One of the main reasons for the protracted winter blues, which often continues into the spring, is the lack of sunlight. Even on the first days of spring, when the sun is already shining with might and main, we continue to sit in offices and ride the subway instead of walking down the street. Of course, there is simply no time for walking. Meanwhile, the so-called short rays of the sun have the ability to activate the brain activity of a person and thereby stimulate our entire body.

To "grab" at least a little life-giving light, start your day with a little sunbathing. As soon as you wake up, get up, hang the curtains and look out the window for a minute - of course, it will be difficult for your eyes to immediately get used to the bright light, but you are provided with an energy boost in the morning. Walking to the metro or to work will not hurt either. Even if the weather is overcast, remember that sunlight penetrates even through the clouds - we just don't see it.

2. Load up on proteins

If you are going to run a 10-kilometer run, you better eat more carbohydrates, but if you want to boost your mood, improve attention, or, more simply, strengthen your brain, lean on protein foods. According to Dr. Debra Hollon, a nutritionist at Massachusetts General Hospital, the amino acids found in protein foods stimulate brain activity. So during the day, she advises to eat one egg, a glass of full-fat yogurt or a serving of cottage cheese. Another plus: after such a hearty meal, you are unlikely to want sweets, from which the mood jumps up and down.

3. Help your neighbor

Oddly enough, you can improve your mood and recharge your batteries not only by physiological, but also by psychological methods. For example, give someone a gift or provide basic assistance. According to experts, even just reaching out to an old woman getting off the bus, you can feel a surge of strength and joy due to the endorphins formed in the blood.

There are a lot of people around who need your help. And, as a rule, it is not difficult to provide it, says psychiatrist Judith Orlof. Open the door in front of your neighbor when you leave the entrance, give up your seat on the bus - and you can forget about the bad morning mood.

4. Breathe deeply

Breathing exercises are a well-known way to improve the condition of your body. Deep breaths allow you to get more oxygen, and muscle contraction accelerates it faster through the body. That is, tissue cells quickly receive the very fuel that they need to release energy.

But this does not mean that you will have to puff like a steam locomotive all day long. Five minutes of intense exercise in the morning will be enough. Try jumping rope or lifting weights - you will immediately feel how your breathing has quickened. If you are not afraid to catch a cold, after class go out onto the balcony or just open the window in the room and breathe as deeply as possible. If you don’t want to study at home, walk up the escalator to the subway, and breathe again when you go outside. Oddly enough, but after such a load, you will not only not get tired, but even feel a surge of strength and vigor.

5. Drink white tea

Of all the teas, this variety is the least processed and therefore loses the least nutrients. Due to the high concentration of L-theanine (a type of amino acid), white tea has the ability to improve attention and at the same time calm the nervous system, said Dr. Iman Hakim from the University of Arizona. In addition, the specialist adds (who, by the way, has devoted many years to researching the properties of tea), white tea has less caffeine, which means it quenches thirst better and contributes more to energy conservation.

6. Change your habits

A modern person with a well-established schedule spends about 80% of his day according to a knurled pattern - he gets up at the same time, goes the same route to work, dine in the same dining room, and so on. According to psychologists, such monotony also does not contribute to a good mood, so even the smallest change in habits will help you feel better. Walk down another lane on your way to work, eat some exotic fruit, and finally, put some other music on your player. Just do not start any serious enterprises - the search for a new job can, on the contrary, exhaust all your strength.

7. Work with your fingers

Acupuncturists (or acupuncturists) claim that their art can unblock your body's energy and thus permanently relieve you of feeling tired. But since not everyone has the time and money to go to such a doctor, you can conduct a mini-session on your own. For 3-5 minutes, massage the point at the junction of the thumb and forefinger with force, and after a while you will feel that fatigue and drowsiness recede.

8. Turn off your phone

As recent studies by American scientists have shown, such means of communication as a mobile phone and even e-mail are a source of constant stress for us - although we do not even notice it. The fact is that every time we hear a call, vibrate, or see a new letter in a virtual box, a small adrenaline surge occurs in our body. Now count how many times you have to receive SMS messages or answer calls on knocks. This amount of adrenaline gradually depletes the body, and to the greatest extent this applies to women, scientists say. Therefore, it is very important not to drag your work affairs home. If you work at a computer, at the end of the working day, it’s better not to even get close to the monitor, and you can turn off your mobile phone altogether.

