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What Is SAD??
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| dance2dabeat |
What is SAD?
SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is a type of winter depression that affects an estimated half a million people every Winter between September and April, in particular during December, January and February.
It is caused by a biochemical imbalance in the hypothalamus due to the shortening of daylight hours and the lack of sunlight in winter.
For many people SAD is a seriously disabling illness, preventing them from functioning normally without continuous medical treatment.
For others, it is a mild but debilitating condition causing discomfort but not severe suffering. We call this subsyndromal SAD or 'winter blues.'
Symptoms
The symptoms of SAD usually recur regularly each Winter, starting between September and November and continuing until March or April, and a diagnosis can be made after three or more consecutive Winters of symptoms, which include a number of the following:
Sleep problems: Usually desire to oversleep and difficulty staying awake but, in some cases, disturbed sleep and early morning wakening
Lethargy: Feeling of fatigue and inability to carry out normal routine
Overeating: Craving for carbohydrates and sweet foods, usually resulting in weight gain
Depression: Feelings of misery, guilt and loss of self-esteem, sometimes hopelessness and despair, sometimes apathy and loss of feelings
Social problems: Irritability and desire to avoid social contact
Anxiety: Tension and inability to tolerate stress
Loss of libido Decreased interest in sex and physical contact
Mood changes In some sufferers, extremes of mood and short periods of hypomania (overactivity) in spring and autumn.
Most sufferers show signs of a weakened immune, system during the Winter, and are more vulnerable to infections and other illnesses.
SAD symptoms disappear in Spring, either suddenly with a short period (e.g., four weeks) of hypomania or hyperactivity, or gradually, depending on the intensity of sunlight in the Spring and early Summer.
In sub-syndromal SAD, symptoms such as tiredness, lethargy, sleep and eating problems occur, but depression and anxiety are absent or mild.
SAD may begin at any age but the main age of onset is between 18 and 30 years.
It occurs throughout the northern and southern hemispheres but is extremely rare in those living within 30 degrees of the Equator, where daylight hours are long, constant and extremely bright.
I thought this would be an interesting threat to post. Every winter I feel a change in me and it's not very pleasent. I am tired all the time. I think it is getting really bad this year. I think I am going to talk to my doc about this. Maybe I'm just lacking vitamins....who ing knows. All I know is that I am having a hard time focusing these days. And this week has been hell.....
Lemme know what u guys think.
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| Jayx1 |
IMO Its not a disease so much as an outlook. If you are prone to being depressed, anything will set you off including cloudy short daylight days.
I think stuff like this is all in your head and drug companies as well as other industry have a lot of money to make in declaring it a disease. |
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| dance2dabeat |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
IMO Its not a disease so much as an outlook. If you are prone to being depressed, anything will set you off including cloudy short daylight days.
I think stuff like this is all in your head and drug companies as well as other industry have a lot of money to make in declaring it a disease. |
Getting like this every winter is not just in my head. I am getting plenty of sleep and it does no good at all. Even my friends see that there is a pattern with me getting like this.
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| VERTiG0 |
| Hahah you definitely have that, you've been grumpy as hell these past few days! |
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| tomeboy |
| heliotherapy helps me;) |
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| dance2dabeat |
| quote: | Originally posted by VERTiG0
Hahah you definitely have that, you've been grumpy as hell these past few days! |
haha I LOVE U!!!!!!!!!!
actually no that is just me PMSing! |
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| dance2dabeat |
| quote: | Originally posted by tomeboy
heliotherapy helps me;) |
right on...yeah I go tanning at least once a week. I think I should bring that up a notch!! |
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| starsearcher |
| I've got it :nervous: Really cold winter depresses me - except when it's reeeeeeeeeeeeally sunny outside then it's okay :happy2: |
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| DigiNut |
I don't think bed-tanning really counts as a mood elevator. :p
I honestly don't understand this persistent need to ascribe a medical condition to every little psychological issue. Freud would be proud - first it was Troubled Childhoods, then ADD, Social Anxiety, Agoraphobia, Negative Body Image, Depression, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Reactive Attachment Disorder, Conduct Disorder (it's not his fault he's a troublemaker, he has a Disorder!), Binge Eating Disorder (I'm fat because I can't stop eating - DUH!)... honestly, when does it end? Nobody wants to solve their own problems anymore, it's always a shrink or a pill that's supposed to solve them for you.
And now it's "seasonal depression" or "SAD". Look, the weather sucks, it's gloomy, the cold drains your energy, traffic is worse than ever, it's harder to get up in the morning, and women's outfits are nowhere near as skimpy (well, I guess that only matters to the guys). So, it's depressing, but not medically depressing, it's just another thing about life in Canada that sucks.
People who have an inherent inability to handle stress may be worse off, but the problem then is not the season, it's stress management. Trust me, you are going to be WAY better off if you say to yourself, "I can beat this", than if you chalk it up as hopeless because you've got some incurable psychological disorder. |
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| dance2dabeat |
| quote: | Originally posted by starsearcher
I've got it :nervous: Really cold winter depresses me - except when it's reeeeeeeeeeeeally sunny outside then it's okay :happy2: |
really?? that is crazy. I didn't even know much about it until I was talking to a coworker of mine and he told me about it. |
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| Nemireck |
| Jayx and Digi are actually right... I was "diagnosed" with SAD and put on some antidepressants that did little more than give me diareaha (spelling) and ruined my attention span (they said I was 'cured'). It's taken 4 months since refusing to take the medication to get back to my normal self. All I needed was a year off school... I ing hate school. |
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| dEsidEL |
i crave Spanish lessons in Alicante ! :thepirate
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