Winter Is Coming: Time for a Sunshine Supplement

Winter is coming . . . I can feel it in the air. I didn’t grow up in Seattle, and frankly I never feared winter until I lived here. Arkansas and Louisiana get cold, but they can still be sunny, which is largely not true in Seattle. And though I thought I was prepared for the gray and rain when I moved here, I found I was not. I came to almost think of the winter as a living thing, the way you learn to see heat in the South or wind in the West: and I hated it because I literally felt my mood drop like a stone down a well whenever the sun said goodbye for the season.

The good news is, I’ve found a lot of help in several sources, including vitamin D. I had my vitamin D levels checked for the first time in Seattle, and found that they were through the floor. I was able to work closely with a nutritionist and use liquid vitamin D to get my levels back to normal. I feel better, I don’t fear winter so much, and I don’t drive family and friends crazy, running around turning on all the lights and mumbling, “It’s too dark in here . . . it’s just too dark in here!”

One thing I always try keep in mind as a massage practitioner is that if I’m not at my best for myself, I can’t be at my best for my clients. Sometimes that means a scented bath, an extra massage, a dinner of comfort food; or in this season, vitamin D.