9. Think positive

One of the best ways to recuperate and improve your performance is - don't be surprised - to meditate. But this word should not be taken literally. You do not have to read mantras and bend into the lotus position. Just in the middle of the day, find a secluded place (even a toilet cubicle), close your eyes and focus on the image of something pleasant - your favorite cake, a bouquet of flowers, your cat, after all. At the same time, try to breathe slowly and deeply. with a little practice, your meditation sessions will become more and more effective.

10. Carefully prepare for bed

If you want to fall asleep quickly and wake up with a fresh head, take note of the now fashionable phrase “sleep hygiene”. This means that your sound sleep should, above all, contribute to the situation in the bedroom and the quality of the bed. How to achieve this?

First, try to fall asleep in complete darkness - hang the curtains, turn off the nightlights, turn the electronic clock to the wall. Secondly, open the window a little - so that the room is not stuffy and hot. But do not overdo it - you should not freeze either. Thirdly, provide yourself with the so-called background noise - turn on quiet unobtrusive music, preferably without words, or leave the fan running. Under its measured buzzing, you will fall asleep much better than under the noise of cars passing under the windows or the ticking of a clock.

Sourced from The Health Magazine

Almost every one of us has such days when it is unbearably drawn to sleep, there is a desire to take a nap even at work. Hence the poor performance and irritability. Excessive sleepiness interferes not only with work, but also with leisure activities or childcare. In medical language, the phenomenon of increased drowsiness is called hypersomnia.

Usually, daytime sleepiness problem starts at night. Insufficient sleep for a long time significantly reduces the pace of your life.

Habits that cause a bad night dream , often cause daytime sleepiness. Try to put into practice the following tips to help improve the quality of sleep at night, and, as a result, avoid drowsiness and irritability during the daytime.

1. Get enough sleep

Most adults need 7-9 hours of sleep per night, and teenagers need more than 9 hours. Some are accustomed to spending an hour or two on morning activities, which can be quite shortened and devoted to sleep.

2. Remove distractions from the bed

You should use the bed only for sleeping, well, or sex. Do not watch TV, use a laptop or play video games in bed. Also, in bed, you do not need to check accounts and conduct heated discussions on the phone. All this negatively affects your sleep.

3. Wake up at the same time

People who have problems with sleepiness need to learn how to go to bed and get up at a certain time, even on weekends.

4. Gradually switch to a different bedtime

If you're used to staying up late, try to go to bed 15 to 20 minutes earlier each time for a few days. Gradual adjustments to the schedule are much more effective than if you immediately go to bed an hour or two earlier.

5. Set your meals to a consistent time

10 ways to deal with daytime sleepiness / shutterstock.com

Eating at the same time each day will help regulate your circadian rhythms. A healthy lunch and breakfast on time, and a coffee and donut snack in the morning or a sandwich later in the day prevent energy deficits during the day, which will worsen your sleep. The interval between the latest meal and going to bed should be at least 2-3 hours.

6. Be physically active

Regular exercise (about half an hour a day) is an excellent prerequisite for your good sleep. Physical activity, especially aerobic exercise, helps you fall asleep faster and sleep more restfully. In addition, they give you more energy and keep your brain active throughout the day. But it is better to train at least 3 hours before going to the side.

7. Adjust your daily routine

If you think you can't afford to sleep 7 or 8 hours a night, then you just need to make some adjustments to your own daily routine. Move some of your activities to the evening from night time or to the late morning from early. Try to eliminate unimportant tasks. Getting enough sleep at night will help you perform better during the daytime.

8. Don't go to bed until you feel sleepy.

Distinguish sleepiness from feeling tired. Go to bed when you are sleepy - fall asleep on the go, close your eyes, nod. This is a different feeling from the usual tiredness.

9. Do not sleep in the evening

A short evening sleep has an extremely negative effect on nighttime sleepiness, and daytime sleepiness is even more pronounced.

