November 18, 2022 • 21 mins
For some, the shorter days bring general unhappiness characterized by low energy, excess sleeping, and overeating carbs. Call it the winter blues, the blahs—or Seasonal Affective Disorder. Dr. Saltz reveals how to tell if you have this common malaise—and how to treat SAD until the sun comes back.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Bees are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how Can I Help? I'm Dr
Gail Salts. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. The clocks have turned
back and the days are growing shorter. While plenty of
people are not a fan of shorter days, it doesn't
really affect their overall mood, and generally many people go
through short periods of time where they feel sad or
(00:49):
not like their usual selves. But sometimes these mood changes
begin and end when the seasons change. People can start
to down when the days get shorter in the fall
and winter, also called winter blues, and they can begin
to feel better in the spring with longer daylight hours.
(01:11):
In some cases, mood changes are more serious and can
affect how a person feels, thanks, and functions in their
daily life. Having significant changes in your mood and behavior
whenever the seasons change every year can indicate you have
seasonal effective disorder or SAD, a type of clinical depression.
(01:35):
In most cases, SAD symptoms start in the late fall
or early winter and then go away during the spring
and summer. This is known as winter pattern SAD or
winter depression. Some people might experience depressive episodes, however, during
the spring and summer months. This is called summer pattern
(01:56):
SAD or summer depression, and actually is much less common. Overall,
Seasonal effective disorder effects between one and ten of the population,
depending where you live and how much exposure to the
sun you get, such that the numbers in a state
(02:17):
like New Hampshire, where your latitude is farther from the sun,
are about nine of the population, whereas the numbers in Florida,
where you get a lot of sunshine, it's a little
only over one. So what are the signs and symptoms
of SAD. SAD is not considered a separate disorder, but
(02:41):
more a type of depression characterized by its recurrent seasonal pattern,
and symptoms can last four to five months of the
year if they are untreated. So the signs and symptoms
of seasonal effective disorder are the same ones often as
those associated with major depression, but some specific symptoms differ.
(03:06):
For the winner pattern and for the summer pattern of
s a D. Not every person with s A D
will experience all the symptoms, but you should at least
have several. So those symptoms are feeling depressed most of
the day nearly every day, losing interest in activities that
(03:28):
you once enjoyed called an adonia, experiencing changes in appetite
or weight. And here is a symptom that is potentially
different from typical depression. So in SAD, that change in
appetite or weight is usually an increased appetite with a
(03:49):
predilection for eating carbohydrates. Having problems with sleep. Again, this
symptom is different in seasonal depression compared to typical depression,
so that you sleep too much when you have SAD,
Feeling sluggish or alternatively agitated, having low energy, feeling hopeless
(04:13):
or worthless, having difficulty concentrate, and actually having thoughts of
death or suicide. For the winter pattern of s a D, specifically,
the symptoms tend to be as I said, oversleeping or
what's called hypersomnia, over eating, particularly with a craving for carbohydrates,
(04:37):
weight gain as a result, and social withdrawal. So when
you listen to those symptoms, you can hear it kind
of sounds like hibernating, as many mammals do in the winter,
but unfortunately for humans, when you get these symptoms, it
doesn't feel good. It feels like depression, even though it
(04:58):
kind of sounds like high bernading. And for summer pattern
s a D you might have the opposite trouble sleeping, insomnia,
poor appetite and having weight loss, feeling restless and agitated
and anxious, and even having because of high irritability, episodes
of violent behavior. The specific cause of seasonal effective disorder
(05:24):
is not actually known, but there are various factors that
are thought to play an important role. First is your
biological clock also called your circadian rhythm, so the reduced
levels of sunlight in the fall and winter that seem
to cause winter onset s a D means decreased sunlight
(05:48):
into your system, which can disrupt your body's internal clock
and lead to these feelings of depression. It may also
be a drop in serotonin, a brain chemical also called
a neurotransmitter that affects mood and might play a role
here because reduced sunlight can cause a drop in serotonin,
(06:11):
which can then in fact trigger depression. And also the
change in season can disrupt the balance of the body's
level of melatonin, another chemical which plays a very important
role in sleep patterns and in mood. Seasonal affected disorder
is diagnosed more often in women than in men, in fact,
(06:35):
by as much as four to one, and SAD occurs
more frequently in younger adults than it does in older ones.
