At the beginning of February, a new Mind Waves podcast went up on Anchor. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here.
The episode explores some of the ways that the winter months affect our mental health. Rosie spoke to Daryl McDonald, a person-centred therapist from Glasgow, and Jordan-Sarto-Francis, an American actor and podcaster.
Among other things, Rosie and our interviewees discuss the importance of acknowledging your emotions, being kind to yourself, and understanding your personal body clock.
Read on for an excerpt of the interview where Daryl discusses his experience of low moods during the winter months. I’m sure you’ll be left wanting more!
Rosie Do you feel that winter has an effect on you, personally?
Daryl Winter’s affected me personally in different ways through different periods of my life. When I was young, and I was a kid it was really exciting. Because it’s Christmas, it’s festive, there’s always stuff going on and I would look forward to seeing family members, presents, all those sort of things. And then I reached my teenage years and it started to lose its magic. And I remember talking to a friend of mine and he said, “you know, Christmas is amazing when you’re a kid, and then you lose it, and then you get it back again when you have children yourself. You sort of live it through them. But there’s this period in between where it doesn’t mean as much to you.” And I think that’s really what happened to me when I was a teenager. It really started to lose that magic. My family were all having Christmas separately from each other with their own families, the structure that I had at that age, when I was younger, disappeared, and I was a bit untethered from that experience of Christmas. And without that, winter changed completely for me.
In my late teens I started working a host of jobs in the hospitality industry; bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and anyone whose every done that will tell you that it’s a really difficult time of year if you work in a bar or a restaurant. It’s so busy, you’re working nonstop. So, for a long time I just didn’t like it at all. I was in a really dark place with it and I just dreaded that time of year every year. I remember when I was 14/15, at the time when I was doing this sort of thing, I wrote a poem about how much I hated winter, which I remember, I think it’s called Winter’s Curse. It’s gotten better since I’ve been in my late 20s/early 30s because stability’s sort of helped with that. And the work I’ve been doing with mental health; both on myself and with other people, has taught me a lot about how to deal with the emotions and feelings that come up from this time of year and how to adapt to it. So, winter’s really had different effects on me throughout different periods of my life.
So, there you have it. Make sure you listen to the newest episode of the Mind Waves podcast to hear about Daryl and Jordan’s experience of mental health in the winter months. If you’re interested in being interviewed for a podcast episode, or you have an idea for a blog post, get in touch at maddy@mindwavesnews.com or message us on social media! You can find us @mindwaves_scot on Instagram or @MindWaves1 on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you!
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