This time of year -- when they days are cold and short and summer seems like decades away -- everyone is prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a sort of 'winter blues' condition (symptoms listed here.) SAD isn't too serious -- it goes away from spring, after all -- but it can have some lasting effects, like weight gain. Because, not only are you exercising less, when you're feeling blue you reach for your comfort foods.

This year, nip the SAD in the bud with light therapy. According to experts over at The Daily Mail, a lightbox will run you around $200 and will help brighten up your home and your mood. Another sure cure? Exercise does a body -- and a mind -- a world of good.

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When my nephew was away at college he became very depressed. Frighteningly depressed. It took the whole family by surprise at first because we didn't really see it coming. He had friends, he had just switched his major to something that suited him much better. He had a great apartment and had just gotten a dog. It seemed like everything was going well for him. But then, wisely, he drove to his parent's house one night and told them he needed help. And he did. While he seemed fine over the phone, what the family didn't know was that hours away at school he wasn't seeing any of his friends, he wasn't going to classes, and he was too depressed to even let his dog outside much of the time. After his depression was out in the open we were all able to look back and see the signs that we missed. We thank goodness for the strength he had and for his ability to ask for help. And we've all kicked ourselves a bit for not seeing the red flags that were right in front of us. Had we seen those warning signs, we could have helped him earlier. Today my nephew is doing wonderfully; he's graduated from college and landed an awesome job. Managing his clinical depression is a part of his daily life; he understands his triggers and manages his symptoms well.

Studies show that 2 out of every 100 children and 8 out of every 100 adolescents struggle with depression. While full-blown depression usually starts in adulthood (as it did with my nephew), low-grade depression may start in childhood or teenage years. And it's important to recognize those signs and get help early on.

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If you're experiencing mild depression, lack of energy, sleep trouble, and carb cravings, you might just be suffering from SAD or seasonal affective disorder. You're also likely not alone. Short days with little sunlight make SAD a somewhat common condition this time of year in some parts of the country, but there are a few steps you can take to treat and ward off this condition naturally:

• Consider getting a light box. Thirty minutes exposure every day may be all your body needs to bounce back.
• Eat healthy proteins at every meal and limit your carbs to the complex kind: whole grains, fruits, and veggies.
• If exercising outdoors gives you the shivers, find an indoor alternative.
  
• Add additional food sources of vitamin D to your diet to offset the loss of sunlight. Think fish -- cod, herring, sardines -- or milk and fortified cereal.
• If it's in your budget, get out of town and go someplace sunny.
  

How do you keep the blues away in the wintertime?

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Me, I don't like winter all the much. I live in a cold climate, and the winter days are shorts and bitterly cold. I don't mind the first part of Winter, when holiday preperations take over and the anticipation of Christmas makes the season truly merry. But then January comes and I find myself bored, anxious, and a wee bit depressed. It's such a long, cold month, the holiday bills are coming in and there's nothing to look forward to, except it being over.

As Bethany told you previously, Health Day has some suggestions for how to avoid the Post-Holiday blues:, but here are some of my own:

• Do something new. Use this time to take up an activity like photography or yoga. Doing something new will make the after-season seem exciting.
  
• Take advantage of the down time. Chances are, there are several jobs around the house that need doing. Why not organize those holiday photos or cook up a bunch of healthy meals that you can freeze for later?
  
• Get together with friends. Chances are you were too busy to see each other around the holidays, right? So get together now -- it will give you something to look forward to.
• Spend some time alone. When I'm feeling blue, my favourite thing to do is curl up in my faovurite chair and read for hours on end. My second favourite thing is to go to a funny movie by myself. Being alone gives you chance to really relax and enjoy yourself.

How do you beat the blues?

I lost my much-loved dad a few years back and while I feel that I've dealt with my grief, I can't ignore the gaping hole in our family that's evident especially when we do our holiday traditions without him. But the holidays should be a happy time -- not a time to dwell on what we've lost.