10. Avoid alcohol at night

Alcohol is often thought to help you sleep, but in fact it virtually robs you of the deep sleep you need to feel refreshed. In the future, getting used to drinking alcohol at night, at night you will begin to wake up as soon as its effect disappears.

Have a good night's sleep and good health!

Spring has come, the sun is shining and the birds are singing. Why don’t you want to do anything, don’t want to think about anything and your mood is at zero?

Unfortunately, some people experience spring depression. It appears unexpectedly, for no apparent reason. The person becomes distracted and irritated, apathetic and inattentive. If nothing is done, such a state of a person can pass by itself, or it can flow into a deep depression, with all the negative consequences on the nervous system and on the whole organism as a whole.

Spring apathy is one of the varieties of depression, manifested by a state of complete indifference and indifference to everything. There can be a huge variety of reasons, ranging from physical and mental fatigue to malfunctions in the body. Least of all, this has to do with the material situation of a person or with living conditions.

The reasons

As mentioned above, apathy has many causes, but most often it is the winter period preceding spring. However, other possibilities cannot be ruled out:

• Strong physical or mental stress on the body at work and at home.
• Constant tension and stressful conditions.
• Cardinal changes in life (for example, dismissal, divorce, relocation).
• Misunderstanding from others, frequent conflicts and discontent.
• Chronic diseases.
• Hormonal changes in the body. In the spring, the length of daylight hours increases. The body begins to rebuild to a different mode of life, as a result, hormonal disruptions may begin.
• Physical changes in the body.
• Winter period. This is vitamin deficiency and a deficiency of sunlight, which the human body needs so much.

All these reasons are only a small part. Each of them individually cannot lead to critical consequences, but if several of them simultaneously begin to have an effect on a person, it will be very difficult to avoid apathy and even depression. Share several basic human conditions in combination with apathy:

Fatigue

This is the most common combination. If a person feels tired every day, or he experiences severe nervous shocks, and this feeling does not leave a person for 2 or more weeks, it is necessary to think about the weekend and restoring the body's strength.

Laziness

If a person performs the same monotonous work for a long period of time, which does not worsen his skills, but does not improve them, this leads to a loss of a sense of the need for these actions. There comes a period of indifference. You can get rid of this if you start developing your skills and improve in them. It will be important to find the motivation for doing this or that work.

Depression

Another state of the body in which you do not want anything. A person is upset, irritated, does not see positive moments in his life. Loses sleep. The patient begins to suffer from headaches, exacerbate diseases of the digestive and cardiovascular systems. In this case, it is necessary to contact a specialist and eliminate not only nervous disorders, but also the diseases that accompany it.

Caused by beriberi. One of the safest types, as it is seasonal and passes with the onset of the warm summer months. A person begins to receive the much-needed energy of the sun's rays and vitamins and minerals from grown berries and vegetables.

Symptoms of spring apathy

The symptoms of this human condition are very strongly related to the causes. The more stressful situations or tension a person experiences, the stronger his apathy manifests itself. What you should pay attention to:

• Mood swings. Joy is replaced by irritability, and activity by a state of indifference.
• General weakness of the body.
• Rapid fatigue and constant feeling of fatigue.
• Sleep disturbance and, as a result, drowsiness during the day.
• Nothing that happens around causes joy, I want to hide from everything and everyone around.
• Laziness and unwillingness to do anything.
• Longing and disappointment in the world around.

If a person began to overcome such conditions often, this is an occasion to consult a doctor and begin to restore the body.

Who is subject to spring apathy

There is no specific group of people who would most often be affected by this syndrome. All people suffer from this disorder, especially in the spring. During the winter months, a person does not receive the required amount of sunlight, nutrition in its composition contains a smaller amount of vitamins. However, this is a temporary phenomenon and with a quick response, apathy can be eliminated. How to deal with it?

