargic_manThursday was a beautiful sunny day, but I didn't cycle to work as it was my work Christmas party (on which I intended to be drinking). A couple of people had suggested walking to the party venue (Tower Bridge, very interesting), but after they dropped out from that, I decided it would be unsociable walking by myself, and in any case, my pockets were heavily laden down (with kosher wine to go with the Hermolis meal I'd be eating, and spending the next year digesting), so I took a taxi and got only a few minutes' sunlight.
Mistake. By Thursday evening I was feeling rather down, and in need of propping my emotional state up with the Tom and Jerry DVD I got for this very purpose. (I'm going to have to do better at managing with this once my mother has died and Tom and Jerry is out.) On Friday morning I was no better. It was another beautiful sunny day, but I was taking the train up to see my parents, so not cycling again. So I plonked myself down on the balcony at work and worked outside for three quarters of an hour (including a couple of minutes running my hands under hot water halfway through to warm them back up).
I'd tried doing that for fifteen minutes a few days earlier, but without success; fifteen minutes was evidently too short a time. (It was also as long as I could stand on a cycling day, on which I didn't have a coat. I didn't realise why the Gogol Bordello song "My Compañera" was going through my head until after I'd gone back in: the lyrics include "Then hypothermia took over"!)
The result on Friday, though, was striking. Between the sunlight and the music I was listening to, I went from feeling very down to regretting (because the sun was finally pulling clear of the hazy clouds and warming up) that I had to come in afterwards (to get my train). I think I ought to take some thick clothes to work to leave there in the winter for cycling days...
Mistake. By Thursday evening I was feeling rather down, and in need of propping my emotional state up with the Tom and Jerry DVD I got for this very purpose. (I'm going to have to do better at managing with this once my mother has died and Tom and Jerry is out.) On Friday morning I was no better. It was another beautiful sunny day, but I was taking the train up to see my parents, so not cycling again. So I plonked myself down on the balcony at work and worked outside for three quarters of an hour (including a couple of minutes running my hands under hot water halfway through to warm them back up).
I'd tried doing that for fifteen minutes a few days earlier, but without success; fifteen minutes was evidently too short a time. (It was also as long as I could stand on a cycling day, on which I didn't have a coat. I didn't realise why the Gogol Bordello song "My Compañera" was going through my head until after I'd gone back in: the lyrics include "Then hypothermia took over"!)
The result on Friday, though, was striking. Between the sunlight and the music I was listening to, I went from feeling very down to regretting (because the sun was finally pulling clear of the hazy clouds and warming up) that I had to come in afterwards (to get my train). I think I ought to take some thick clothes to work to leave there in the winter for cycling days...
