January 8, 2026 • 51 mins
Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, is much more than the winter blues. It's a serious subset of depression. Learn all about it and what to do if you suffer from it today.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and it's a stuff you
should know. Hoe down to start the new year. Chuck's
still wearing his Novelty twenty twenty six glasses that he
got sponsored by Nivea.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
That.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I believe what you were saying was Ryan Seacrest himself
handed him to you while you were at Times Square.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Right, No, not handed, he put them on my face hands.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Whoa is it? Because you guys are co workers?
Speaker 4 (00:41):
Yeah, he's iheartedn't he?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah? But I think like half of the US is
a coworker of his, got so many jobs.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Yeah, you're probably right. Well, if you haven't guessed listening, audience,
this is our first recording of the new year. Yes,
I'm probably gonna be a little rusty. And can I
just give a quick shout out to a couple of things?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Please too, great as well. Josh knows all this stuff
because we communicate outside of work, believe it or not,
because we're fans. But I went to you know, New
York City, Emily and I do our little Broadway weekend
in New York over Christmas every year and this year,
I just want to say thanks to a couple of people,
most notably Natasha Hodgson of Operation Mincemeat fame, because she
(01:31):
is in the show and put together the show and
stuff you should Know, and she's been in magazines as
people alerted as giving stuff you should Know credit as
our episode inspiring that show, and was kind enough to
give us a couple of tickets to go see it,
and it was fantastic. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I know I was loath to miss it. That sucked.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I wish you could have been there, But it's you know,
it's still playing, so maybe you can check it out.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah. I was especially upset when you said that she
gave you She came out in the audience in the
middle of the show and gave you like a bouquet
of roses.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
No, no, no, the audience.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Lifted you up on their shoulders.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
No, that was that was That didn't happen. Also went
to Barston Trolley as I like to do before Broadway.
Barston Trolley is where I go before Broadway shows.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well, what is it?
Speaker 4 (02:22):
It's a bar but it's it's sort of a I mean,
you can just make reservations a week out. I think
I've mentioned this before. It's it's sort of a secret
place in that it doesn't have a sign or it's
not wild publicize, but you know, seven days out from
when you want to go, you can call them up.
They specialize in getting people in and out of their
pre and post Broadway, and you know sometimes you can
(02:46):
see Broadway performers there on the down low.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Nice. I would have no idea that one could be
sitting next to me and I wouldn't even know.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Well, you might if it's if it's a famous you know,
like Brian Cranston was sitting there. No, but he could be.
I saw years ago, I saw Dexter in there. What's
his name?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Dexter's good enough.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah. This year I saw the lady from Lost. Although
I don't think she's on Broadway, she was in there.
But all this to say big thanks to Jason who
helps take care of Barton Trolley and Joe's on Broadway.
He came over on his night off just to say
hi and was just a total sweetheart of a guy.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
What a trip.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
And then finally I want to thank Santa Santa Claus
in the Radio City Music Hall Show. I surprised Emily
by going to the Christmas show this year for the
first time.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Oh yeah, I remember Santa rode In.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Santa rode In and although he was not in the
performance we went to. Santa Adam was very kindness in
a Christmas video to Ruby. Have you been to the show?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
No, I'm just some bumpkin who stays at home all
the time. Apparently, dude, you and you me.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Have to go to the Radio City Music or Christmas Spectacular.
It is one of the delights of my life. The
Rockets was one of the most impressive, most amazing live
shows of any kind of ever seen. They were incredible.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Wow, okay, I'll go yeah, and it's.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
You know you love you guys, love your Christmas cheer
and it really you can't. Even the biggest grinchy curmudgeon
wouldn't help but get in the mood, even at the
ten am show. But the Rockets were amazing and Santa
said that he turned them onto our listener mail and
the Rockets episode and some of the now current Rockets
are listening. Oh cool, So shout out to you Rockets.
(04:37):
Keep on kicking.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Hello, Rockettes. We did a whole show on the rockets,
didn't we did? Yeah, all right, that was amazing. Chuck.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
You you were sick over the holidays, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
It really stunk. I got this cold that apparently there's
like a two week cold going around. Oh no, that
light and it was just like every day I would
add a new symptom, and it was I could do
stuff during the day, but I was just sick the
whole time and it was so sorry. It was rough. Yeah,
some thanks for that, I appreciate it. But we still
had a great Christmas. Well, Momo knows how to open presents,
(05:11):
so she opened presents on Christmas mornings. She was so happy.
Paul teeth quite a both. Okay, yeah, she's a pro.
She knows what she's doing. She got some new rabbit treats,
so she laid on her back and rolled on those
and she had a great Christmas morning.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
So that's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
It was a good Christmas. After all. We hung out
with friends on Christmas Eve, and our friends Laurel and
Braden and their kids, Elliott and Bear, so we got
to hang out with Yeah you do, you've met them
twenty times. So we got to hang out with little kids.
On Christmas even, man, that will put you in the
Christmas spirit when you don't have kids of your own.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Yeah. How old are those kids?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
They're like eight and six, I think, so that's fine
prime age.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, right in the zone.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah. So thank you though for your sympathy over my sicknesses.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah, I felt bad.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
One thing I don't have, chuck, which I'm really happy
I don't have, because it's awful, is sad.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
No sads for you.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I don't have sad. Do you have sad?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
No, I don't have sad. You know, we're talking about
seasonal effective disorder, and just right off the bat, we
should point out, because I was about to say occasionally
I get the winter blues, that this is not that
this is a real it's legitimate depression and comorbid with
stuff like bipolar disorder, and we're going to talk all
about it. But it's not just you know, oh I
(06:31):
get a little blue in the winter sometimes when it's
you know, gloomy.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
No, but it's tied to that. Yes, it's just it
seems to be an extreme version of that. But you're right,
it's not. It's nothing light, it's classified. I believe in
the DSM is a major depressive disorder. Yeah, with a
seasonal pattern. I think that's the clinical name for seasonal
effective disorder. And there are people out there, I think
(06:58):
something like five percent of people. I don't I believe
that's an American statistic. Yeah, that's America get the like
real deal seasonal effective disorder where they have major depressive
symptoms during the winter months. But something like ten percent
or maybe even higher than that. In the United States,
(07:20):
people get what's called sub syndromeal seasonal effective disorder, so
where you don't have it where it could be considered
major depression. But it's definitely worse than the holiday blues.
And the weird thing about this, although it's not so
weird once we explain it. It is seasonal. It's tied
to winter, and it seems that they figure or summer,
(07:43):
which that one's just mind blowing to me.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, it seems like they have it figured out. They
have this, they have it explained. So this is one
of my favorite episodes where it's like, here's how the
human body works, here's what's messed up with this when
we're talking about this. I love episodes like that.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Yeah, not a lot of mystery, big thanks to Olivia
for getting the new year off to a great start
with another banger.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah you're here.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Yeah, we should say that this is something that hasn't
been officially I mean, it's obviously been around since you know,
time began, because as we'll see, it's tied to seasons
and especially light and how much light you're getting. So
that's always been a thing, but it hasn't been officially
diagnosed as a thing for that long. It was in
(08:29):
nineteen eighty four when there was a paper by researchers
at the National Institutes of Health. A particularly guy named
Norman Rosenthal got together and they discussed these almost thirty
I have a feeling. One dropped out. So there were
twenty nine patients. Most of them had bipolar disorder, and
they all had what we now know is as sad.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, that thirtieth one when they like one weekend, they're
like how do you feel? And they're like fine, and
they're like you're cut, you can go here.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So yeah, bipolar disorders, we'll see, like really kind of
ties into this. It seems to be like also seasonal
in some weird way too. But pretty quickly after that
nineteen eighty four paper, the DSM went all in three
years later, the DSM three R, as we all know
our stands for revised or rocking, that came out in
(09:24):
nineteen eighty seven, and it was like, now, it was
a diagnosis, but it was used as a modifier as
we saw a major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern.
