Winters in Juneau can be tough, and it takes creativity -- and small steps -- to keep your mental health strong when it's dark and cold.
This is Tongass Voices , a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.
And it’s been a ton of trial and error, and I think it’s some trial and error that came out of me not having any help or guidance along the way. So I think my main motivation is I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what worked for me, and I hope that I can be helpful to other people so they don’t spend as much time, kind of like spinning their wheels, so to speak, trying to figure out how they can feel better than they feel.
So I turned into a much bigger jock than I’ve ever been in my life, once I moved to Juneau. I started playing a ton of sports. I played basketball sometimes before moving here, but I really crave that teamwork, connection and social engagement, and that’s one great way to do it — especially in the winter.
Just what does feel realistic? Is it just going outside and looking around for 10 minutes and coming back in, just so you don’t feel stuck in your house? Maybe that’s the thing. And I think that that stuff does snowball.
Mental Health Tongass Voices Aaron Surma NAMI Juneau Seasonal Affective Disorder Seasonal Depression
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