If you're feeling sad or alone this holiday season, please read this article from eDiets. It's a good reminder that though grief is all around us, love and joy are all around us too. our loved ones would want us to be happy at this time of year, and if we let ourselves feel their love, we can be. For me, I talk about those I've loved and lost. I look at old photos. I cry, yes, but I feel their presence more when I do, and that gives me a sense of peace.

How do you cope with the holidays?

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A few of us here at That's Fit have talked about the damaging effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), referencing such treatments as light therapy and antidepressant medications. What researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stokholm have also found is that exercise can be almost just as effective a form of treatment as those mentioned.

Exercise, similarly to antidepreessants, increases the formation of cells in the region of the brain affected by depression. This not only applies for Seasonal Affective Disorder, but for depression of almost any kind. What's more, if you are already taking antidpressants, it appears as though exercising will compliment the effects of the medication.

So, if you're feeling a little down in the dumps lately, try throwing on a pair of sweats and going for a brisk walk.

As the mercury in the thermometer drops and the last few leaves fall off the trees, many of us will be feeling a bit blue. But are we suffering from a standard case of the blues, or is it a sign of something bigger like Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)? According to AOL Body, here are the signs that it might be SAD:

• You crave comfort foods, especially carbs, and may even gain weight as a result
• You mood is distinctly worse during the winter -- but you perk up as soon as summer shows up again
• You're depressed throughout the day -- no just as certain times like mid-afternoon.
  
• You're depressed despite the absence of any sort of traumatic recent event that would cause it.
  
• You feel drowsy all day long, and can't seem to get enough sleep.

If you think you might have SAD, talk to your doctor. There are natural ways to treat the condition.

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With the holiday season now upon us, you can already feel that strange mix of joy and stress starting to percolate, can't you? Spending time with loved ones brings (most of us) a great deal of pleasure, while at the same time following through on holiday-related commitments, making travel arrangements, and being everything to everyone can sometimes be a bit too much to take. Be this as it may, for some people, this time of year ushers in a far more serious problem, one that truly has little to do with holiday stress and even less to do with holiday joy.

Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as SAD, triggers feelings of lethargy, sadness and depression during the colder months in those who suffer from it. Last month, our own Bethany Sanders talked about this disorder, referencing its onset and some potential treatment methods. Now, a whole month later -- and with the days growing shorter and colder -- people with SAD may be finding themselves in an extended period of doldrums.

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I'm currently in Australia on an extended holiday and I learned pretty quickly that homesickness isn't just for kids. Whether you're a kid away at summer camp, a new university student away at college or an adult who has recently moved to a new city, it's totally natural to miss your family, friends, pets and old life back at home.

For me, homesickness struck this weekend, as it was Thanksgiving in Canada. Knowing that all of my family was getting together for dinner, and my friends were enjoying a long weekend together, made me feel terribly lonely and sad. Much like any other situation when someone is missing home, it's not that I'm not having a great time here, it's just that I wish everyone I love from home was here having a great time with me!

If you've found yourself in the situation where you're pining away for family and friends, take a look at these tips from the University of Cambridge on dealing with homesickness. While the advice is aimed toward students, much of it applies to pretty much anyone and could really help you feel a little bit less lonely.

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As my kids and I took a bedtime bike ride around the block the other night, I lamented how it was already getting starting to get dark. Soon, our evening trips outdoors will start to be shorter and shorter, and by January, it'll be dark by 5 P.M. I don't know about you, but when it's cold and dark outside, I feel like curling up with something warm to drink and watching Grey's Anatomy.

It's natural to want to slow down in the wintertime, and we often have to work harder at staying true to our health and fitness goals. But if the shorter days of autumn and winter find you feeling unmotivated, uninterested in your regular activities, fatigued, or depressed, you may be suffering from seasonal affective disorder (SAD). The shortage of sunlight on those cold winter days is thought to cause a chemical imbalance in some people, and up to 20% of people may suffer from the disorder.

The solution is to get outside while it's light out as much as you can -- even if it's cold and cloudy -- and try to expose your eyes to at least an hour of light a day. If SAD gets serious, it can also be treated with antidepressants, psychotherapy, and light therapy.