So it wasn't its own thing. It was just a
subtype essentially of an existing depressive disorder. That's kind of
how they first had it.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, and you know, because it's seasonal, the most common
kind of sad that we think about, Like we mentioned,
it is very serious thing, and it starts off in
the fall, maybe early winter, and it kind of depends
on where you are is we'll see, although not all intuitively,
there's a third act reveal that might surprise some people.
(10:05):
It generally subsides in the spring. But I did mention
that that odd spring and summer variety that hasn't been
studied much. It's very very limited. About point five percent
of the population has this opposite pattern. But it is
a diagnosable mood disruption. It just happens in the spring
and summer, and it's tied more to sort of like
(10:26):
oppressive heat, and maybe unsurprisingly, some of the things they
recommend for that, which again we're going to cover a
little more later, is stuff like maybe stay inside, dim
the lights, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, And the thing that gets me about the summer
version that much rareer one is that the symptoms are
almost in some cases opposite the symptoms of winter. So
usually when you first start getting SAD, it's around young
adulthood ages eighteen to thirty, I think, And most people
(10:58):
who get it get it most years, but you don't
necessarily have it every year. Women are four times likelier
than men to have it, And if you have an
existing mood disorder, you're much likelier to suffer from seasonal
effective disorder because it's almost like it takes your existing
mood disorder, say bipolar two, and just builds on it.
(11:20):
There's an extra like environmental punch to it that really
kind of kicks it into high gear.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Yeah, and that four times more common in women's that's
really substantial, And we'll get into that. It seems to
be tied to estrogen, but we'll dig into that a
little bit more in a bit. But having family members,
they think there's some genetic component to it. If you
have relatives that have depression or any kind of mental
health disorder, it's you know, obviously it doesn't mean you will,
(11:50):
but that could mean you might. I guess that's the
way doctors say it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, you might got it.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
And not surprisingly, you're more likely to develop SAD if
you live in places in the far you know, away
from the equator, far north or south, where there's gonna
be less sunlight, or maybe you know, in places like
Seattle where there's just more gray days than others.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, I was surprised I couldn't find the other eight,
the first eight, but Seattle was the ninth most affected
city with seasonal effective disorder. I would have thought it'd
be higher than that. I could not find the first eight,
So I'm like, does this list really exist or was
this just like a post intelligence or made up article?
Speaker 4 (12:32):
And do they do they tie in things like or
do they list things like Tacoma, like neighboring neighboring towns?
Does that count as a different place?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I wonder that's a great question. What about Tacoma?
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Well, I just wondered, Tacoma's very lovely, but maybe Seattle
might be a little more lively. Yeah, no, I could
get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
No, No, everybody knows about Tacoma. Okay, okay, it's been
a long time since we picked down a particular city.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Oh, I don't want to put to coma owner sites.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Okay, we won't because.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
You know, you can't spell. You can't spell seat tack
without tack.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That's right. So what happens when you experience sad seasonal
effective disorder? I mean most people can kind of come
up with this idea of like what depression symptoms seem like,
but there's specific ones that emerge with seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, I think you know generally what you will see
like with most depression listlessness obviously, sadness, interest and activities
that you might normally like you don't like as much.
You may have a hard time concentrating suicidal thoughts if
it gets really bad, hopelessness, maybe guilt sometimes, and then
(13:46):
some physical symptoms like just a weight like in your
limbs sometimes.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, like a lethargy, a fatigue and those. Yeah, that's
kind of common among depression in general. But winter sad
has some extra symptoms like over sleeping or just sleeping
too much or more than you normally would craving carbs,
overeating weight gain, and then that fatigue, the low energy
(14:12):
and tiredness and all of those things too create like
a feedback loop where you know, if you're depressed and
you start gaining weight and that kind of thing bothers you,
you're going to be even more depressed because you just
started gaining weight, in which case, if you're an emotional eater,
you might go eat more carbs and gain more weight
(14:32):
and there, you know, it just kind of goes on.
So that's one of the difficult things about it is
it's not just like I'm depressed. It's I'm depressed and
now everything is set up because of this winter season
for me to just keep getting more and more depressed
while winter's going on.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Yeah, and if you're sitting there thinking like, oh, man,
like in the wintertime, I tend to sleep later, and
I tend to eat and maybe drink a little more
and gain some weight and I'm a little more tired.
Those are also That's why sad is such a sort
of a unique thing, because that also just describes a
lot of people in the winter. But there is a difference,
(15:12):
and you know we're gonna be pointing out those differences.
You mentioned summer was unusual because the summer sads because
it's very much opposite. And that goes for the symptoms
as well, because instead of sleeping in, you might have
trouble sleeping, instead of eating too much, you might have
a low appetite, you might lose weight, you might be
anxious and agitated and irritable. Headaches is another one for
(15:34):
summer sad.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, it's like winter said you go inward and are
kind of closed off, and with summer said, you go outward,
but it's not in any like. That doesn't mean you're
just more sociable. It means like you're more agro potentially
than you would be with like winter sad. So yeah,
it is they're just kind of opposite, and yet they
(15:58):
tie into, like you were saying, how people already are
like you go out more in the summertime, you stay
in more in the winter time. So what seems to
be the case with seasonal effective disorder is that it
is a hyper or hypo version of a normal human
biological imperative that we have learned as a society to
(16:21):
try to ignore, and for some people ignoring it is
not really an option because it's so pronounced.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Yeah, and escapable. Yeah. So there are basically four things.
And like I said, if you feel like, oh man,
I kind of feel those things in the winter too,
listen to these four things because this is when you
should see a medical professional as if one. If these
feelings persist for days and days in a row, it's
(16:50):
not like I just had a couple of rough days
when it was like really rainy and cold. If you're sleeping,
appetite patterns like really change is the second one if
you're coping with drugs and alcohol, that's a big red flag.
And then the fourth one if you feel hopeless or
suicidal for sure, And I think as far as diagnosis goes,
you have to I think it has to be for
(17:13):
at least two years in a row. Even though you
did say you don't necessarily have it all years, you
at least have to have it two years in a
row at some point.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, And because it is essentially if you look at
the winter sad in summer sad, they're basically two ends
of a spectrum mania and depression. Like people with bipolar
two are definitely more susceptible to sad and they might
experience both types of seasonal although again just statistically speaking,
(17:43):
they're much more likely to just experience the winter sad.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah, for sure. And if you do see a professional,
they're probably gonna ask you a lot of questions. You
might even fill out an official questionnaire. There's no like
blood test or brain scan or anything like like you know,
other types of Russian that's the case as well, but
you might get they might rule things out. They might
do like a thyroid screening or you know, some other
(18:07):
things just to make sure it's not something like physical
going on.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Right, So that's sad everybody, And I think we should
talk about where this whole thing comes from. They think,
after a break, chuck our first break of twenty twenty six,
let's make it a big one.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
You still got it, You still got it?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
All right?
