![]() ( Are you a lark or an owl? Your body clock holds the answer.) The process is part of our circadian rhythm, our innate biological clock dictating when we sleep and wake. ![]() One leading theory is that the change in daylight disrupts our bodies’ release of melatonin, a hormone the brain releases every night to promote sleep. “That's the million-dollar question,” says Rohan. “It’s the strongest predictor of when the symptoms begin.”īut why, exactly, does less daylight seem to make some people clinically depressed? “It’s fairly accepted that the trigger is a short photoperiod-the number of hours from dawn to dusk,” says Rohan. They’re instead diagnosed with “subsyndromal SAD,” a milder but still burdensome condition. While SAD is typically diagnosed when patients meet the criteria for clinical depression, some patients fall just short of this official diagnosis. “About three times as many women as men get SAD for reasons we don’t understand,” says Desan. Most people begin experiencing symptoms in young adulthood, but SAD can begin at any stage of life. “It’s like human beings are trying to hibernate,” says Desan. ( Can ending inflammation help in our battle against depression?)Īt Yale’s Winter Depression Research Clinic, the most commonly reported symptoms of winter depression are hypersomnia-the desire to sleep more than usual-and an increased appetite, says Paul Desan, a psychiatrist and the clinic’s director. “We would look for things like a persistently sad mood. “They’re exactly the same,” says Kelly Rohan, a psychologist at the University of Vermont who specializes in the disorder. It’s normal for moods to fluctuate with seasons and even for people to feel a little more down in the winter, experts say, but those suffering from SAD experience the symptoms of clinical depression. Whether in winter or summer, mental health experts say there are solutions to treat SAD. in northern latitudes, with as many as 10 percent of New Hampshire residents reporting the condition.Īnd, surprisingly, about 10 percent of patients suffering from SAD have symptoms in the summertime instead. As much as three percent of the general population is thought to experience SAD, but one study Rosenthal published in 1990 found that the condition became more prevalent in the U.S. Subsequent studies have found that this form of depression varies by geography. In 1984, he published the first paper to scientifically name the winter blues: Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), also called seasonal depression, was a type of depression brought on by the dark days of winter. “It was an illness hiding in plain sight because people said ‘well that’s how everyone feels in winter.’ They didn’t see it as treatable,” says Rosenthal, a psychiatrist at Georgetown Medical School. ![]() When he moved from South Africa to New York City, Norman Rosenthal noticed he felt more depressed during the cold, short days of the city’s winters than he had in his home country.
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