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Meeting someone who you really feel that you connect with can be pretty powerful. Love ,or even just like, for a partner can be such a strong emotion that sometimes we may not realize when a relationship gradually turns from postive to negative.

When you first meet someone and they seem to be fantastic, it is hard to admit it later on if they become scary or controlling, because you always think back to those first great days and say to yourself "well, it wasn't always like this, maybe he/she is just having a rough time right now. I'm sure that eventually things will return to how they were when we first started dating." Unfortunately, that's not usually the case.

Codependent relationships are never healthy, can ruin your self esteem and will often leave you feeling sad, hurt, fearful and wishing that your life will change for the better. If you're worried that you're in a relationship with a controlling partner, take a look at this piece for signs that signal an unhealthy codependent relationship, and if necessary seek help from friends, family, your personal physcian or another person you trust. Above all ,don't let memories of how things were cloud your judgement of how things are.

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I've always found goodbyes very sad and really difficult, and parting with a boyfriend has always been the most difficult kind of goodbye. Whether you're the breaker or the breakee -- or even if the break up is totally mutual, ending a relationship is painful. Recently Brian White wrote a post regarding a study with results that showed breaking up isn't actually that hard to do. It makes me wonder who was participating in the study -- robots perhaps that weren't programed to have feelings?

I know everyone has different experiences and I suppose that for some people, breaking up isn't that big of a deal but for everyone I know it pretty much just sucks. I agree with the author of this piece who discusses how the worst part of breaking up is all of the analysis that goes on in your head in the weeks and even months after you've ended things with your partner. Questions like "Did I do the right thing?", "What if I'd done a, b or c differently?" and "If things were so great at first, what happened to change everything?" can be torturous to someone suffering from post-break up blues.

I think the only saving grace is keeping in mind that pretty much everyone you know has been where you are and made it through, and likely you've been there before too. It may be difficult in the here and now, but try to remember that in time you'll look back and wonder why you were so upset in the first place.

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It's a gloomy day where I live, and the days are getting shorter, which unfortunately means a resurrection of the sweaters that have been taking up room in my closet. The thought of it makes me kind of sad actually.

But as Fitsugar points out, just because summers almost over, doesn't mean that you should let the bathing-suit body you spend countless hours trying to get into tip-top shape go. The motivation to trim the tummy might not be as strong anymore, but there are many good reasons to keep up your bikini routine, including:

• Exercise combats the effects of SAD (seasonal affective disorder)
• Winter sports, like skiing and skating, require you to be in fairly good shape
• It will make it easier to get ready for next year's bikini season

Want more motivation? Check out the post on Fitsugar.

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A new study shows that the best treatment for depression patients that aren't responding to medication is exercise. It's been previously shown that physically active people are less likely to suffer from symptoms of depression, and also that exercise can be used as an effective part of an overall depression treatment program, but this is the first time exercise has been looked at in regards to helping people whose symptoms are resistant to medications.

This strengthens the evidence that although exercise should always be part of an effective depression treatment regimen, it should be especially focused on in difficult cases.

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When I'm feeling low, I reach for the macaroni and cheese, the pasta, the bread, the tapioca pudding. Those are my comfort foods, what I irrationally use to feel better, though I tend to feel worse afterwards. But a new study shows that we don't always binge on comfort foods when we're feeling down -- we do it when we're feeling happy too.

The reason is simple -- comfort foods are things that are usually full of carbs or sugar so they help maintain a good mood. Also, they're foods we love, and when we're feeling good we like to reward ourselves. I believe it -- when I worked a regular work week, I always felt the need to reward myself on Friday, as if it was some sort of special occasion, a reward for getting through yet another grueling week. I also rewarded myself on Saturday because, hooray, I have a day off. And Sunday I had an extra helping of dessert because boo-hoo, I had to go back to work tomorrow. You get the gist.

What can we do? I wish I could change my idea of comfort food from Mac n'Cheese to carrots or low-fat cottage cheese, but alas, I don't see that happening any time soon. How about a different sort of rewards system that doesn't involve food? Like, say, a pedicure for a job well done? How do you resist the allure of comfort food?

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