Ketamine Booster Treatments Can Support Mental Health During Winter Blues and Holiday Stress

As the seasons shift and daylight fades, it’s not unusual to feel your footing slip. Colder weather, shorter days, end-of-year pressures: These elements of the season have a way of creeping in. For many people, this time of year brings not just stress, but a deeper kind of weight that’s harder to shake.

While ketamine therapy doesn’t specifically target seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or holiday-related stress, this time of year can offer a natural opportunity to reconnect with your mental health routine, especially if you’ve already benefited from treatment before.

Why Ongoing Care Matters

Think back to your induction series. For many patients at New Pathways, that first round of ketamine treatment was a breakthrough moment, perhaps the first real relief after months or years of trying other options. But like all aspects of health, mental well-being needs maintenance.

We often recommend low-frequency follow-up treatments—called maintenance sessions or booster treatments—every 2 to 12 weeks for patients based on individual needs relating to treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, or PTSD. These sessions can help keep symptoms in check and reinforce the stability that ketamine made possible.

These boosters are part of an agreed-upon treatment plan for each patient, though they can also be scheduled strategically when patients sense the return of old patterns or find themselves under acute stress. Holidays, anniversaries, major life changes, seasonal shifts, or simply feeling more emotionally raw than usual—these are the moments when a booster session can help someone stay on track.

Where maintenance sessions aim to preserve steady progress over time, boosters act more like emergency scaffolding: they help reinforce your internal support structure during moments of vulnerability.

Some patients schedule a booster before a known high-stress event, like a family visit or the end-of-year workload crunch. Others come in when warning signs pop up, such as old familiar racing thoughts, disrupted sleep, low motivation, a creeping sense of dread. The trigger here is recognizing when your resilience starts to erode and using the tools you’ve already trusted to catch yourself early.

In this way, booster sessions function like a mental health reset or an opportunity to interrupt the downward slide, reconnect with the therapeutic space, and leave feeling grounded again. 

The Seasonal Shift: Why Timing Can Help

With less daylight comes a change in your body’s internal rhythms. Melatonin levels shift. Serotonin production may dip. Your sleep and energy patterns can feel off. And if you’re already living with a mood disorder, these changes can hit especially hard.

Layer on the stressors of holiday travel, complicated family dynamics, grief, or financial strain, and suddenly it’s easy to feel like you’re sliding backward.

If you’ve been noticing early signs, like…

• Disrupted sleep 
• Trouble focusing 
• A dull, heavy mood 
• Thoughts you thought were behind you creeping back in

…it might be a sign to check in.

How New Pathways Supports Long-Term Care

At New Pathways Clinic, we personalize every maintenance plan. We look at:

• How you responded to initial treatment 
• How long the relief lasted 
• Your current lifestyle, stressors, and supports 
• Any other therapies or medications you’re using

From there, we work with you to find the right rhythm. Some patients return quarterly. Others check in once a year. Some prefer the flexibility to book a booster session when life gets overwhelming. There’s no fixed rule, just what works best for you.

If you haven’t started treatment yet but have been considering it, fall or winter may be an ideal time. You don’t have to wait for a crisis.

You Deserve to Feel Better Year-Round

Mental health isn’t just about getting through the hardest days. It’s about building a foundation that carries you through the year with clarity, connection, and strength.

If you’ve felt yourself slipping a bit, or if you’re nervous about the months ahead, this could be the right moment to check back in.