How to Beat Depression on the Oregon Coast

Living on the edge of Oregon gives you a swirling view of the ocean, the mighty roar of seaside storms and, as I found out, a bad case of the rainy day blues. With an annual rainfall that often sloshes into the triple digits, living on the Oregon coast without a bout of foggy depression is no easy task. But it can be done.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Boots
• Raincoat
• Full-spectrum lamp
• Positive attitude

1. Accept it. The Oregon coast is going to be cloudy, rainy and often drab. Sometimes my clothes wouldn’t dry for six weeks after I washed them. Don’t even try to keep your car clean. Everything is muddy. It’s a way of life.
2. View the trade-off. All that rain creates the greenest forests, trees that tower several stories into the sky and the coolest eddies full of starfish. The air is always fresh and clean. You have a view of the ocean from your living room.
3. Dress appropriately. No one can avoid depression if she traipses about in a sundress on a cloudy day. Invest in a killer raincoat and some hip galoshes. Yes, you can find hip galoshes; look online.
4. Create rainy day activities. An Oregon friend of mine stockpiles natural art supplies from the seaside or forest the three days per year it’s sunny. The rest of the time she’s cozy creating in her studio. Become a movie buff. Read. Write that novel you always yearned to. Make kelp art. Measure banana slugs.
5. Go out anyway. Some thicker forests won’t even let the rain penetrate. Even the preschooers still go on their apple picking field trip in the rain. Their teacher advised me, “It’s Oregon. If we waited for it not to rain, we’d never go at all.”
6. Buy a full-spectrum lamp. Created to simulate sunlight, the lamps give your body the sunshine it needs not to fall into the bottomless urge to simply spend every day in bed.
7. Check your attitude. If it stinks and all you can think of how much you hate the rain, do what I did and move to Arizona.

Tips & Warnings

• Take advantage of the rain by washing your clothes in it, rinsing your dog in it, showering naked in it. Please do the latter in a secluded place.
• Become a weather nut. Use the astronomical rainfall to jump-start your new hobby as a rainfall master or storm chaser.
• Walk the beach. In any weather. If the majesty of the ocean can’t wash away depression, nothing can.
• Re-learn the joy of a puddle. Getting a dog or a kid will help you with this one.
• Don’t wallow. Yes, it’s cloudy, Yes, it’s rainy. Now strap on your galoshes and get over it.
• Don’t wear sunglasses. You’ll just look stupid.