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Lately I've been learning some stop about insomnia or aluminia.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
How about the one on border like disorder that or
yer order that one before?
Speaker 5 (18:42):
But it was so nice hoarded why except everybody listen,
stop shot.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Stop stop stop.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
All right, So kind of like we were talking, it's
it's kind of hard to diagnose this. Uh as far
(19:20):
as when you should go to a doctor, because a
lot of people are just like this in the winter,
and you're also sort of fighting. I think you kind
of hinted at it like a natural human intuition in
a lot of ways, because if you go back in
time to the time where Tuck Tuck was roaming the
earth in the winter, they slowed down and they conserved
(19:42):
energy because food wasn't around and it was cold, so
they they bunkered down. And there are some interesting theories
around that, right.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah. They think it's possible that Neanderthals had like a
real type of hibernation period in the winter now, you know,
like a bear necessarily, but something more pronounced than humans,
and that interbreeding with Neanderthals may have produced seasonal effective
disorder in some people.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Yea's pretty cool when Homo sapiens started hugging and kissing Neanderthals.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
That's right. Like in what was it? Quest for Fire?
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Oh man, there was some real realizations in that movie.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It was a I mean, what an interesting movie though,
you know. Yeah, Ron Pearlman, Yeah he really, he's a
good cave man.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
By the way, did a minute ago did I say
bunker down? M I meant to say hunker down? Is
bunker down even a thing.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I feel like it should be more than hunkered down.
It makes more sense. Okay, I didn't even know I
heard you and made like I grasped that you said
bunker down, right, But it's so natural that it didn't
even seem wrong.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Yeah. And our Georgia bulldogs at what they say for
them is hunker down, you harried dogs. I'm gonna start
saying bunker down, and everyone's just gonna make them like
a Cia plant or something.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Right, a narc Yeah. Oh, I can't talk about the
dogs right now, I know.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Very disappointing.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
What a heartbreaker. Yeah, okay, so you said something like that.
People back in Tuktok's age definitely slow down in the wintertime, right,
Your body just changes, And that's still the case with humans.
We have not evolved out of that. And there's been studies.
There was a twenty fifteen study that found that the
(21:32):
simone in Bolivia and the San people in Namibia, who
are in no way, shape or form related ones in
South America ones in Africa, they both sleep longer in
the winter and less in the summer. And you might say, like, well, duh,
we all do that. That's exactly the point. There's some
(21:53):
sort of biological mechanism. There's some sort of like I said,
imperative where you, without conscious thought and kind of without
without a choice, you slow down in the winter time
and you speed up more in the summertime. That's just
what our bodies do. And because of this natural thing,
(22:15):
it can go haywire, just like any other natural thing
in humans. When it does, that produces seasonal effective disorder,
and they think they've got the mechanism to the whole
thing down.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah, and that, you know, that's kind of evidence. In
this German study from twenty twenty three, they did a
study and caveat all this was it was a study
already of people that had sleeping issues with disturbed sleeping patterns, right,
so it was kind of you know, it wasn't just
the general population. And interestingly, they found that even if
they were living in place where it was mostly artificial light,
(22:49):
even then by season their sleep cycles would vary. So
it's not just like, yeah, if you live out away
from all the you know, out in the boonies, away
from industrialization, your circadian rhythms are really dictated by natural light.
That would make sense, but they found that that took
place even when you were just living a regular, well
lit life.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, even when you lived in a windowless, brutalist apartment
in Munich. That's right. You wear a black turtleneck all
year round, oh man. And then another kind of thing,
like you said, that was a small study and it
was of people who already had a sleep disorder. Yet
it backs up what everybody kind of anecdotally already knows. Right,
(23:30):
you sleep more in the season, and you're more tired
in the winter season. Another thing that's anecdotal but is
backed up by study is that your appetite changes, right. Yeah,
some of it's cultural, where like you know, Christmas cookies
are around, sure you're gonna eat them, and Christmas cookies
aren't around in March. Say maybe some maniac makes like
(23:53):
Saint Patrick's Day cookies, but way more people make Christmas
cookies than Saint Patrick's Stay cookies. So there are reasons
that your appetite does increase just because there's more delicious
stuff around. But we've also found that just by being
in colder temperatures, being exposed to colder temperatures over periods
of time, hormone levels change in our bodies. And we
(24:15):
crave more calories because as we digest them, we produce
more heat and that keeps us warm. We don't need
bear skins anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Yeah, that's right, we need buckeyeballs. And Emily's aunt comes
to town every Christmas now and all the her mom
and her aunt and her sister and Ruby, they all
make have a night making Christmas cookies.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Oh dude, I did better this year than usual. I
somehow managed to only put on five pounds.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Hey, that's not bad for Christmas.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
From Thanksgiving to January fourth.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
That's not bad because usually that number is more like twelve.
So and I found that that temporary sort of goes
off a little quicker too.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
It's certainly you get back to reason, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, that's the key is getting back to reason faster
than you know, just not putting it off for the
rest of the month of January, That's what I think.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
And the buck eyeballs are gone, and those old fashions
really slow down after Christmas.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Man, those buck eyeballs. I made my mom's Christmas cookies,
my mom's recipe, the one that I grew up with
as a kid, that had confounded me for years because
I couldn't get it quite right. It was always too flowery. Okay,
And in the last few years I've learned enough about
baking that I kind of figured it out on my
own and I nailed it finely.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, and I was going to have some of those.
I'll make you some.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
It takes Christmas though, yes, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Note don't do it, but you got me these cookie
cutters that are all like kind of they're like sentimental
between us, like different shapes. And one of them is broccoli,
so proctally say cookie cutters and I hate broccoli.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
So oh I love that. That's fun.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, I don't have any I oh yeah. We were
talking about how appetite changes.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
That's right. Here's one thing though you might think you've
probably heard that, like, you know, suicide spike around the
holidays because it can be such a tough time of
the year for people. That is actually not true. In fact,
they happen the least in December. They're more common in
the summertime. Of course in Australia that's reversed because of
(26:30):
where they are on how their seasons run. So we're
talking about that, you know, our hemispheres perspective obviously, right.
But I found that interesting and it's good to correct
the record because I think everyone always hears that it's
probably good in a way, because it's anytime you're raising
awareness on something like that, that's a good thing. But
(26:51):
that's not true that they spike over the holidays.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Now. I feel like we've talked about that before, and
they think that maybe like just by people reaching out
more during the holidays, you have a greater social calendar.
Typically just the holiday spirit can get to people. But
then also there's some other explanations for why it might
be more common in the spring or summer months, like
(27:15):
you might just have more energy to actually complete suicide. Right.