Other factors can play a role in who gets seasonal
effectors disorder. This includes family history because one is more
likely to have actually close relatives with s a D
(06:58):
if one gets it, and having major depression in the past,
or having bipolar disorder because symptoms of depression can worsen
seasonally if you have either one of these two diagnoses already.
Living farther from the equator, as I mentioned earlier, appears
(07:19):
to be a risk factor for some people, whether that's
living very far north or living far south. This is
probably due to decrease sunlight during the winter and longer
days during the summer months. And last is a low
level of vitamin D. Vitamin D is produced in the
(07:40):
skin when it's exposed to sunlight, and it can help
boost serotonin activity. So less sunlight and therefore not getting
enough vitamin D from foods and other sources can result
in low levels of vitamin D in the body. Overall
signs and symptoms of effective disorder should be taken seriously.
(08:04):
Like other types of depression, it can get worse and
it can lead to other problems in life if it's
not treated. Problems like social withdrawal, having difficulty in school
or work because you can't concentrate and you have no energy,
substance use or abuse, and other mental health disorders like
(08:25):
anxiety or eating disorders, and of course thoughts of suicide
or behaviors that are self harming. So with that, right
after the break, we'll get to my listeners question. Welcome back.
(08:53):
Let's get to my listeners question and see how can
I help, Dear doctor Salts. Yeah, I am finding myself
struggling to get out of bed the past few weeks.
I feel very low and feel like sleeping a lot.
I also feel like eating a lot, and I'm overeating
things like bread and chips, and it's causing me to
(09:15):
gain weight that I don't want, which makes me feel
even more down. If I'm not sleeping, I feel tired
and unmotivated in a way I normally don't, so I
was thinking, is this depression? But my friend told me
that depression causes you to have trouble sleeping and to
(09:37):
lose your appetite, so maybe this is something else. I
don't know what it is, but it feels awful and
I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to feel better.
Most clinical depression does cause the afflictive person to have
difficulty falling asleep or awakening too early and being unable
(09:57):
to fall back asleep, and they're for you are deprived
of sleep and sleep more poorly. In addition, it does
typically cause people to lose their appetites as well as
enjoyment of many other things, and can therefore cause you
to lose weight. But that is what is called typical
(10:20):
clinical depression. For some people, clinical depression is what is
called a typical and by this clinicians mean the opposite
in terms of these particular symptoms, which are called neuro
vegetative symptoms of sleep and appetite, specifically where you tend
to sleep too much, remain tired, and eat too much
(10:43):
with an increased appetite, particularly for carbohydrates, and with the
commensurate weight gain. Even if this were not the fall
with shorter days. I would still say to you, this
can be depression because you also have of low mood,
low energy, feeling tired for several weeks and it's really
(11:06):
causing a problem for you. But especially given this time
of year, I ask you to wonder if this happened
to you last year or in the past several years
at the same time of year, because this could be
seasonal depression, which typically does cause increased sleeping and eating
(11:28):
along with the other symptoms of depression. SAD has symptoms
of atypical depression in the fall and winter. It's important,
I think that it be recognized and that you take
care of it appropriately so it will not worsen, but
also so that it can improve and you can feel better.
(11:49):
You can do some things at home right now. Those
include aerobic exercise for thirty minutes for a minimum of
three to four times per week. Really getting your heart
rate up because this has been shown to improve mood
in mild clinical depression. Get outside in the morning in
the sunlight each day, talk to close supporters about how
(12:13):
you are feeling, and make social plans, because socializing and
sharing your feelings boosts mood, do not increase your alcohol intake,
and do not use drugs for your mood, it will
actually make your mood worse. Maintain a healthy, balanced diet,
and set an alarm keeping sleep to not more than
(12:38):
nine to ten hours per day. But given to be honest,
this sounds like it may be actual seasonal effective disorder
and not the winter blues, which is a lot of
the same sorts of symptoms but in a much more
mild way. I would check in with a mental health
professional who can confirm a diagnosis and make sure this
(13:00):
is not part of another mental health issue like bipolar disorder.
