The clocks have just gone back – I do hope you enjoyed an extra hour!  This week we are talking about SAD – seasonal affective disorder which can be eased with some help from the remedies.

Are Bach Flower remedies able to take away the negative emotions?

We are just going into winter and the clocks have gone back and for those of you experience SAD you will no doubt be preparing yourself.  You have your SAD amp out, had have a vitamin boost and endeavouring to go everything you can to feel better.

There will be frantic preparation for the months to come.  The onset of winter and the long wet and dull days in recent years the summer has blended with winter – and we certainly don’t seem to have had the cold and frosty days.

Give me the blue sky and the bright and cold days and I am fine but even I struggle when the grey sits on my head.

What is SAD?

It can be recognised by a persistent low mood, a loss of interest in daily activities irritability, feeling of despair and worthlessness, lethargy and a tendency to sleep during the day and also the ability to sleep for longer and finding it very hard to get up in the morning.

The precise cause of Sad is not totally known but it is thought to be related to the lack of sunlight – sunlight helps the hypothalamus to work properly and when the sun is missing the production of melatonin is far higher and this is the hormone that makes us sleepy.

It is also thought that sunlight affects the production of serotonin and in the winter some of us are affected by low levels of serotonin and these can be linked to depression.

Finally, there is also a link to our Circadian rhythm – our own body clock – the body uses the sunlight to time various functions throughout the day and so when there are lower light levels it can disturb the circadian rhythms.

How can Bach Flower Remedies help?

Whilst I appreciate that there are is a huge range of products and help that you can call on to assist in the management of this scenario, I would like to discuss the options with the Bach Flower Remedies.

Dr Bach said through the time he was studying to produce the remedies that the aim was to treat the mind to help treat the brain.  I am detailing below the remedies that I have used to assist in the relief of the above symptoms.

Which specific remedies help the best?

Initially, let’s look at the remedy for irritability and impatience – here our ideal solution for this is:-

Impatiens – this remedy tends to be highlighted with a short temper and generally feeling irritable, Impatiens allows a more sympathetic and less hasty person to come through and enables you to copy calmly and carefully during a problematic time.  It is also good especially when the impatience is turned inwards, and you are impatient with yourself.  This remedy gives you some gentle TLC.

When looking specifically at Despair – this being at the more extreme end of effects of SAD, the remedy to assist with resolving this is Gorse – this will allow a feeling of hope despite the current emotional state, it will enable the patient to feel brighter and happier even though the circumstances have not changed.  Gorse can change a negative emotion to a positive and can be incredibly useful in the recovery from an illness.

One of the other symptoms of this situation is the reluctance to get out of bed and to start moving in the morning and in this situation, I would totally recommend the use of Hornbeam – to rid yourself of the Monday morning feeling.  This remedy will provide you with the emotional strength to fae the day and provide you a relief from the procrastination and mental relief to enable you to resume normal life.  Once you have started work in the morning the feeling will go away and you will be well on your way to feeling much better.

Olive is the next one, especially if you have been trying to work through the symptoms of SAD you may be left with a feeling of total lethargy and in this instance the remedy Olive comes into its own.  This remedy is there to revitalise your strength and restore your energy levels at the same time as helping to inspire you.

Getting through this period of winter can be also incredibly difficult and create a lot anxiety and anguish and to aid this I would think about using Sweet Chestnut, this beautiful creation provides us with the light at the end of a tunnel.  It will lift that feeling of despair and allow some faith and hope to return but at the same times leaving you feeling bright and more hopeful.

How can they help you?

I explained above how the individual remedy can assist to calm you and bring some metaphorical sunshine into your life.  The result of taking the remedy is very subtle – nothing drastic is ever displayed but you will gradually start to feel better.

You will feel calmer, brighter, more able to manager, the dark moments will be lifted, there will be a new purpose to you life and you will have a new found sense of purpose and energy.

What do we do?

In short, we will have a chat and you tell me how you are feeling, and

I will blend up to 7 of the remedies into a dropper bottle, I post them to you and you take 16 drops a day for the next 5-6 weeks, this should start to alleviate your symptoms and help you feel better.

This is just a small sample of the remedies that can help with this problem and there is so much more we can look at to assist in the relief of this problem. If you are struggling at this time of year and would like some help, to overcome  it in a natural way then please do not hesitate to contact me at your convenience.