Another one that I thought was just horrible is that
there are autoimmune conditions like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis that
are linked to seasonal allergies, and that people who have
those are is this this overlooked population of people with
(27:36):
a higher suicide risk, and that that would account for
it because your loopis is probably flaring up way more
in the spring and summer than it is in the
winter months.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, we've kind of hinted
around about the length of day, and we're going to
talk a lot about that over the next little bit,
but it is, you know, it's intuitive and it's correct
that the more tense that seasonal changes as far as
that length of day goes, the more likely you're gonna
have SAD. That was a I believe it was a
(28:07):
meta analysis from South Korea just last year in twenty
twenty five. They had studied twenty four studies with thirty
thousand total participants, so pretty robust. And for each one
degree of increase in latitude, SAD rose by point two percent,
and the just the winter blues by point three two percent.
(28:28):
So one, you know, one degree increase in latitude is
obviously a little less daylight.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
It's like Jimmy Buffett said, changes in latitude, changes in attitude.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Never thought about that.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
That's what he was talking about with seasonal effective disorder
in that song.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Yeah, he changed the title though, because you know, when
you title things like Cheeseburger in Paradise, you can't title
something seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, it was originally this song was titled major depressive
Disorder with a seasonal pattern, right, right, So yeah, I
think he was wise to change it. As well. So
let's talk about is you want to get into some
of the causes. I've been teasing this basically the entire episode,
and I'm really kind of jazzed about this part.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Yeah, I mean, here's here's where it gets science y,
because our old friends. Obviously serotonin and melatonin show up, right.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yes, so just as a refresher, serotonin is responsible for
things like mood, sleep, cognition, bunch of other stuff. But
as far as seasonal effective disorder goes, those are the
important things that serotonin does. Right. Yeah, what's really cool.
I didn't actually realize this sunlight hitting your retina actually
(29:37):
triggers production of serotonin. It increases the production of serotonin. Right,
So therefore, when we're exposed to less sunlight, there's a
lower angle of the sun, you just don't get as
much sun physically in the winter months. That means that
your serotonin levels are actually less in winter than they
(29:58):
are in the brighter spring and sou summer months. That's
just a fact. It happens to everybody, but in most people,
your serotonin transporter gene starts producing less serotonin transporter, the
stuff that goes in and gets the serotonin out. Of
the synapse, right, that's right, which means that there's less serotonin,
(30:21):
but there's also less transporters removing the serotonin that's there,
so you keep about the same level of, say, mood,
that you would have in the summer months because your
body is adjusting. What they found, just amazingly is that
there are two things that are screwed up with the
serotonin and the serotonin transporter. That seem to be one
(30:43):
of the major causes of seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
So spill it. You're on a roll.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Okay, So people with seasonal who get seasonal effective disorder,
they have enough serotonin all year to keep them from
being depressed, right, But just like everybody else, when they
are exposed to less light, their serotonin goes down. But
the thing that seems to give them seasonal effective disorder
(31:09):
is that their serotonin transporters don't also go down. So
like everybody else, they have lower serotonin during the winter,
but they have the same amount of serotonin transporters, so
there's less serotonin, and proportionately speaking, there's more serotonin transporters
removing the serotonin keeping it from working, which pushes them
(31:30):
from non depressed to depressive. Symptoms all because they're exposed
to less light during the wintertime.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Yeah, and you know, I mentioned women have it four
times as often as men do, and it was tied
to estrogen, and it looks like variations and estrogen levels
can interact with those changes in serotonin and basically make
it worse. And that probably is the explanation why women
get it more. And you know perimenopause and menopause affect
(32:01):
all that as well, which are that's an episode we
need we need to do for sure. Yeah, and also
there you know, we mentioned there's a genetic element, right,
So it looks like that people is generally speaking, who
have at least one short allele in that serotonin transporter
gene promoter region. I know that's a lot of words, everybody,
Huh the tl d L is too long? Hidn't listen?
(32:27):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Is that it's there's a genetic component. So if you
have that short allele, you're going to be more more
vulnerable to developing just regular depression, to any kind of
like you know, life events or stresses like that, or
just depression period. But that short allele is also associated
with those higher search levels, the se RT levels in
(32:51):
the winter and that's where your increased level is SAD
is going to come on.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, So that's serotonin. That's a big, big factor in
reducing seasonal effective disorder, as well as just any kind
of major impression, right.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Yeah. So melatonin is next, and that just kind of
broadly speaking as far as we're concerned as the one
that you know, kind of makes you sleepy.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, which I mean, it can make you sleepy, it
can make you lethargic, it can make you not want
to go out, and all of this stuff. Remember, there's
a positive heedback loop here with the depressive symptoms that
come on with seasonal effective disorder, the behavior they produce
feeding back into becoming more and more depressed. Melatonin keeps
you from wanting to do stuff because that's the way
(33:36):
our bodies are set up to respond during the winter.
And it all has to do with the circadian rhythm, which,
as everybody knows, most people know, governs your sleep and
wake cycle. Right.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
It also has to do with digestion, it has to
do with body temperature, and all sorts of other hormones.
I didn't know this, but apparently it has to do
with the release of cortisol, which we think of cortisolts
typically as a stress hormone full stop, and it is,
but it also is a hormone that causes us to
do more stuff to produce more energy. So when the
(34:09):
circadian rhythm is not quite functioning correctly, it doesn't just
make us sleepy, it actually makes us less energetic as well.
And the whole thing, the whole circadian rhythm is controlled
by a little part of the hypothalamus called the super
chismatic nucleus or the SCN.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Nice work on that one.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I practiced a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Yeah, the SEN And this is where we can throw
a little German in there. It relies on zeitgebers or
time givers. And these are just clues from the world
around us telling you you know, what's going on. And
mainly what we're talking about here is light. Sunlight again
hitting those retinas, it travels to the SCN and then
(34:52):
that signals the pineal gland to release or produce that melatonin.
So the more light you have, the less melatonin have have.
That's why you know you're not supposed to be looking
at your cell phone or avoid like really bright lights
before you try and get some sleep. But the tldal
here is it just means our bodies make more melotonin
(35:12):
in the wintertime than the summertime, So you're gonna be
sleeping longer and probably a little more lethargic.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, exactly. So serotonin plus melotonin being messed with it
happens to everybody, but most people's bodies respond in a
way that that regulates it and keeps it from becoming depression.