This matters because bipolar disorder should be treated differently than
seasonal effective disorder. One example of that is a light
box therapy, which can be a great treatment for seasonal
(13:20):
effective disorder, but has specific risks if in fact what
you have is bipolar disorder. The risk being that light
therapy is psychoactivating in a good way for depression, but
in a problematic way for bipolar disorder, where you could
be pushed into hypomania or mania, and that would be risky.
(13:44):
So you may not be able to use light box therapy,
or you may have to use it carefully and judiciously.
According to your mental health professional. If you're on a
mood stabilizer and they deem it safe with bipolar disorder.
If this is sad and sad alone, then light box therapy,
(14:06):
which has little to no side effects as opposed to
say medication and works really effectively and even pretty quickly,
means that getting a specific therapeutic light box, and this
is the important part. Many places sell online light boxes
that really don't meet these criteria. They might call it
(14:29):
a happy box or a light box, and technically it is,
I guess, but it's really not a therapeutic light box
with therapeutic light strength that matters in terms of it
actually working as a treatment for you. So you want
to look for a light box that has at least
(14:49):
what is called ten thousand looks of light. Lux is
a measurement of the strength of light you're getting, and
ten thousand is very strong. You want to look for
a white ten thousand looks of light. You want to
look for a broadband ten thousand looks of light. And
(15:12):
these therapeutic light boxes, which are sold by specific companies
that make them, is minus the UV light bands that
are not safe for you to have, even from the
sun because they can be bad for your skin or
bad for your eyes. So actually, in this case it's
safe to use this very strong type of light, and
(15:35):
it's actually what can make the difference. You will use
it in a very specific way. You will use it
in the morning when you first wake up, and not
late in the day when it can actually delay your
ability to get to sleep. You will start for about
twenty minutes each morning, and you might work your way
till thirty or forty minutes, depending on if it's not
(15:55):
helping you and you need more time with the light box.
But starting at twenty minutes, you will set the box
up anywhere between twelve and two inches from your face,
and that depends on what the manufacturer tells you is
the strength of light and how far you can have
it away and still have it be ten thousand lucks.
(16:16):
You will not point it directly at your face, but
off to the side, but shining on your face, and
make sure to have your eyes open. And then frankly,
you can do other things. You can eat breakfast, you
can look at your computer, you can read a book.
The point is to have the light shining at your face,
at your eyes, where it will be absorbed and you
will do that first thing in the morning. Some people
(16:37):
get relief within a matter of days. For some people
it takes maybe two to three weeks, but it is
very effective for people specifically with seasonal affective disorder, and
you will use that light if this is the case
until it becomes spring. Other forms of treatment that you
might think about or could be recommended to you by
(16:57):
your mental health professional would be psycho therapy, which also
can treat seasonal effective disorder, and if your symptoms are
quite severe, then you might be prescribed an antidepressant as well.
Next year. If this does turn out to be seasonal
effective disorder, I might suggest that you start your light
(17:19):
box in October, in the middle of October, even before
you would normally get symptoms, because using your light box
each day can prevent you from developing seasonal effective disorder
in that year. I hope that was helpful. Treatment for
(17:39):
seasonal effective disorder may include light therapy, psychotherapy, and medications.
If you have bipolar disorder, tell your health care provider
and a mental health professional, because this is critical to
know when prescribing, say light therapy or for that matter,
an antidepressant. Both treatments can potentially trigger a manic episode
(18:04):
if not carefully followed and if the person is not
already taking a mood stabilizer. For light therapy also called phototherapy,
you sit basically somewhere between one and two feet from
a special light box so that you're exposed to bright
light within the first hour of waking up each day.
