Do you need help identifying your signature strengths? According to the VIA Institute on Character, knowing your character strengths isn’t just interesting information to have; it can have a positive impact on your life overall. It is believed that understanding your strengths can help you: 1. Manage and overcome problems; 2. Improve your personal and professional relationships; 3. Enhance your overall sense of well-being.

Martin Seligman (Founder of Positive Psychology) and his research group have a website through the University of Pennsylvania called: authentichappiness.org.  This site includes information on learning and applying the principles of positive psychology to any domain, such as a job search. We have talked about the site before on the OITE Career Blog when we discussed the importance of positivity and resilience in your job search in past blog posts like “Enhancing Optimism and Resilience in Your Job Search & Beyond”. This website has a whole range of different surveys that you can take, such as assessments on happiness, grit, work-life balance, etc. The one we suggest focusing on today is the Signature Strengths Survey which helps you identify your top five strengths.

This online assessment denotes six classes of virtues that make up the 24 character strengths listed. These six classes and corresponding strengths include:

• Wisdom and knowledge

Cognitive strengths that entail the acquisition and use of knowledge Strengths: Creativity, Curiosity, Judgment, Love-of-Learning, Perspective

• Courage

Emotional strengths that involve the exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition, external or internal Strengths: Bravery, Honesty, Perseverance, Zest

• Humanity

Interpersonal strengths that involve tending and befriending others Strengths: Kindness, Love, Social Intelligence

• Justice

Civic strengths that underlie healthy community life Strengths: Fairness, Leadership, Teamwork

• Temperance

Strengths that protect against excess Strengths: Forgiveness, Humility, Prudence, Self-Regulation

• Transcendence

Strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning Strengths: Appreciations of Beauty, Gratitude, Hope, Humor, Spirituality Hopefully this assessment will help you focus on not only identifying your strengths but also finding new ways to begin using those strengths more intentionally within your life. A logistical note about taking this survey: it is quite long as it has 240 questions and you can’t save it and come back to it, so be sure to take it when you have sufficient time. You do have to create a log in to access the surveys, but by participating you are actually paying it forward in a way by helping with their positive psychology research.

Just over a month ago, we set our clocks back for Daylight Savings Time. This combined with fewer daylight hours means that most of us are leaving work in the dark. This is just one of the many groan-inducing moments which wintertime brings. Others include frigid mornings making it harder to get out of a warm bed, commuting through snow/ice and gloomy grey days all the while navigating sick colleagues in the lab.

It is no wonder that many of us find that our energy levels and happy outlook dissipate with the change in seasons.  For some of us, the winter blues can be easily shaken off; however, others are afflicted by seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression that is related to changes in seasons and differences in daylight hours.  Not accounting for personal variability, SAD usually begins in October/November and ends in March/April.

According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, SAD is not considered a separate disorder; it is a type of depression displaying a recurring seasonal pattern.  For individuals to be diagnosed, they must meet full criteria for major depression coinciding with specific seasons for at least two years.

On top of some of the common symptoms of depression such as feeling hopeless, sluggish, and experiencing difficulty concentrating, other symptoms of winter pattern SAD include:

• Low energy
• Hypersomnia (excessive daytime sleepiness)
• Overeating
• Weight gain
• Craving carbohydrates
• Social withdrawal (feeling like “hibernating”)

There are attributes that make you more likely to suffer from SAD. Living far from the equator is an obvious one; for example, only one percent of those who live in Florida experience SAD whereas about nine percent in New England and Alaska suffers from SAD.  If you have a family predisposition or prior diagnoses of depression or bipolar, you are more likely to experience SAD as well. Another risk factor is being female as SAD is diagnosed four times more often in women than in men.

If you are concerned that you might be suffering from SAD, please seek help from a physician or counselor right away. There is no need to suffer these winter months away and four major types of treatment have been proved effective. These include: medication, psychotherapy, light therapy, and vitamin D which can be used alone or in combination with one another.

Don’t be hesitant to ask for workplace adjustments which could help as well. Some of these small tweaks could include sitting by a window in the lab/office or even installing a light box which is designed to simulate sunshine and help increase one’s production of serotonin. You may also ask to adjust your work hours, so that you are able to leave the lab before it gets dark at night.