Some people do not have that same way to regulate it,
and that's who has seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Yeah, and I thought this is really interesting. So it's
you know, we just said that if you experience sad
then you're you're gonna have a greater than average increase
in melotonin in the winter than you know, your your
average person. But this is really interesting. You know, we
talked about sunlight coming through your retinas, and that's the
pathway that it initially travels, right, maybe a little on
your skin, but mainly through your retinas. They found that
(36:01):
your retinas actually actually react less to light in the
winter compared to the summer.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
You're right, Chuck, that is really interesting, Thank you, Josh.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
And I guess before we break, we should talk about
the third little thing after serotonin and melotone in which
are social and environmental factors. You know, if you have sad,
you when it's when fall rolls around, you start to
get that dread. You're going to have a negative emotional
response to winter. It's not the cause of it, but
(36:32):
that's part of that feedback feedback loop that you were
talking about. You're like, oh man, the days are going
to get shorter if you live in the Pacific Northwest
or other places where it rains a lot and it's
just more gray days that time of year. You just
you start to have that dread and that that just
feeds everything.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yep, yeah, it just makes it worse. And then, yeah,
the whole thing is that feedback loop. Chuck, I'm going
to do it again. I think we should take a
message break.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
All right, we'll finish up with sad right after this.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Lately I've been learning some stop about insomnia or aluminia.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
How about the one hon borderlin disorder that are younger
order that one be warm But it was so nice.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Hoar why except nobody listen up?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Job stop stop stop, Yes, all right, So we talked
(37:51):
several times that about sad being a form of major depression,
which means that it is highly treatable. Actually thanks to
our friend, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor SSRI or antidepressants apparently well,
BUTTRIN works really well to treat SAD. But basically any
SSRI is going to work. One thing that stuck out
(38:13):
to me, I believe that if you have seasonal effective disorder,
but you you're not. You don't have bipolar, you don't
have major depressive disorder, it's just seasonal. I guess they
suggest that you take SSRIs. You ramp up and say,
like the fall before it becomes winter, and then you
(38:33):
wean off as springtime comes around. So they would have
you on SSRIs, but not year round because you wouldn't
need them year round. I thought that was fascinating because
that can be that can be risky if you don't
do it right, it can be really risky.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
Yeah, and you know, one of the things after that
they suggest with all of these treatments is that you
you you start before it hits like you know, and
depending on where you live, like when fall starts rolling around,
maybe you start some of these therapies to see if
you can head it off at the pass like in
the Old West. Yeah, but CBT is another thing that
(39:11):
they suggest. Like all cognitive behavioral therapy, it's basically, folks,
you know, trying to get you to change the way
you're thinking about a thing. It might be a group
therapy a couple of times a week over a couple
of months maybe, but specifically in this case, it's like,
let's try and get those negative thoughts about the upcoming
(39:33):
season or the season that is upon you with positive
ones and maybe do things like, hey, I know this
is a thing for me, so I'm gonna plan some
things specifically for this winter that I know that I
will enjoy.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, Like CBT seeks to break that feedback loop up,
so at least you're not getting worse and worse because
of all the other the cascading effects that has. Yeah,
for sure, one of the other ones, like as that
nineteen eighty four study right off the bat came identified
a really great treatment for seasonal effective disorder that's non
(40:09):
pharmaceutical that you can do at home. As a matter
of fact, you can do it at the library. I
saw that the libraries in Northern Ireland rent out light boxes.
It's called bright light therapy. Us is very intense white light.
Don't worry, there's a protective UV cover, so you're not
blasting your face. You're not going to get a tant
(40:30):
from it, essentially, but your retinas are going to pick
up on that white light, and so serotonin is going
to increase, your melatonin is going to not be so high,
and it can actually treat especially moderate forms of seasonal
effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Yeah, for sure. The idea is you put this light on.
You don't just sit there and stare at it. You
just kind of maybe do it in the morning fifteen
minutes to an hour, maybe forty five minutes or so,
cast it upon your face. This goes is that funny? Yeah,
this goes all the way back actually to the seventeen hundreds.
It was an Italian physician named Vincenzo Chierra Rugi who
(41:14):
way back then said, hey, if you're depressed, I think
sunlight would help. So it's been a thing for a
long time, but now you know, obviously they still say
get out in the sun if you can. But in
a lot of places where there's limited light in the
winter or just gray days like we were talking about,
this is where the blt that bright light therapy comes
in play. I saw they also make little hats, little visors.
(41:36):
Oh yeah, that just shine down on your face at
all times.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Nice like Collective Soul said, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
I don't think you're supposed to I think it's supposed
to be limited. Still, though, you're not supposed to have
that light on you at all times because it can
disrupt your sleep and cause eye strain and fatigue and
stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Right. Yeah, you don't want to overdo it for sure,
And I think it's different for each person how much
you actually but it does work. I know firsthand it
works because you may used to get what I guess
you would call sub syndromeal seasonal effective disorder. She didn't
definitely didn't have major depression, but it was like she
was impacted noticeably, and she found out about light boxes
(42:17):
and got one and it helped her a lot.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
That's cool. I have friends that use these things just
for not even seasonal, just for you know, regular depression,
and they say it helps them out. Dawn stimulation is
another thing, and it's kind of the same idea, but
it's like one of those alarm clocks that slowly starts
brightening your room over the course of like thirty minutes
(42:39):
or so as you're waking up, so again, tied into
this circadian rhythm of rising with the sun's rise.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Do you remember that alarm clock from the seventies and
eighties that like it would light up. It had a
picture of like I think, like a fence out in
the Old West, and the sky would go like dark blue.
It would like it would change the color of the
sky on the alarm clock picture depending on what time
(43:06):
of day it was. You don't remember those, no, I
don't they've ever seen that. They were amazing. My oldest
sister had one of those. I would love one. I
don't know what happened to that, probably broke.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
Yeah. My brother had one of those clocks, the alarm
clocks that had the like a rollodex. It would flip
the numbers around like mechanically. Oh n yeah, those were fun.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yeah. The one I always had was like that.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Kind of oh man, no really yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
When I was a teenager, that's what I needed.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
Or the two bells with the hammer.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I had one of those too.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
There was a period where I had the one that
went I wouldn't do it, so I had to switch
over to the two bells one.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Oh, i'd be always had a hard time waking up
like that?
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, have I I don't anymore, but yes, I used
to when I was a teenager.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
Well, because I get emails from you at like five
thirty in the morning. What the hell are you doing?
You farming?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I've seen I've milking the cows and email at the
same time. Sometimes I have decided that getting up at
five is way too early for me. So good, I'm
doing six.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
Now, Hey, that's reasonable.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
It is seven sometimes if I'm feeling frisky.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
They had a really late night the night before.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, I went to bed at ten.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
We should mention vitamin D speaking of cows, because vitamin
D deficiency does correlate with a more likelihood of having
or developing SAD. But they haven't found any like good, hard,
consistent evidence that vitamin D supplements can help a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
There's one place. Remember you said that high latitudes. Yeah,
the higher the latitude, the more negative the attitude, right,
the likelier you are to have seasonal a factor of
disorder that does not hold true at least in some parts,
some of the most extremely northern parts the world. In
particular's a town called trumsa Norway that is very northern.
(45:06):
It might be the most northernmost city in Norway. It's
really high up there. Suffice to say that they are
absent from sunlight. I think two full months out of
the year. Oh man, like nothing, nothing like the sun
comes out. I mean, I think it might get as
much as it would get like before sunrise on a
(45:28):
normal day, And they go like that for two months.
And yet the rates of seasonal effective disorder are much
less in Trums of that than you would expect.
Speaker 4 (45:38):
Yeah, it seems to be because they've done just sort
of studies and questionnaires, and people there agree with statements
like I love the coziness of the winter months. Winter
brings many wonderful seasonal changes. They don't agree with winter
is boring when winter is limiting. So it seems to
really be a lot about the attitude. And you know,
(45:59):
I think if you live there, a lot of people
probably don't just move there. It seems to be a
place where you're usually from. Or maybe people do move
to one of the most northernmost cities in the world.
I'm sure it happens, but generally, if you have grown
up in a place and that's the thing. Everyone knows
that's the thing, and so there are probably many many
events and traditions and activities that they do to thwart that.