(18:26):
This light box should have a minimum of ten thousand
looks of white broadband light. Light therapy mimics natural outdoor
light and it does cause a change in brain chemicals
linked to mood. It is really one of the first
line treatments for fall onset s a D. It generally
(18:47):
starts working in a few days to a few weeks,
and it really causes very few to no side effects.
Research on light therapy, while limited, appears to be effective
for most people in relieving sad symptoms. But before you
purchase a light box, you might want to talk with
your health care provider about the best one for you
(19:09):
and familiarize yourself with the variety of features and options
so that you buy a high quality product that's safe
and effective and learn about how to use it and
when to use it. Psychotherapy also called talk therapy is
another option to treat SAD. A type of psychotherapy known
(19:30):
as cognitive behavioral therapy can help you by learning healthy
ways to cope with SAD, by reducing avoidance behavior like
I won't go out, I'm not meeting with people, and
scheduling important and meaningful activities, by identifying negative thoughts and
behaviors that might be making you feel worse and changing them,
(19:51):
and learning generally how to manage stress, and by helping
you to build in healthy behaviors like increasing your physical
activity and improve in your sleep patterns. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is
also known to be helpful in this type of depression,
and some people with SAD do require antidepressant treatment, especially
(20:14):
if their symptoms are severe. An example is an extended
released version of the antidepressant view Proprion also called well Beutrent,
which can help prevent depressive episodes in people who already
have a history of seasonal effective disorder, and other antidepressants
may also be used to treat SAD. Again, a mental
(20:38):
health provider can recommend starting treatment with an antidepressant before
your symptoms typically begin each year if you know this
is already the case, so they may recommend that you
continue to take that antidepressant beyond the time your symptoms
normally go away to try to maintain and keep you
from having a relapse. Keep in mind that can take
(21:00):
weeks to notice the full benefit of an antidepressant, and
that sometimes while one doesn't work, another one will, so
you might have to try different medications before you find
the one that works well for you and has the
fewest tolerable side effects. Do you have a problem I
(21:20):
can help with? If so, email me yet? How can
I help? At Seneca women dot com. All centers remain
anonymous and listen every Friday too. How can I help
with me? Dr Gail's Salts
Bees are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how Can I Help? I'm Dr
Gail Salts. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. The clocks have turned
back and the days are growing shorter. While plenty of
people are not a fan of shorter days, it doesn't
really affect their overall mood, and generally many people go
through short periods of time where they feel sad or
(00:49):
not like their usual selves. But sometimes these mood changes
begin and end when the seasons change. People can start
to down when the days get shorter in the fall
and winter, also called winter blues, and they can begin
to feel better in the spring with longer daylight hours.
(01:11):
In some cases, mood changes are more serious and can
affect how a person feels, thanks, and functions in their
daily life. Having significant changes in your mood and behavior
whenever the seasons change every year can indicate you have
seasonal effective disorder or SAD, a type of clinical depression.
(01:35):
In most cases, SAD symptoms start in the late fall
or early winter and then go away during the spring
and summer. This is known as winter pattern SAD or
winter depression. Some people might experience depressive episodes, however, during
the spring and summer months. This is called summer pattern
(01:56):
SAD or summer depression, and actually is much less common. Overall,
Seasonal effective disorder effects between one and ten of the population,
depending where you live and how much exposure to the
sun you get, such that the numbers in a state
(02:17):
like New Hampshire, where your latitude is farther from the sun,
are about nine of the population, whereas the numbers in Florida,
where you get a lot of sunshine, it's a little
only over one. So what are the signs and symptoms
of SAD. SAD is not considered a separate disorder, but
(02:41):
more a type of depression characterized by its recurrent seasonal pattern,
and symptoms can last four to five months of the
year if they are untreated. So the signs and symptoms
of seasonal effective disorder are the same ones often as
those associated with major depression, but some specific symptoms differ.
