How To Affect Seasonal Affective Disorder
Seasonal depression is a mood disorder that happens every year at the same time. A rare form of seasonal depression, known as "summer depression," begins in late spring or early summer and ends in fall. In general, though, seasonal affective disorder starts in fall or winter and ends in spring or early summer.
How to Affect Seasonal Affective Disorder
Between 1 and 9% of the general population experiences seasonal affective disorder. Even though SAD is usually tied to the arrival of fall and winter, it can be diagnosed regardless of the specific change in season.
Seasonal affective disorder may steal your energy during the winter months. As a result, you may struggle to maintain healthy relationships with family and friends. You may also have a hard time keeping up in school or with obligations at work. Symptoms usually abate when spring and summer roll around.
Fortunately, there are several ways to effectively treat seasonal affective disorder. Talk therapy, light therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes all have the potential to get someone feeling normal again.
Prescription medications, such as selected serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), can be an important part of a treatment plan for seasonal affective disorder. SSRIs work by increasing serotonin levels in the brain.
Dr. Jones: Shorter and darker days in the northern latitudes affect mood for many people. About 1 in 20 people experience seasonal variation in depression, with fall and winter showing a rise in depression. Of those people who are affected with seasonal depression, four out of five are women. This condition has been called Seasonal Affective Disorder, appropriately shortened to SAD syndrome or Seasonal Depression.
Symptoms start in the fall and get better in the spring. This problem was independent of income and lifestyle factors. According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, the main risks for seasonal effective disorder are age, sex, history of depression, and distance from the equator. The condition seems to start in women in their 20s and 30s.
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a form of depression that occurs at the same time each year, usually in winter. Otherwise known as seasonal depression, SAD can affect your mood, sleep, appetite, and energy levels, taking a toll on all aspects of your life from your relationships and social life to work, school, and your sense of self-worth. You may feel like a completely different person to who you are in the summer: hopeless, sad, tense, or stressed, with no interest in friends or activities you normally love.
While a less common form of the disorder causes depression during the summer months, SAD usually begins in fall or winter when the days become shorter and remains until the brighter days of spring or early summer. SAD affects about 1% to 2% of the population, particularly women and young people, while a milder form of winter blues may affect as many 10 to 20 percent of people.
The signs and symptoms of seasonal affective disorder are the same as those for major depression. SAD is distinguished from depression by the remission of symptoms in the spring and summer months (or winter and fall in the case of summer SAD).
To be clinically diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder, you need to have experienced these cyclical symptoms for two or more consecutive years. Regardless of the timing or persistence of your symptoms, if your depression feels overwhelming and is adversely affecting your life, it's time to seek help.
While the exact causes of seasonal affective disorder are unclear, most theories attribute the disorder to the reduction of daylight hours in winter. The shorter days and reduced exposure to sunlight that occurs in winter are thought to affect the body by disrupting:
As with any form of depression, there can be many different causes and contributing factors for seasonal affective disorder. Always consult your doctor for an accurate diagnosis and see the lifestyle changes outlined below for help to boost your mood and manage your depression symptoms.
Seasonal affective disorder can affect anyone but is most common in people who live far north or south of the equator. This means you'll experience less sunlight in the winter months and longer days during the summer. Other risk factors include:
Seasonal depression can make it hard to motivate yourself to make changes, but there are plenty of steps you can take to help yourself feel better. Recovery takes time but you'll likely feel a little better each day. By adopting healthy habits and scheduling fun and relaxation into your day, you can help lift the cloud of seasonal affective disorder and keep it from coming back.
Light therapy has to be continued daily throughout the winter months to be effective. Starting light therapy before the onset of symptoms in the fall may even help prevent seasonal affective disorder.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be highly beneficial for people with seasonal depression. The right therapist can help you curb negative thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors that make the disorder worse and help you learn how to manage symptoms and deal with stress in healthy ways. For many people, CBT can be as effective at treating seasonal affective disorder as light therapy or antidepressants, but without any risky side-effects.
Medication. If light therapy doesn't work for you, your doctor may suggest antidepressant medication. SSRI antidepressants work by acting on serotonin levels in the brain to reduce SAD symptoms. In the U.S., the FDA has specifically approved the drug bupropion (Wellbutrin) to treat seasonal affective disorder. However, as with all antidepressants, there may be adverse side effects, including a number of safety concerns specific to children and young adults. It's important to weigh the benefits against the risks before starting on medication.
Whatever treatment plan you settle on, it's important to combine it with self-help techniques to help manage your depression symptoms and even help prevent seasonal affective disorder returning next year.
SAD has been recognized and included in the diagnostic classification system of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition as major depressive disorder with seasonal pattern, and many clinicians are familiar with the symptoms. Winter blues, a less severe form of seasonal mood disorder, has also been described. I thought it would be of interest to the readership of Psychiatry 2008 to revisit SAD with one of the original research contributors.
People with seasonal affective disorder have difficulty regulating the neurotransmitter serotonin, a neurotransmitter believed to be responsible for balancing mood [2]. In one study, people with SAD had 5% more SERT, a protein that assists with serotonin transport, in the winter months than in summer [2]. SERT transports serotonin from the synaptic cleft to the presynaptic neuron, so higher SERT levels lead to lower serotonin activity, thus causing depression [2]. Throughout the summer, sunlight generally keeps SERT levels naturally low [2]. But as sunlight diminishes in the fall, a corresponding decrease in serotonin activity also occurs.
People struggling with SAD are more likely to experience increased appetite, weight gain or hypersomnia (sleeping too much) compared to those with major depressive disorder without a seasonal variation.
SAD is thought to be caused by the seasonal change in exposure to light in the environment that occurs in the fall, winter and spring months. These changes may affect the amount of the hormone melatonin produced by the body in some people, resulting in abnormalities in neurotransmitters in the brain, such as norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine.
The end of daylight saving time on Nov. 6 signals the beginning of shorter, darker winter days. It also can trigger symptoms of seasonal affective disorder Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. See Full Reference for some people.
If you can't get real sunlight, the next best bet is a sun lamp or light box, says Dr. Rosenthal, who pioneered the use of light therapy Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. See Full Reference to treat SAD. A higher percentage of respondents say they discontinued light therapy (25.1%) to treat seasonal affective disorder than those who use it currently (21.2%), however.
processing.... Drugs & Diseases > Psychiatry Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) Updated: Dec 09, 2020 Author: David R Michael, DO; Chief Editor: Ana Hategan, MD, FRCPC more...
Share Email Print Feedback Close Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp webmd.ads2.defineAd(id: 'ads-pos-421-sfp',pos: 421); Sections Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) Sections Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) Overview Background
Pathophysiology Epidemiology Prognosis Show All Presentation DDx Treatment Approach Considerations
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Antidepressants, SSRIs Antidepressants, SNRIs Antidepressants, Dopamine/Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors Antidepressants, TCAs Antidepressants, MAO Inhibitors Show All References Overview Background Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a syndrome typically used to describe a recurrent, seasonal pattern of depressive episodes. SAD may also describe other affective episodes (mania or hypomania) that occur in a seasonal pattern. [1]