Gauthier Delomez 6:10 p.m., November 15, 2021

With the grizzled, cold weather that has been beating down in recent days, it is normal to experience spleen which can translate into seasonal depression.

On Europe 1, psychiatrist Michel Lejoyeux gives five tips to find a smile and help you get through this time of year.

November, it is cold, gray, sometimes humid and night falls quickly.

Everything to install an ambient gloom.

The negative emotion that awaits us in autumn-winter is normal according to Professor Michel Lejoyeux, psychiatrist in Paris and author of the book

Les 4 temps de la renaissance

published by JC Lattès.

Invited in the program

Bienfait pour vous

, the psychiatrist gives on Europe 1 several ways within everyone's reach to fight against winter depression, without taking medication.

Play sports

First tip: move your body.

"When we move, we increase our endorphins and the growth factor of neurons. Rather than doing crossword puzzles or training our brain while sitting at our table all winter, we go out, we move", explains Michel Lejoyeux on Europe 1. The psychiatrist highlights a Munich study which shows that "when you walk for ten minutes in the cold, you increase your heart rate by 30% and at the same time, your level of well-being by 30%".

Moving is good, outside is better because we will enjoy "the effects of colors, the air, and a few minutes of sunshine" thanks to the outside light.

Change your daily decor

Another fundamental technique to fight against seasonal spleen, change.

"People who have a high level of novelty research are rather better, resist more. We noticed during the pandemic", underlines the psychiatrist.

At home, this can mean changing the decoration or the arrangement of furniture in a room.

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Change your habits

If you don't feel like making such changes, it can't go through everyday "little experiences" that affect habits.

"You have to use your imagination", assures Michel Lejoyeux, taking for example the choice of a suit that you have not worn for a while.

Also, "to get out of your zone of confidence, we will speak to someone we have not called for a long time. We need renewal," he believes.

Changing your eating habits also helps fight depression.

Send a letter of gratitude to your spouse

Professor Michel Lejoyeux addresses the issue of the couple and suggests "looking for a reason for gratitude", always in the face of winter spleen. "We are going to write a little letter with three essential reasons to say thank you to the one who shares his life", he explains. A method that comes to us from the United States, where it is necessary to ensure the form. "You write with a nice quill, you roll it up and you offer it at dinner," continues the psychiatrist. All these tips help to "boost" our mood. "The novelty that we do not have in the renewal of nature, we will be able to see it in the way we think or behave", adds the professor.

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Dream voluntarily

Among the ways to better live this winter period, Michel Lejoyeux finally recommends "voluntary reverie", with ten minutes of empty mind per day.

"We realized that dreamers, those who wander the mind, are generally more resistant to winter and all that is unpredictable," he explains.

"This defect of being a little dreamy, of being inattentive, we will cultivate it once a day. We disconnect with possibly a very high music, a text that makes us dream. These ten minutes will reveal our true thoughts, and we will come out of it completely regenerated ", assures the professor.