(03:06):
For the winner pattern and for the summer pattern of
s a D. Not every person with s A D
will experience all the symptoms, but you should at least
have several. So those symptoms are feeling depressed most of
the day nearly every day, losing interest in activities that
(03:28):
you once enjoyed called an adonia, experiencing changes in appetite
or weight. And here is a symptom that is potentially
different from typical depression. So in SAD, that change in
appetite or weight is usually an increased appetite with a
(03:49):
predilection for eating carbohydrates. Having problems with sleep. Again, this
symptom is different in seasonal depression compared to typical depression,
so that you sleep too much when you have SAD,
Feeling sluggish or alternatively agitated, having low energy, feeling hopeless
(04:13):
or worthless, having difficulty concentrate, and actually having thoughts of
death or suicide. For the winter pattern of s a D, specifically,
the symptoms tend to be as I said, oversleeping or
what's called hypersomnia, over eating, particularly with a craving for carbohydrates,
(04:37):
weight gain as a result, and social withdrawal. So when
you listen to those symptoms, you can hear it kind
of sounds like hibernating, as many mammals do in the winter,
but unfortunately for humans, when you get these symptoms, it
doesn't feel good. It feels like depression, even though it
(04:58):
kind of sounds like high bernading. And for summer pattern
s a D you might have the opposite trouble sleeping, insomnia,
poor appetite and having weight loss, feeling restless and agitated
and anxious, and even having because of high irritability, episodes
of violent behavior. The specific cause of seasonal effective disorder
(05:24):
is not actually known, but there are various factors that
are thought to play an important role. First is your
biological clock also called your circadian rhythm, so the reduced
levels of sunlight in the fall and winter that seem
to cause winter onset s a D means decreased sunlight
(05:48):
into your system, which can disrupt your body's internal clock
and lead to these feelings of depression. It may also
be a drop in serotonin, a brain chemical also called
a neurotransmitter that affects mood and might play a role
here because reduced sunlight can cause a drop in serotonin,
(06:11):
which can then in fact trigger depression. And also the
change in season can disrupt the balance of the body's
level of melatonin, another chemical which plays a very important
role in sleep patterns and in mood. Seasonal affected disorder
is diagnosed more often in women than in men, in fact,
(06:35):
by as much as four to one, and SAD occurs
more frequently in younger adults than it does in older ones.
Other factors can play a role in who gets seasonal
effectors disorder. This includes family history because one is more
likely to have actually close relatives with s a D
(06:58):
if one gets it, and having major depression in the past,
or having bipolar disorder because symptoms of depression can worsen
seasonally if you have either one of these two diagnoses already.
Living farther from the equator, as I mentioned earlier, appears
(07:19):
to be a risk factor for some people, whether that's
living very far north or living far south. This is
probably due to decrease sunlight during the winter and longer
days during the summer months. And last is a low
level of vitamin D. Vitamin D is produced in the
(07:40):
skin when it's exposed to sunlight, and it can help
boost serotonin activity. So less sunlight and therefore not getting
enough vitamin D from foods and other sources can result
in low levels of vitamin D in the body. Overall
signs and symptoms of effective disorder should be taken seriously.
(08:04):
Like other types of depression, it can get worse and
it can lead to other problems in life if it's
not treated. Problems like social withdrawal, having difficulty in school
or work because you can't concentrate and you have no energy,
substance use or abuse, and other mental health disorders like
(08:25):
anxiety or eating disorders, and of course thoughts of suicide
or behaviors that are self harming. So with that, right
after the break, we'll get to my listeners question. Welcome back.
(08:53):
Let's get to my listeners question and see how can
I help, Dear doctor Salts. Yeah, I am finding myself
struggling to get out of bed the past few weeks.
I feel very low and feel like sleeping a lot.
I also feel like eating a lot, and I'm overeating
things like bread and chips, and it's causing me to
(09:15):
gain weight that I don't want, which makes me feel
even more down. If I'm not sleeping, I feel tired
and unmotivated in a way I normally don't, so I
was thinking, is this depression? But my friend told me
that depression causes you to have trouble sleeping and to
(09:37):
lose your appetite, so maybe this is something else. I
don't know what it is, but it feels awful and
I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to feel better.