(46:22):
And it seems to work because they get into their skiing,
they get into their winter hiking, they get into their
cozy drinks and their warm blankets and their fireplaces, and
it seems to be that they look forward to that
stuff and it bears out by them not having a
prevalence of sad there.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
It's kind of interesting, yeah, And some people point to
that as evidence. They say that there's no such thing
as sad. That just does not make sense. If sad
is this response to biological imperative that happens every year
among people who are maladjusted for that imperative, then that's
just not be the way in TRUMSA And there was
(47:02):
actually a study from twenty sixteen from researchers at Auburn Montgomery,
the University of Auburn and Montgomery, and they studied CDC
data and they found no seasonal variations in depression symptoms
and it was a massive population that they studied. I mean,
(47:23):
if there is such a thing as seasonal effective disorder,
then there should be an increase in the winter months
and they didn't find it. That does not seem to
be the consensus among the scientific community. As a matter
of fact, I wanted to go click on the link
in this Scientific American article that we were checking out
that exploded. It was gone. It couldn't find it.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
So it made me wonder if they quietly retracted it,
or maybe it was just a broken link. It never
can tell. But for the most part, if you look
up seasonal effective disorder, every reliable website in America like
Johns Hopkins or Harvard Health or Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic,
(48:07):
I could keep going. They are they all are all
all in non seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
I'm now I'm picturing just like a couple of scientists
in a ditch being shoveled over with lime.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
So just one thing before we stop. It has nothing
to do with Norway, really, but it reminded me. I
saw a there's a good true crime. I don't know
if it's a docudrama, but it's based on real life
and it's Danish. It's called The Investigation. It's so mellow,
The Investigation.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
I love those I love story set in those parts
of the world. I love Danish filmmaking and Norwegian filmmaking.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
You'll love it out. It's like there's at least one
episode where almost the entire time nothing happens, and they
just show nothing happening. It's it's but it's really good.
It's really in growth, so I would recommend it. Awesome,
Chuck said, Awesome. That means he just triggered the first
listener mail of twenty twenty six. Everybody, that's right.
Speaker 4 (49:11):
This is from Megan and Michigan. Hey, guys, thank you
for the many years of engaging in interesting content. I
first started listening in twenty twelve when I moved out
of my home state and would download episodes onto CDs.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Nice. Wow, that is why I love old.
Speaker 4 (49:27):
Well, this will make you feel old too, to pass
the time on the long drives in my old Cavalier.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Wow, they don't still make the Cavalier, do they.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
I don't believe so. No. I think they buried them
with those Auburn and Montgomery well twenty twelve.
Speaker 4 (49:40):
I'ms probably wasn't in the camery. I just listened to
your Dolls episode. Guys. I had to write in I
have three kids and they have at times acted out
scenarios with dolls and toys that would have been very
disturbing if I had not been prepared that it was
very normal and healthy. Actually, the most recent example is
when my five year old came into the house and
told me that he and his three year old sister
had made gravestones in the backyard because their twin baby
(50:02):
dolls had died. Oh my, even knowing it's normal, I
do have to take a deep breath and remind myself
that part of raising emotionally healthy kids as letting the
process through play. Still, I was a bit relieved the
next day, and they threw a big party the babies
first birthday. So she skips out the part where they
dug them off out if they exhumed them from the grave.
(50:23):
Thanks again for bringing so many topics and perspectives to
light while somehow keeping things humorous and upbeat. Looking forward
to learning more in twenty twenty six. That is Megan
and Michigan.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Nice Megan, thank you for that. That was a great,
great email, and God bless your kids for being awesome.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
If you want to be like Meghan and tell us
about your awesome kids, we love that kind of thing.
You could send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app
Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to your favorite shows. MHM.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and it's a stuff you
should know. Hoe down to start the new year. Chuck's
still wearing his Novelty twenty twenty six glasses that he
got sponsored by Nivea.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
That.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I believe what you were saying was Ryan Seacrest himself
handed him to you while you were at Times Square.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Right, No, not handed, he put them on my face hands.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Whoa is it? Because you guys are co workers?
Speaker 4 (00:41):
Yeah, he's iheartedn't he?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah? But I think like half of the US is
a coworker of his, got so many jobs.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Yeah, you're probably right. Well, if you haven't guessed listening, audience,
this is our first recording of the new year. Yes,
I'm probably gonna be a little rusty. And can I
just give a quick shout out to a couple of things?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Please too, great as well. Josh knows all this stuff
because we communicate outside of work, believe it or not,
because we're fans. But I went to you know, New
York City, Emily and I do our little Broadway weekend
in New York over Christmas every year and this year,
I just want to say thanks to a couple of people,
most notably Natasha Hodgson of Operation Mincemeat fame, because she
(01:31):
is in the show and put together the show and
stuff you should Know, and she's been in magazines as
people alerted as giving stuff you should Know credit as
our episode inspiring that show, and was kind enough to
give us a couple of tickets to go see it,
and it was fantastic. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I know I was loath to miss it. That sucked.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I wish you could have been there, But it's you know,
it's still playing, so maybe you can check it out.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah. I was especially upset when you said that she
gave you She came out in the audience in the
middle of the show and gave you like a bouquet
of roses.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
No, no, no, the audience.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Lifted you up on their shoulders.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
No, that was that was That didn't happen. Also went
to Barston Trolley as I like to do before Broadway.
Barston Trolley is where I go before Broadway shows.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well, what is it?
Speaker 4 (02:22):
It's a bar but it's it's sort of a I mean,
you can just make reservations a week out. I think
I've mentioned this before. It's it's sort of a secret
place in that it doesn't have a sign or it's
not wild publicize, but you know, seven days out from
when you want to go, you can call them up.
They specialize in getting people in and out of their
pre and post Broadway, and you know sometimes you can
(02:46):
see Broadway performers there on the down low.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Nice. I would have no idea that one could be
sitting next to me and I wouldn't even know.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Well, you might if it's if it's a famous you know,
like Brian Cranston was sitting there. No, but he could be.
I saw years ago, I saw Dexter in there. What's
his name?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Dexter's good enough.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah. This year I saw the lady from Lost. Although
I don't think she's on Broadway, she was in there.
But all this to say big thanks to Jason who
helps take care of Barton Trolley and Joe's on Broadway.
He came over on his night off just to say
hi and was just a total sweetheart of a guy.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
What a trip.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
And then finally I want to thank Santa Santa Claus
in the Radio City Music Hall Show. I surprised Emily
by going to the Christmas show this year for the
first time.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Oh yeah, I remember Santa rode In.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Santa rode In and although he was not in the
performance we went to. Santa Adam was very kindness in
a Christmas video to Ruby. Have you been to the show?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
No, I'm just some bumpkin who stays at home all
the time. Apparently, dude, you and you me.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Have to go to the Radio City Music or Christmas Spectacular.
It is one of the delights of my life. The
Rockets was one of the most impressive, most amazing live
shows of any kind of ever seen. They were incredible.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Wow, okay, I'll go yeah, and it's.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
You know you love you guys, love your Christmas cheer
and it really you can't. Even the biggest grinchy curmudgeon
wouldn't help but get in the mood, even at the
ten am show. But the Rockets were amazing and Santa
said that he turned them onto our listener mail and
the Rockets episode and some of the now current Rockets
are listening. Oh cool, So shout out to you Rockets.
