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| Everyone experiences unhappiness, but depression may be diagnosed when symptoms last for two consecutive weeks (or longer) and that are severe enough to interrupt daily life. |
Seasonal Depression
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| Regular exercise and spending time being social both help stave off bouts of seasonal depression. |
BY MARIA TRIMARCHI
Twenty-six million or 46 million: One is the
number of American adults living with mental illness and one is the number of
Americans living with Type 2 diabetes, one of the fastest growing diseases in
the U.S. right now.
Would you be surprised that as many as 20
percent of American adults -- that's almost 46 million people -- suffered not
from diabetes, but rather from a mental illness during the past year, and as
many as 5 percent (that's about 11.5 million people) suffered so severely that
their symptoms impaired their normal daily lives [source: Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Service Administration]?
Anxiety disorders, eating disorders, impulse
control disorders and addiction, mood disorders, personality disorders and
psychotic disorders are the most common recognized types of mental health
disease in the United States.
If we look even closer, a little more than 24
million people are affected specifically by the symptoms of depression, a mood
disorder, every year -- roughly the same number of American adults diagnosed
with Type 2 diabetes [sources:
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention].
Like diabetes, mental illness is a medical
condition that is a growing public health problem.
Mood disorders are the most commonly
diagnosed mental health condition in the U.S., but can look and feel a bit
different from person to person.
Some people may have one mild depressive
episode in a lifetime, while others may suffer from chronic periods of severe
depression.
Some may suffer from psychotic symptoms such
as delusions or from symptoms of melancholia.
Some people may have depressive episodes
followed by periods of mania, known as bipolar disease.
And even still, some forms of depression may
be triggered postpartum, while others may follow a seasonal pattern.
Seasonal depression, also known as seasonal
affective disorder or SAD, is a type of major depression, with recurrent
depressive episodes triggered by seasonal changes.
An estimated 11 million Americans suffer from
SAD [source:
Marano].
Seasonal Depression Symptoms
Seasonal affective disorder is a form of
major depression.
The symptoms of depression include persistent
and excessive feelings of sadness, hopelessness and guilt, isolation and thoughts
of suicide (or attempts) as well as physical symptoms such as headaches, low
libido, sleep disturbances and gastrointestinal problems.
A diagnosis of depression is made when a
person suffers from symptoms that last for two consecutive weeks (or longer)
and that are severe enough to interrupt daily life.
Sometimes the episodes of bipolar disorder
may be seasonally-driven, with depressive episodes during the autumn and winter
followed by periods of mania during the spring and summer months (or vice-versa).
People with seasonal affective disorder
suffer from episodes of depression that coincide with the change of the
seasons, and otherwise don't report feelings of depression during the rest of
the year.
Winter depression sufferers tend to be
socially withdrawn, uninterested in their normal activities, have low energy
levels and difficulty concentrating.
They sleep more and report being tired during
the day. As many as 65 percent of SAD sufferers say they're hungrier during the
winter months, and three-quarters report weight gain.
While it's difficult for a lot of us to pass
up a slice of warm bread or a comforting bowl of pasta, as many as seven out of
10 people suffering from SAD report strong and persistent cravings for those
mood-boosting carbohydrates [source: Health.com].
Symptoms often begin in early autumn and peak
during December, January and February.
Summer-onset SAD, on the other hand, is
sometimes called reverse SAD because the symptoms are often the opposite of the
more common winter-onset form of the disorder.
Summer depression sufferers are more likely
to experience agitation and anxiety, increased libido, difficulty sleeping,
loss of appetite and weight loss.
People with summer-onset SAD find their
symptoms usually begin in the spring and peak during the longest months of
summertime. Only about 10 percent of SAD sufferers have summer-onset SAD [source: Griffin].
THE SEXES
More women than men are diagnosed with
seasonal affective disorder: As many as three out of four people diagnosed with
SAD are women [source:
Mental Health America].
How to Prevent Seasonal Depression
Regular exercise and spending time being
social both help stave off bouts of seasonal depression.
Regular exercise and spending time being
social both help stave off bouts of seasonal depression.
Unlike many other forms of depression
seasonal depression has an identifiable trigger, the change of seasons.
And if you understand what's causing your
seasonal depression, you may be able to get ahead of the symptoms before their
seasonal onset or before they worsen.
There are several factors that have a role in
the onset of depression, and for the seasonal type of the disorder, where you
live, your hormones and your genes are considered three big influencers.
First let's look at your environment.
Seasonal affective disorder becomes more common the farther away from the
equator you live.
For example, it's a rare illness among people
who live in the tropics (within 30 degrees north or south of the Equator) but
travel 38 degrees north of the Equator to Washington, D.C., and you'll find
roughly 4 percent of people suffer from symptoms of SAD.
