When the days start getting shorter and colder, and the nights longer and darker, many people start to suffer from winter depression, or Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD.)
Cheer up, you have a recognized medical condition
Don’t worry, summer is only six months away.
One of the worst aspects of any form of depressive illness is the sense of utter isolation and loneliness it induces. There is thus some comfort to be drawn by SAD sufferers from the fact that you are surrounded by people who feel equally grouchy and nihilistic around this time of year.
Without doubt the most effective clinically proven remedy for SAD is “light therapy,” which has been shown to benefit some 80-85 percent of cases. Simple as it sounds this actually involves rather more than just turning on a light and sitting beside it for a while twiddling your thumbs as renewed cheer inexorably suffuses your being.
Fortunately, specially designed light boxes have been developed that emit precisely the right amount of illumination. These can be bought from specialist retailers and, at their most basic, cost around $190. By sitting in front of one for a certain period each day — 30 minutes to several hours, depending on the severity of your conditions — symptoms gradually subside.
CNN did an update spot on SAD lights, this morning. Interesting to learn that blue light was the critical part of the spectrum.
I thought the neatest device they showed was a sunrise light – a small hemisphere for your bedroom that imitates the rising sun and gradually wakes you by lighting up the room.
Immature is whining to strangers on the internet about your psychical deficiencies or inabilities, and being surprised when they don’t pat you on the back LOL
Ever heard of “survival of the fittest”? It might sound cruel, but the world isn’t exactly a disease-free paradise. Oh, and the winters and darkness is the part of the environment we live in on this planet, so excuse me if I simply reminded you the obvious.
Supposedly adults grown as wimps who cannot cope with the life itself – is that what you condone heree? If so, I won’t apologize for my “immaturity” of being better adapted to the environment of our planet.
Let’em all blow their own heads off if they want OR eat prozac for breakfasts and dinners if thats their choice and theyre lucky to live in a country where they can afford it… the rest of the world don’t give a fuck about it.
I think I get blue during the winter months here in Ohio, but it’s pretty subtle. I try to keep myself as healthy as possible, preventing all possible sources of ill health so that what remains (things such as sad) are easier to deal with. I exercise year-round too, and I always feel a boost after I finish the run. Right now my place is filled with CFL bulbs, but I may try alternating CFL and incandescent bulbs to broaden the light spectrum I receive.
#4
Tom Cruise will say that all you need is plenty of excercise and Vitamin supplements.
Let’em all blow their own heads off
Like your hero did on April 30, 1945?
Not quite that bad, Eidard… LOL
The sun will already be shining more brightly and longer than it is this week, as early as the second week of February. So it’s only three more months to go…
#36
*My* hero? Where did this came from?
I’m not German LOL not even close
But I think youre right, the long dark winter nights must have got to him… so eat your prozac regularly and pat each other on the back when needed if you don’t want to end up same way!
I was under the impression that the acronym SAD was Singles Awareness Day – aka valentines day
‘Ever heard of “survival of the fittest”?’
Yeah. I have. I’ve also heard of general relativity, quantum mechanics, and string theory. I think evolution is just like those studies: somethings a lot of people reference but few comprehend in a manner to apply principles.
Just because you speak harsh words doesn’t mean you speak the hard truth. It just means you’re a hard nut to crack. You know what they say about trees in storms?
You go on comparing apples to oranges and living proverbially.
I dont suffer with the seasonal thing, but I still find daylight ending at 5pm very dreary. Im in Canada and our winter does not start in October here. Most times December, gone by March
There isn’t much more disgusting than reading whiny posts by adult wimps who cannot cope with freaking winter cold and short daylights 😎
And complete strangers patting them on the back with fake words of sympathy like they would really care.
Such idiocies are possible in a society where there are no bigger problems – where no one is *really* sick, no one is hungry, everyone is well cared for and pampered… oh wait, you do still have cancer and other real diseases in USa, and you do still have poor, hungry and homeless crowds all over every US cities, so what exactly do you expect from me? Cry over some stupid whiny bitach complaining over depression because winter is coming?! Gimme a break!