(04:37):
Keep on kicking.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Hello, Rockettes. We did a whole show on the rockets,
didn't we did? Yeah, all right, that was amazing. Chuck.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
You you were sick over the holidays, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
It really stunk. I got this cold that apparently there's
like a two week cold going around. Oh no, that
light and it was just like every day I would
add a new symptom, and it was I could do
stuff during the day, but I was just sick the
whole time and it was so sorry. It was rough. Yeah,
some thanks for that, I appreciate it. But we still
had a great Christmas. Well, Momo knows how to open presents,
(05:11):
so she opened presents on Christmas mornings. She was so happy.
Paul teeth quite a both. Okay, yeah, she's a pro.
She knows what she's doing. She got some new rabbit treats,
so she laid on her back and rolled on those
and she had a great Christmas morning.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
So that's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
It was a good Christmas. After all. We hung out
with friends on Christmas Eve, and our friends Laurel and
Braden and their kids, Elliott and Bear, so we got
to hang out with Yeah you do, you've met them
twenty times. So we got to hang out with little kids.
On Christmas even, man, that will put you in the
Christmas spirit when you don't have kids of your own.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Yeah. How old are those kids?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
They're like eight and six, I think, so that's fine
prime age.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, right in the zone.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah. So thank you though for your sympathy over my sicknesses.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah, I felt bad.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
One thing I don't have, chuck, which I'm really happy
I don't have, because it's awful, is sad.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
No sads for you.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I don't have sad. Do you have sad?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
No, I don't have sad. You know, we're talking about
seasonal effective disorder, and just right off the bat, we
should point out, because I was about to say occasionally
I get the winter blues, that this is not that
this is a real it's legitimate depression and comorbid with
stuff like bipolar disorder, and we're going to talk all
about it. But it's not just you know, oh I
(06:31):
get a little blue in the winter sometimes when it's
you know, gloomy.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
No, but it's tied to that. Yes, it's just it
seems to be an extreme version of that. But you're right,
it's not. It's nothing light, it's classified. I believe in
the DSM is a major depressive disorder. Yeah, with a
seasonal pattern. I think that's the clinical name for seasonal
effective disorder. And there are people out there, I think
(06:58):
something like five percent of people. I don't I believe
that's an American statistic. Yeah, that's America get the like
real deal seasonal effective disorder where they have major depressive
symptoms during the winter months. But something like ten percent
or maybe even higher than that. In the United States,
(07:20):
people get what's called sub syndromeal seasonal effective disorder, so
where you don't have it where it could be considered
major depression. But it's definitely worse than the holiday blues.
And the weird thing about this, although it's not so
weird once we explain it. It is seasonal. It's tied
to winter, and it seems that they figure or summer,
(07:43):
which that one's just mind blowing to me.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, it seems like they have it figured out. They
have this, they have it explained. So this is one
of my favorite episodes where it's like, here's how the
human body works, here's what's messed up with this when
we're talking about this. I love episodes like that.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Yeah, not a lot of mystery, big thanks to Olivia
for getting the new year off to a great start
with another banger.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah you're here.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Yeah, we should say that this is something that hasn't
been officially I mean, it's obviously been around since you know,
time began, because as we'll see, it's tied to seasons
and especially light and how much light you're getting. So
that's always been a thing, but it hasn't been officially
diagnosed as a thing for that long. It was in
(08:29):
nineteen eighty four when there was a paper by researchers
at the National Institutes of Health. A particularly guy named
Norman Rosenthal got together and they discussed these almost thirty
I have a feeling. One dropped out. So there were
twenty nine patients. Most of them had bipolar disorder, and
they all had what we now know is as sad.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, that thirtieth one when they like one weekend, they're
like how do you feel? And they're like fine, and
they're like you're cut, you can go here.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So yeah, bipolar disorders, we'll see, like really kind of
ties into this. It seems to be like also seasonal
in some weird way too. But pretty quickly after that
nineteen eighty four paper, the DSM went all in three
years later, the DSM three R, as we all know
our stands for revised or rocking, that came out in
(09:24):
nineteen eighty seven, and it was like, now, it was
a diagnosis, but it was used as a modifier as
we saw a major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern.
So it wasn't its own thing. It was just a
subtype essentially of an existing depressive disorder. That's kind of
how they first had it.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, and you know, because it's seasonal, the most common
kind of sad that we think about, Like we mentioned,
it is very serious thing, and it starts off in
the fall, maybe early winter, and it kind of depends
on where you are is we'll see, although not all intuitively,
there's a third act reveal that might surprise some people.
(10:05):
It generally subsides in the spring. But I did mention
that that odd spring and summer variety that hasn't been
studied much. It's very very limited. About point five percent
of the population has this opposite pattern. But it is
a diagnosable mood disruption. It just happens in the spring
and summer, and it's tied more to sort of like
(10:26):
oppressive heat, and maybe unsurprisingly, some of the things they
recommend for that, which again we're going to cover a
little more later, is stuff like maybe stay inside, dim
the lights, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, And the thing that gets me about the summer
version that much rareer one is that the symptoms are
almost in some cases opposite the symptoms of winter. So
usually when you first start getting SAD, it's around young
adulthood ages eighteen to thirty, I think, And most people
(10:58):
who get it get it most years, but you don't
necessarily have it every year. Women are four times likelier
than men to have it, And if you have an
existing mood disorder, you're much likelier to suffer from seasonal
effective disorder because it's almost like it takes your existing
mood disorder, say bipolar two, and just builds on it.
(11:20):
There's an extra like environmental punch to it that really
kind of kicks it into high gear.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Yeah, and that four times more common in women's that's
really substantial, And we'll get into that. It seems to
be tied to estrogen, but we'll dig into that a
little bit more in a bit. But having family members,
they think there's some genetic component to it. If you
have relatives that have depression or any kind of mental
health disorder, it's you know, obviously it doesn't mean you will,
(11:50):
but that could mean you might. I guess that's the
way doctors say it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, you might got it.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
And not surprisingly, you're more likely to develop SAD if
you live in places in the far you know, away
from the equator, far north or south, where there's gonna
be less sunlight, or maybe you know, in places like
Seattle where there's just more gray days than others.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, I was surprised I couldn't find the other eight,
the first eight, but Seattle was the ninth most affected
city with seasonal effective disorder. I would have thought it'd
be higher than that. I could not find the first eight,
So I'm like, does this list really exist or was
this just like a post intelligence or made up article?
Speaker 4 (12:32):
And do they do they tie in things like or
do they list things like Tacoma, like neighboring neighboring towns?
Does that count as a different place?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I wonder that's a great question. What about Tacoma?
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Well, I just wondered, Tacoma's very lovely, but maybe Seattle
might be a little more lively. Yeah, no, I could
get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
No, No, everybody knows about Tacoma. Okay, okay, it's been
a long time since we picked down a particular city.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Oh, I don't want to put to coma owner sites.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Okay, we won't because.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
You know, you can't spell. You can't spell seat tack
without tack.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That's right. So what happens when you experience sad seasonal
effective disorder? I mean most people can kind of come
up with this idea of like what depression symptoms seem like,
but there's specific ones that emerge with seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, I think you know generally what you will see
like with most depression listlessness obviously, sadness, interest and activities
that you might normally like you don't like as much.