Keep heading north to Alaska, more than 60
degrees north of the Equator, and the number of sufferers jumps to almost 10
percent of the population [sources:
Mental Health America, The Cleveland Clinic].
What's so special about living in the
tropics? Daylight, a lot of it, and all year long.
There are two key components playing a role
in the cause of SAD: changes in the amount of exposure to daylight and hormone
imbalances.
But how do these factors cause depression? No
one is sure yet. There are many possibilities that boil down to two theories:
One is that a lack of sunlight may be bad for
your biological clock. Your biological clock does more than give you jet lag
and remind you you'll soon be too old to have biological children; it's your
body's clock.
The internal systems of your body all set
their watches against the body's biological clock, so if the clock is broken,
your body begins to less effectively regulate your mood, your sleep patterns
and your hormones (including serotonin, a neurotransmitter associated with
mood, and melatonin, which is associated with sleep).
This theory suggests that by boosting your
exposure to light you can reset your clock.
The second approach suggests that people
suffering from SAD may have a chemical imbalance (again, serotonin and
melatonin) not caused by a lack of exposure to light but rather best treated
with exposure to light.
Working with what research has shown us so
far, we have no way of preventing or curing depression, but often the symptoms
of the illness can be managed.
And those suffering from recurrent
seasonal-onset depression may benefit from taking small preventative measures
before any symptoms begin, either in the early autumn for winter onset or early
spring for summer-onset SAD.
A few low-impact daily changes such as
spending time being social to boost your mood and eating a well-balanced diet
to help keep those carb cravings at bay may be helpful for some people, and if
you're not already getting at least 30 minutes of exercise at least three times
a week consider talking to your doctor about the benefits of starting a new
workout.
Exercise not only helps combat winter weight
gain but is also a great way to boost your mood.
Make extra effort to spend time outside every
day, and be alert for symptoms so there's no delay in getting treatment if
needed.
Seasonal Depression Treatments
Drug therapy and talk therapy are two
treatments commonly used to manage many forms of depression, including seasonal
affective disorder. For example, selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors
(SSRIs), a type of antidepressant, may help restore the balance of serotonin, a
neurotransmitter, in the brain.
Talk therapy, specifically cognitive behavior
therapy, may be helpful for SAD sufferers who could benefit from changing their
perspective about winter (or summer), and working with a mental health
professional may encourage the development of a preventative plan.
In addition to traditional treatments for
depression, SAD sufferers also often find light therapy an effective way to
relieve their symptoms.
Light therapy, also called phototherapy, is a
common treatment for seasonal affective disorder.
This type of treatment makes sense as
first-line therapy against SAD, since winter depression naturally lifts with
the arrival of longer spring days, and light therapy mimics those longer days
during the short winter months.
There are two basic types of light therapy: a
light box and dawn simulation.
Light boxes look like table or floor lamps.
Most light boxes on the market right now provide white-light therapy with
fluorescent or incandescent bulbs or light-emitting diodes (LEDs), although
that may change as emerging research suggests blue light may have the most promise
in relieving symptoms of depression.
To benefit from the use of a light box, it's
best to use it in the morning, just after waking, when it can most effectively
impact the level of melatonin production in your body.
For a light box to be most effective, you
need to look indirectly at the light -- don't look directly at the light, and
don't nap during light therapy. You won't get the same benefits if the light is
only on your skin.
How long you use your light box each day will
depend on your symptoms how strong the light is and how close you sit to the
light box.
Sitting less than 2 feet (0.6 meters) from a
box with intense light may only require a daily 30-minute session, whereas
sitting a greater distance away from the lamp or using a weaker light may
require multi-hour sessions every day.
There are also light boxes that are dawn
simulators. These turn on in the morning before you wake and gradually brighten
to simulate dawn breaking.
This type of light therapy may be helpful in
resetting both melatonin production and your sleep patterns.
Light therapy has only a few mild side
effects. Headaches are the most common, followed by eye strain, especially
during the first days of treatment.
Some people report nausea and irritability.
Sleep problems may occur if treatment is given late in the day, and people with
bipolar disorder have an increased risk of mania.
Light boxes filter out damaging ultraviolet
(UV) light, making therapy safe for your skin and eyes.
It's estimated that as many as 50 to 80
percent of people diagnosed with SAD will find relief with light therapy, as
long as they stay vigilant about getting their daily light [source: National
Alliance on Mental Illness].
For those who need additional help,
antidepressant medications and cognitive behavior therapy are often effective
co-treatments to light therapy.
BY THE NUMBERS
"Seasonality" was first recognized
as a trigger for clinical depression in 1984.
Maria
Trimarchi
Contributor
— HowStuffWorks
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