Hello and welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition.

I'm Melanie Beasley, a registered and licensed dietitian with nutritional weight and wellness.

And before we start today's episode, if you enjoy listening to Dishing Up Nutrition, the best way that we

can share our real food message with more people is by spreading the word from our faithful

listeners like you. So if you know someone who might benefit from this or other episodes,

please share our podcast with them, tell them that you've been thinking about them,

and it's a great way to show that you're caring about them. Now, let's get into today's topic.

We're talking about something a lot of people experience every year at this time in its seasonal

depression, or those winter blues that seem to creep in when the days get darker and

colder and shorter. And with me today is my fellow dietitian and friend, Brittany Vincent. We're

going to walk through how food and simple lifestyle habits can make winter feel a little brighter

emotionally and physically. Brittany, have you ever had,

I haven't ever had seasonal affective disorder. You know, I feel lucky that I haven't either,

but I have people close to me that have. So I've seen the effect of it. And I think, you know,

living in Minnesota, it's quite prevalent here.

Yes. You wonder, is it because I'm just in the house all the time and I'm cold when I go outside,

or is it actual a chemical thing? Yes. Some of you might relate to noticing every fall and winter.

I think it often hits really hard this time of year.

You feel more tired, more down, more moody, you want to sleep more. You have trouble focusing.

No motivation. Yeah, basically. It's hard to do things. And because of that, maybe you're noticing you rely on sugar more because it gives you

a quick pick-me-up. Little comfort with food. And, you know, we hear a lot about seasonal

effective disorder that's different than a diagnosis of depression because depression is a

...