November marks the start of my least favorite season. It gets dark before the sun even has a chance to make a full appearance, it gets colder day by day and there are not as many fun things to do because everyone wants to just stay inside and hibernate (guilty!) BUT this year I started preparing early for these dark, cold, depressing months to come.
In the past, around this time every year, you could say that once it gets below 50 degrees, the effort I put into my daily looks decreases and becomes a little lackluster. It’s very simple to pinpoint why this happens… I. Hate. Being. Cold. I lose all motivation around mid-November because looking decent and being warm do not go hand in hand when it comes to my wardrobe selection, and the older I get the more I’m realizing that I am not alone when it comes to the weather having a serious effect on my mood and overall energy. There’s a term for this lack of motivation and it’s called SAD.
…No really, it stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder and man, do I have it bad! I wanted to try to get ahead of my seasonal depression this year to hopefully help prevent it from getting as bad as it has been in the past. So I made the conscious decision to work ahead and create/buy some items to look forward to utilizing for the month of November and the foreseeable future.
MOOD BOARD
I found myself getting really excited about the idea of creating a mood board for the entire month! I knew I wanted this mood board to serve a purpose and help boost my motivation for the month. I Included a color palette that I could easily surround myself with by incorporating it into my daily outfits and placing hints of these colors in my most-frequented environments. This has forced me to keep up with the effort of creating looks every day that I feel good in. I love fashion so I knew by setting this up in advance I was just giving myself an extra little push to continue with my every day normal routine when I oftentimes don’t feel like taking the time to do so. But I know myself well enough to know that when I look good I feel good and if I let that suffer then I was going to suffer.
I also made sure the mood board has images in it that I’ve recently shot and plan to post on social media over the next few weeks. These images are from the last couple of weeks and just looking at them makes me smile.
SUN LAMP
I love sunny weather and feel my most alive when I get to be out in the warmth of the sunshine! So buying a sun lamp was a no brainer, especially since I live in the Midwest and during the winter months the closest we get to sunshine is the occasional 30 second glimpse we get of it when there’s a rare opening in an otherwise cloud-filled grey sky. If you relate to anything I just said then do yourself a favor and buy a sun lamp!! I did a bit of research ahead of time about the effects light therapy can have on your overall mood and energy (even though I was already sold on the idea just because it has “sun” in the name) and studies have shown that the sun plays a huge role in our lives when it comes to:
Increasing energy
Enhancing mood
Decreasing depression
and sleeping better at night!
Seriously, treat yourself and buy a sun lamp! I linked the one I purchased here.
Silk Pillow Case
Colder weather means the air is going to get drier and that means your hair can very well get drier too. I am a sucker for a good beauty hack where I don’t really have to do anything and let me tell you… this is the easiest beauty investment you will ever make! The benefits of sleeping with a silk pillowcase:
Less friction on your skin and hair- prevents irritation and damage.
A cleaner sleep surface- no more breakouts!
Less drying for skin and hair.
Need I say more???
To be honest I was worried that a silk pillowcase would somehow distribute oils from my hair to my face and cause breakouts or that the oils on my face would transfer to my hair and make it greasy but the exact opposite happened! Ever since purchasing this pillowcase I wake up with no fabric wrinkles imprinted into my face *hello anti-aging*, I swear my hair somehow almost seems more clean when I wake up (if that’s even possible) and I am noticing significantly less breakage to my hair. 12/10 would recommend!
You can purchase the exact same pillowcase here.