Most clinical depression does cause the afflictive person to have
difficulty falling asleep or awakening too early and being unable
(09:57):
to fall back asleep, and they're for you are deprived
of sleep and sleep more poorly. In addition, it does
typically cause people to lose their appetites as well as
enjoyment of many other things, and can therefore cause you
to lose weight. But that is what is called typical
(10:20):
clinical depression. For some people, clinical depression is what is
called a typical and by this clinicians mean the opposite
in terms of these particular symptoms, which are called neuro
vegetative symptoms of sleep and appetite, specifically where you tend
to sleep too much, remain tired, and eat too much
(10:43):
with an increased appetite, particularly for carbohydrates, and with the
commensurate weight gain. Even if this were not the fall
with shorter days. I would still say to you, this
can be depression because you also have of low mood,
low energy, feeling tired for several weeks and it's really
(11:06):
causing a problem for you. But especially given this time
of year, I ask you to wonder if this happened
to you last year or in the past several years
at the same time of year, because this could be
seasonal depression, which typically does cause increased sleeping and eating
(11:28):
along with the other symptoms of depression. SAD has symptoms
of atypical depression in the fall and winter. It's important,
I think that it be recognized and that you take
care of it appropriately so it will not worsen, but
also so that it can improve and you can feel better.
(11:49):
You can do some things at home right now. Those
include aerobic exercise for thirty minutes for a minimum of
three to four times per week. Really getting your heart
rate up because this has been shown to improve mood
in mild clinical depression. Get outside in the morning in
the sunlight each day, talk to close supporters about how
(12:13):
you are feeling, and make social plans, because socializing and
sharing your feelings boosts mood, do not increase your alcohol intake,
and do not use drugs for your mood, it will
actually make your mood worse. Maintain a healthy, balanced diet,
and set an alarm keeping sleep to not more than
(12:38):
nine to ten hours per day. But given to be honest,
this sounds like it may be actual seasonal effective disorder
and not the winter blues, which is a lot of
the same sorts of symptoms but in a much more
mild way. I would check in with a mental health
professional who can confirm a diagnosis and make sure this
(13:00):
is not part of another mental health issue like bipolar disorder.
This matters because bipolar disorder should be treated differently than
seasonal effective disorder. One example of that is a light
box therapy, which can be a great treatment for seasonal
(13:20):
effective disorder, but has specific risks if in fact what
you have is bipolar disorder. The risk being that light
therapy is psychoactivating in a good way for depression, but
in a problematic way for bipolar disorder, where you could
be pushed into hypomania or mania, and that would be risky.
(13:44):
So you may not be able to use light box therapy,
or you may have to use it carefully and judiciously.
According to your mental health professional. If you're on a
mood stabilizer and they deem it safe with bipolar disorder.
If this is sad and sad alone, then light box therapy,
(14:06):
which has little to no side effects as opposed to
say medication and works really effectively and even pretty quickly,
means that getting a specific therapeutic light box, and this
is the important part. Many places sell online light boxes
that really don't meet these criteria. They might call it
(14:29):
a happy box or a light box, and technically it is,
I guess, but it's really not a therapeutic light box
with therapeutic light strength that matters in terms of it
actually working as a treatment for you. So you want
to look for a light box that has at least
(14:49):
what is called ten thousand looks of light. Lux is
a measurement of the strength of light you're getting, and
ten thousand is very strong. You want to look for
a white ten thousand looks of light. You want to
look for a broadband ten thousand looks of light. And
(15:12):
these therapeutic light boxes, which are sold by specific companies
that make them, is minus the UV light bands that
are not safe for you to have, even from the
sun because they can be bad for your skin or
bad for your eyes. So actually, in this case it's
safe to use this very strong type of light, and
(15:35):
it's actually what can make the difference. You will use
it in a very specific way. You will use it
in the morning when you first wake up, and not
late in the day when it can actually delay your
ability to get to sleep. You will start for about
twenty minutes each morning, and you might work your way
till thirty or forty minutes, depending on if it's not
(15:55):
helping you and you need more time with the light box.