I am compassionate to those who deserve it, not to some “web compassion junkies”.
Can’t we just love each other?
(I mean the good old non-gay way ofcourse)
SAD is real. Sunlight increases dopamine, Vitamin D levels, and alpha-MSH, which lowers appetite. Lower levels of sunlight is the reason there is a much higher suicide rate in the spring at least in the Northern Hemisphere. I used to live in the Northern U.S., and it drove me batty. I had SAD symptoms before they had a name for it.
888 comments remind me of how narcisstic our society has become. A friend of mine abruptly stopped taking his anti-depressant, and I warned him that quickly stopping said medicine could result in severe depression and even suicide. He told me, “Oh please, I would never do that.” And I laughed at how naive he was.
Chemically Inducing depression in anyone for me would be a piece of cake. Suicide may be a tad harder, but I have often thought of writing a mystery based on this concept. The best way to kill someone would be to get them to do it to themselves. 888, interested in being my guinea pig on the matter?
jz,
narcisstic in their nature are all the public “whinings” of the few who openly shared their depressed state of minds here with the whole world to see, like it were something to be proud of and show off to everyone to see, not the crude yet true comments of self-pleased 8888.
If itsOK to whine about your depression with very first complete strangers you meet in your bok, then what is next? Might as well swap pictures of our hemmorhoids? Talk about diarrhea? Sheeesh…
Keep your diseases to yourself and your doctor or shrink, please.
#45 – If you don’t want to see pictures of people’s diseases, get off the Internet. That’s what it’s for.
#46 – It’s great to see that you have identified some of the biggest failures of the American Health Care system…
None of that, unfortunately, has anything to do with whether or not various physiologically based mental illnesses are real or not. And in the case of depression and SAD, they are.
#44 888 comments remind me of how narcisstic our society has become.
Funny. He reminds me of what happens when a punk kid from the trailer park gets a second hand computer as a gift from his deadbeat drifter dad, who just stopped in for his annual bonding visit and a drunken fumblefuck with his trick turning mother.
But your narcissism theory has merit too…
888 sounds a lot like this guy.
Frank… I give you a hard time, but you are okay…
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
STFU, you mor….
Oh, never mind…
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay
and you’re okay
and I’m okay…
😉
If it’s just light wavelengths, why doesn’t GE or someone come out with lightbulbs that people could use throughout their homes? I mean they have “natural light ones,” but they don’t mention them helping with SAD.
Sell em’ for $5 each, instead of the $0.60–so you don’t have to spend $90 to buy the “inexpensive” light machine???? You could put them throughout your entire house for $50…or in your living room for about $15.
OFTLO, you crack me up. #53, Let me expand your point. While #46 and #47 took the opportunity to make crude remarks about depression and comments on the drug industry, these two idiots missed that the treatment for SAD is not a drug but sunlight or something that mimics it.
As far as glamorizing my condition #45, go soak your head. I told people of the symptoms I had so that they may know about them too. SAD is real and before there was a name for it, I moved South. I didn’t know the reason. I just knew I felt better where there was more sunlight.
So my sharing was an attempt to help people who may be feeling the same way. Unlike yourself, there are people in this world who actually do not want to be miserable.
Actually, you can get “natural light” bulbs for your home, LeftBankHook.
They’re called “full-spectrum” flourescent bulbs, and you can get them in most hardware stores. They’re the only type I use in my kitchen – 2 x 4-foot tubes will cost you about $30. (I forget the brand.) There are also CF versions available (but these are harder to find.
Also, you can get neodymium incandescent bulbs – these are incandescent bulbs that are coated with the rare-earth metal neodymium which gives the surface of the bulb a lavender color – while these are not quite as good as the full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs, but they are a lot better than regular incandescent bulbs. GE’s “Reveal” brand is one example – it’s only slightly more expensive than regular incandescent bulbs.