Food

In winter, a person receives fewer vitamins from food, since the season of fresh fruits and vegetables has already ended, and in those that are sold in stores there are a meager amount of them. As a result of their deficiency, vitamin deficiency develops. In addition, the winter period is the months of frequent colds, which can also weaken the body. In order to restore the level of vitamins and minerals in the body, in the spring a person needs to eat right, eat a lot of fruits that begin to ripen naturally. Reduce the consumption of fatty foods and proteins. It will not be superfluous to drink some kind of vitamin complex. You can buy them at any pharmacy. Saturation of the body with vitamins and minerals is the first way to eliminate the apathetic state of the body.

cleansing

The second stage in getting rid of apathy is the cleansing of the body. During the winter period, the human body has accumulated a huge amount of toxins and harmful substances that disrupt the functioning of individual organs and the whole organism as a whole. You can get rid of them if you start to cleanse the body. To do this, a person needs to include more vegetables rich in fiber in the diet, eat more fruits, and drink more water, consume sour-milk products to restore the intestinal microflora.

Lifestyle change

To get rid of apathy, you need to diversify your life. To do this, you need to accurately determine what exactly at the moment causes indifference and insensitivity to the surrounding people and things. If a person is sad and sorry for himself to tears, you should not restrain emotions, you can retire and cry enough. After a very short period of time, you will no longer want to do this, but you will want to do something and change in your life.

If you feel tired, you should take a vacation or at least a few days off and change the situation, because the cause of apathy is often precisely the monotony that a person endures every day. It would be ideal to go out of town, into the forest or to the country. Hiking in the fresh air will not be superfluous.

To raise your mood and general spirit, it is worth moving from winter stagnation to an active lifestyle. Start exercising, move more and walk.

For the treatment of spring apathy, it is not at all necessary to consult a doctor. After all, each person himself can understand the approaching state of indifference. As soon as he notices that he has become insensitive to everything around him, the mood changes quickly and it is not clear for what reasons - you need to start changing something in life. In particularly difficult situations, when a person cannot cope with discomfort on his own, it is worth contacting a psychologist. If apathy has turned into a depressive state, we need to talk about drug treatment.

Folk methods of dealing with spring beriberi.

• To restore strength and energy in the body, you can make a tonic morning drink of cinnamon and honey. To do this, you need to grind a cinnamon stick in a coffee grinder, pour it with warm water and let it brew, then add a spoonful of honey there and take it every morning before meals.
• If you need to make the brain work, it is recommended to make a decoction of mountain ash and rose hips. It not only has many useful properties, but also helps to increase efficiency and energy after a long winter.
• To cleanse the body, an elixir based on linseed oil is used. To prepare it, you need to mix lemon - 4 pieces, garlic - a few cloves, honey - 500g and linseed oil. It is not necessary to insist on the mixture, take it like this, half an hour before meals.
• An excellent way to restore the level of vitamins in the body will be a vitamin drink. It is prepared on the basis of carrot, orange and lemon juices. You can also add a spoonful of honey there. Mix everything and use once a day. You can mix the drink with ordinary kefir. This will only have a beneficial effect on the digestive system.
• With a general weakness of the body, it is necessary to drink tea from several types of herbs. It is necessary to mix in equal proportions the leaves of melissa, chamomile, linden, sweet clover and valerian. Pour hot water and drink half a glass two or three times a day. It is an indispensable remedy not only in spring, but also after colds that cause a breakdown.

What does prevention mean by itself, and is it possible to protect your nervous system from apathy in any season of the year? It is possible if you warn it in time, if you give the body a rest from physical and mental stress and support it in a timely manner with mineral and vitamin complexes. You need to start this from the middle of winter and no apathy will be terrible for a person.

With the advent of spring, strength and mood disappear, fatigue piles up and you constantly want to sleep. How to overcome the spring breakdown and overcome drowsiness without destroying your psyche and health? True-Lady.ru advises: do not swallow liters of coffee and energy drinks, use tried and tested methods that are safe for life and health.

In the spring, many feel worse than usual, and there is a scientifically based explanation for this: the human body adapts to the change of seasons, and, therefore, to changes in temperature and humidity.

In the cold season, blood vessels and pores shrink somewhat to reduce heat transfer and thus combat potential hypothermia. In the spring, the process is reversed, the pores and vessels expand, and a more active exchange in the spring requires more oxygen. If it is no longer supplied, then the brain feels oxygen starvation and ... wants to sleep, because this stupid world tires it.

