Does it ever happen where you just filled with depression during a certain season or period of the year? Where you feel miserable when it starts to get cold and rainy and you have a bunch of finals and life decisions you need to make in an imminent amount of time? Fortunately, if you do feel this way during the winter, then you are not alone because I basically described in a nutshell how I sometimes feel during this time year before the Winter break comes around. For me, this time of the year can quite stressful with papers, projects, presentations, and exams dragging me to the ground as I wait for the seemingly never-ending period of the conclusion of the winter break. This probably sounds awfully depressing, but I been able to evade this depression during certain periods through looking at the bright side of things and acknowledging the fact that these prolonged feelings of depression can be somewhat remedied through positive feelings of rewards and friends.

If you're a person that dislikes the constant superstore Christmas commercials when they are juxtaposed to the miserable feelings of studying for your finals, then try focusing on the positives of rewards to rid yourself of that "I'm dead inside" feeling.

At first, I would try to rid my depression with rewards. Either I would be eating a "small" snack such as Double Stuf Oreos or watching a '"short" episode of TheOffice. On the other hand, I realized that I needed to remember that even with the satisfaction that comes with rewards, I needed to remind myself that every task or fun activity had to be done in moderation. So instead of acting like the "treat yo self" masters Donna Meagle and Tom Haverford, I decided that after I completed a long paper or finished up study session, I deserved little rewards that not only increased my self-confidence, but improved my determination to complete my work. These little treats were actually small snacks of M&M's or Sour Patch Watermelons after these huge amounts of work and luckily, I was able to escape the "too much treat yo' self and then feel guilty afterwards" phase.

I know you might want to stay away from social interaction during the great stress and depression that comes with the winter blues, but your friends can actually be the key to stopping your depression. Now, I'm not saying that you should spend your time in the group rooms talking to your friends about the bars last weekend rather than studying. However, you should talk to your friends about your feelings of crappiness and pressure because they might be feeling the same way as well. When you have to do a significant amount of work to finish, ask your friends to come to the library, or any secluded area, and come up with a fun activity after you get your work or study session completed. Also, friends can be nice, free helpers with work if you are not grasping a certain topic or lesson in your class that they might have taken last semester. Best of all, friends can create fun gatherings or social events that can make you excited for the future, leaving you with the feeling of a nice reward after you finished up your work.

When it's winter, the short days and the long, cold nights can even make the use of small rewards and helpful interactions with your friends pointless, but always try to look forward to things that might bring some joy back and know that if you are having an extreme sense of loneliness and sadness during this time of year, always remember that you have your friends and family that can show you the many reasons of why life does not have to suck.