Definition:
SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder is a form of depression that is caused by the effect of various atmospheric and weather conditions on one’s personal psychology. It is a form of depression that typically begins in the fall and winter and goes away in the spring and summer. Although there can be episodes in the summertime, they are most common in the fall and winter.
Signs and Symptoms:
Seasonal Affective Disorder is a particular form of depression, but not a separate disorder in and of itself. Its symptoms are often the result of the character and quality of light and the length of daylight in contrast to hours of darkness, conditions created by the changing of the seasons. The criteria for the depressive disorder is the basic condition, but along with the variable that the depression increases in some seasons and decreases in other seasons for a continuous period of 2 years or more. As such, the seasonal depressions must be recurrent over and above other depressive characteristics.
Symptoms of Major Depression must first apply:
Feelings of depression daily and recurring every day
Feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness
Low energy levels
A loss of interest in activities that were previously enjoyed
Problems in sleeping, going to sleep, and staying asleep
Loss of appetite
Loss of weight
Feelings of lethargy and reluctance to do anything
Feelings of agitation
Difficulty in concentrating
Frequent thoughts of death or suicide
Symptoms occurring in the winter pattern of SAD include:
Low energy
Feeling sleepy often, wanting to sleep a lot
Weight gains
Eating often and overeating
Carbohydrates carvings
Withdrawal from social contacts
Symptoms that less frequently occur in summer SAD include:
Loss of appetite
Weight loss
Insomnia
Feelings of agitation
Feeling restlessness
Feelings of anxiety
Unusual violent behavior
Risk Factors
There are certain attributes and circumstances potentially increasing SAD risk:
SAD occurs 4 time more often in women than in men.
SAD occurs more often in people that live far, either north or south, of the equator.
SAD can occur in family lines, and especially in family lines exhibiting depression.
Depressive or Bipolar disorders often predispose SAD.
It is more prevalent in the young rather than in older people.
There are also some biological indicators of SAD:
Differences in serotonin production in the winter than in the summer.
Melatonin may be overproducing. Melatonin affects sleep patterns, and in shorter winter days, more melatonin is produced than in longer summer days. The effect of this is to cause people to feel sleepy and want to sleep more in the wintertime.
Vitamin D production is low.
Treatments and Treatments
The starting place is psychological counseling to identify and isolate symptoms and to determine if there may be other causative elements present other than SAD. Other treatments focus on some combination of light treatment and cognitive behavioral treatment, psychodynamic treatment, and learning coping mechanisms.