But starting at twenty minutes, you will set the box
up anywhere between twelve and two inches from your face,
and that depends on what the manufacturer tells you is
the strength of light and how far you can have
it away and still have it be ten thousand lucks.
(16:16):
You will not point it directly at your face, but
off to the side, but shining on your face, and
make sure to have your eyes open. And then frankly,
you can do other things. You can eat breakfast, you
can look at your computer, you can read a book.
The point is to have the light shining at your face,
at your eyes, where it will be absorbed and you
will do that first thing in the morning. Some people
(16:37):
get relief within a matter of days. For some people
it takes maybe two to three weeks, but it is
very effective for people specifically with seasonal affective disorder, and
you will use that light if this is the case
until it becomes spring. Other forms of treatment that you
might think about or could be recommended to you by
(16:57):
your mental health professional would be psycho therapy, which also
can treat seasonal effective disorder, and if your symptoms are
quite severe, then you might be prescribed an antidepressant as well.
Next year. If this does turn out to be seasonal
effective disorder, I might suggest that you start your light
(17:19):
box in October, in the middle of October, even before
you would normally get symptoms, because using your light box
each day can prevent you from developing seasonal effective disorder
in that year. I hope that was helpful. Treatment for
(17:39):
seasonal effective disorder may include light therapy, psychotherapy, and medications.
If you have bipolar disorder, tell your health care provider
and a mental health professional, because this is critical to
know when prescribing, say light therapy or for that matter,
an antidepressant. Both treatments can potentially trigger a manic episode
(18:04):
if not carefully followed and if the person is not
already taking a mood stabilizer. For light therapy also called phototherapy,
you sit basically somewhere between one and two feet from
a special light box so that you're exposed to bright
light within the first hour of waking up each day.
(18:26):
This light box should have a minimum of ten thousand
looks of white broadband light. Light therapy mimics natural outdoor
light and it does cause a change in brain chemicals
linked to mood. It is really one of the first
line treatments for fall onset s a D. It generally
(18:47):
starts working in a few days to a few weeks,
and it really causes very few to no side effects.
Research on light therapy, while limited, appears to be effective
for most people in relieving sad symptoms. But before you
purchase a light box, you might want to talk with
your health care provider about the best one for you
(19:09):
and familiarize yourself with the variety of features and options
so that you buy a high quality product that's safe
and effective and learn about how to use it and
when to use it. Psychotherapy also called talk therapy is
another option to treat SAD. A type of psychotherapy known
(19:30):
as cognitive behavioral therapy can help you by learning healthy
ways to cope with SAD, by reducing avoidance behavior like
I won't go out, I'm not meeting with people, and
scheduling important and meaningful activities, by identifying negative thoughts and
behaviors that might be making you feel worse and changing them,
(19:51):
and learning generally how to manage stress, and by helping
you to build in healthy behaviors like increasing your physical
activity and improve in your sleep patterns. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is
also known to be helpful in this type of depression,
and some people with SAD do require antidepressant treatment, especially
(20:14):
if their symptoms are severe. An example is an extended
released version of the antidepressant view Proprion also called well Beutrent,
which can help prevent depressive episodes in people who already
have a history of seasonal effective disorder, and other antidepressants
may also be used to treat SAD. Again, a mental
(20:38):
health provider can recommend starting treatment with an antidepressant before
your symptoms typically begin each year if you know this
is already the case, so they may recommend that you
continue to take that antidepressant beyond the time your symptoms
normally go away to try to maintain and keep you
from having a relapse. Keep in mind that can take
(21:00):
weeks to notice the full benefit of an antidepressant, and
that sometimes while one doesn't work, another one will, so
you might have to try different medications before you find
the one that works well for you and has the
fewest tolerable side effects. Do you have a problem I
(21:20):
can help with? If so, email me yet? How can
I help? At Seneca women dot com. All centers remain
anonymous and listen every Friday too. How can I help
with me? Dr Gail's Salts
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