If you sleep more and still lead a sluggish lifestyle, crawling out into the light of day only to buy supplies and check in at work, then it will not get better. We need to seriously change our way of life.

Running, swimming, aerobics - any physical activity, especially in the morning, will help the body to charge the brain with oxygen, and, therefore, finally wake up and feel a surge of energy. By the way, if you are especially sleepy, you should not do yoga or meditate in the morning, as this will have the opposite effect.

In the most general sense, in order to overcome spring sleepiness and feel a surge of energy, you need to eat more protein. Everything is simple: chicken, eggs, cottage cheese, beef - and in two or three days the breakdown will be replaced by their surge. In addition, the following foods will help you quickly cheer up: dark chocolate (cocoa 70% or more), citrus fruits (vitamin C tones), complex carbohydrates (bran, cereals, legumes), salmon, walnuts (contain omega-3) and eggs (rich B vitamins).

At least 2 liters of water a day is an axiom that should become the law for every person who wants to stay healthy. In the spring, the correct drinking regimen is all the more important because even slight dehydration, which is not yet felt even by thirst, causes a severe breakdown.

In addition, a sufficient amount of water will help get rid of toxins accumulated during the winter; carry a bottle of water with you, if it is difficult to drink it just like that, add lemon juice, a couple of mint or basil leaves to it.

Essential oils

Water procedures - for example, a sauna or a contrast shower - help stabilize the state of the vascular system, and aromatherapy will make the whole process enjoyable.

Essential oils of mint, eucalyptus, basil invigorate best of all. Citrus essential oils (neroli, bergamot, bitter and sweet orange, lemon) and with a floral aroma (ylang-ylang, rose) cheer up.

Music is not just an outlet, it is a salvation from reality for so many. In addition, it’s obvious that music helps to cheer up, however, what specific genre depends on the person: someone wants to live after the sounds of nature, someone needs to listen to incendiary Latin melodies or a popular group in the morning, someone just needs a heavy rock. If it’s completely unbearable, try choosing music that will encourage active action, you will want to dance or sing along to it.

However, if the drowsiness persists, it's time to be on your guard and visit a doctor: a breakdown can be a symptom of bad things, from hypertension and diabetes to anemia and even cancer.

Lethargy and apathy in early March are familiar to most of us. Someone attributes their fatigue to beriberi, someone is looking for the causes of constant drowsiness in the long absence of bright sun, but in fact everyone suffers from one ailment - spring depression. Although spring depression affects more people each year, the condition is poorly understood. For a long time it was believed that the causes of spring blues lie in the depletion of vitamins that are consumed in winter. But recent studies have shown that spring lethargy is directly related to the hormonal changes in the body that occur against the background of seasonal acclimatization. According to statistics, depression is confirmed by almost 30% of women and about 20% of men. But the high probability of exacerbation of the blues does not mean that it should not be fought. How to cope with spring depression and how to quickly get rid of its consequences will be discussed further.

Spring depression: main symptoms

Before you start fighting the March sickness, you need to understand what level of depression you are at. To do this, observe yourself and note the number of symptoms that are present. If you find yourself with 2-3 of the following symptoms, then you have a mild degree, 4-5 - medium, 6 or more - a high level of depression. Easy and medium levels lend themselves well to self-correction. With a high level of depression, the help of a psychologist is needed.

So, the following signs are characteristic of spring depression:

• high fatigue, apathy and constant fatigue;
• causeless irritability and aggressiveness;
• lack of appetite or, conversely, excessive gluttony;
• depressed emotional state, bad mood, lack of interest in life;
• loss of strength, apathy for vigorous activity;
• chronic insomnia and constant drowsiness;
• lack of sexual desire;
• inappropriate tearfulness or, conversely, the absence of tears at the right time;
• general deterioration in health, in particular, problems with the digestive system;

How to beat spring depression?

It cannot be said that the fight against spring apathy is a quick and easy process. But with the correct observance of all the recommendations, you can get out of this state on your own.