You may have a hard time concentrating suicidal thoughts if
it gets really bad, hopelessness, maybe guilt sometimes, and then
(13:46):
some physical symptoms like just a weight like in your
limbs sometimes.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, like a lethargy, a fatigue and those. Yeah, that's
kind of common among depression in general. But winter sad
has some extra symptoms like over sleeping or just sleeping
too much or more than you normally would craving carbs,
overeating weight gain, and then that fatigue, the low energy
(14:12):
and tiredness and all of those things too create like
a feedback loop where you know, if you're depressed and
you start gaining weight and that kind of thing bothers you,
you're going to be even more depressed because you just
started gaining weight, in which case, if you're an emotional eater,
you might go eat more carbs and gain more weight
(14:32):
and there, you know, it just kind of goes on.
So that's one of the difficult things about it is
it's not just like I'm depressed. It's I'm depressed and
now everything is set up because of this winter season
for me to just keep getting more and more depressed
while winter's going on.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Yeah, and if you're sitting there thinking like, oh, man,
like in the wintertime, I tend to sleep later, and
I tend to eat and maybe drink a little more
and gain some weight and I'm a little more tired.
Those are also That's why sad is such a sort
of a unique thing, because that also just describes a
lot of people in the winter. But there is a difference,
(15:12):
and you know we're gonna be pointing out those differences.
You mentioned summer was unusual because the summer sads because
it's very much opposite. And that goes for the symptoms
as well, because instead of sleeping in, you might have
trouble sleeping, instead of eating too much, you might have
a low appetite, you might lose weight, you might be
anxious and agitated and irritable. Headaches is another one for
(15:34):
summer sad.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, it's like winter said you go inward and are
kind of closed off, and with summer said, you go outward,
but it's not in any like. That doesn't mean you're
just more sociable. It means like you're more agro potentially
than you would be with like winter sad. So yeah,
it is they're just kind of opposite, and yet they
(15:58):
tie into, like you were saying, how people already are
like you go out more in the summertime, you stay
in more in the winter time. So what seems to
be the case with seasonal effective disorder is that it
is a hyper or hypo version of a normal human
biological imperative that we have learned as a society to
(16:21):
try to ignore, and for some people ignoring it is
not really an option because it's so pronounced.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Yeah, and escapable. Yeah. So there are basically four things.
And like I said, if you feel like, oh man,
I kind of feel those things in the winter too,
listen to these four things because this is when you
should see a medical professional as if one. If these
feelings persist for days and days in a row, it's
(16:50):
not like I just had a couple of rough days
when it was like really rainy and cold. If you're sleeping,
appetite patterns like really change is the second one if
you're coping with drugs and alcohol, that's a big red flag.
And then the fourth one if you feel hopeless or
suicidal for sure, And I think as far as diagnosis goes,
you have to I think it has to be for
(17:13):
at least two years in a row. Even though you
did say you don't necessarily have it all years, you
at least have to have it two years in a
row at some point.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, And because it is essentially if you look at
the winter sad in summer sad, they're basically two ends
of a spectrum mania and depression. Like people with bipolar
two are definitely more susceptible to sad and they might
experience both types of seasonal although again just statistically speaking,
(17:43):
they're much more likely to just experience the winter sad.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah, for sure. And if you do see a professional,
they're probably gonna ask you a lot of questions. You
might even fill out an official questionnaire. There's no like
blood test or brain scan or anything like like you know,
other types of Russian that's the case as well, but
you might get they might rule things out. They might
do like a thyroid screening or you know, some other
(18:07):
things just to make sure it's not something like physical
going on.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Right, So that's sad everybody, And I think we should
talk about where this whole thing comes from. They think,
after a break, chuck our first break of twenty twenty six,
let's make it a big one.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
You still got it, You still got it?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
All right?
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Lately I've been learning some stop about insomnia or aluminia.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
How about the one on border like disorder that or
yer order that one before?
Speaker 5 (18:42):
But it was so nice hoarded why except everybody listen,
stop shot.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Stop stop stop.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
All right, So kind of like we were talking, it's
it's kind of hard to diagnose this. Uh as far
(19:20):
as when you should go to a doctor, because a
lot of people are just like this in the winter,
and you're also sort of fighting. I think you kind
of hinted at it like a natural human intuition in
a lot of ways, because if you go back in
time to the time where Tuck Tuck was roaming the
earth in the winter, they slowed down and they conserved
(19:42):
energy because food wasn't around and it was cold, so
they they bunkered down. And there are some interesting theories
around that, right.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah. They think it's possible that Neanderthals had like a
real type of hibernation period in the winter now, you know,
like a bear necessarily, but something more pronounced than humans,
and that interbreeding with Neanderthals may have produced seasonal effective
disorder in some people.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Yea's pretty cool when Homo sapiens started hugging and kissing Neanderthals.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
That's right. Like in what was it? Quest for Fire?
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Oh man, there was some real realizations in that movie.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It was a I mean, what an interesting movie though,
you know. Yeah, Ron Pearlman, Yeah he really, he's a
good cave man.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
By the way, did a minute ago did I say
bunker down? M I meant to say hunker down? Is
bunker down even a thing.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I feel like it should be more than hunkered down.
It makes more sense. Okay, I didn't even know I
heard you and made like I grasped that you said
bunker down, right, But it's so natural that it didn't
even seem wrong.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Yeah. And our Georgia bulldogs at what they say for
them is hunker down, you harried dogs. I'm gonna start
saying bunker down, and everyone's just gonna make them like
a Cia plant or something.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Right, a narc Yeah. Oh, I can't talk about the
dogs right now, I know.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Very disappointing.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
What a heartbreaker. Yeah, okay, so you said something like that.
People back in Tuktok's age definitely slow down in the wintertime, right,
Your body just changes, And that's still the case with humans.
We have not evolved out of that. And there's been studies.
There was a twenty fifteen study that found that the
(21:32):
simone in Bolivia and the San people in Namibia, who
are in no way, shape or form related ones in
South America ones in Africa, they both sleep longer in
the winter and less in the summer. And you might say, like, well, duh,
we all do that. That's exactly the point. There's some
(21:53):
sort of biological mechanism. There's some sort of like I said,
imperative where you, without conscious thought and kind of without
without a choice, you slow down in the winter time
and you speed up more in the summertime. That's just
what our bodies do. And because of this natural thing,
(22:15):
it can go haywire, just like any other natural thing
in humans. When it does, that produces seasonal effective disorder,
and they think they've got the mechanism to the whole
thing down.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah, and that, you know, that's kind of evidence. In
this German study from twenty twenty three, they did a
study and caveat all this was it was a study
already of people that had sleeping issues with disturbed sleeping patterns, right,
so it was kind of you know, it wasn't just
the general population. And interestingly, they found that even if
they were living in place where it was mostly artificial light,
(22:49):
even then by season their sleep cycles would vary. So
it's not just like, yeah, if you live out away
from all the you know, out in the boonies, away
from industrialization, your circadian rhythms are really dictated by natural light.
That would make sense, but they found that that took
place even when you were just living a regular, well
lit life.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, even when you lived in a windowless, brutalist apartment
in Munich. That's right. You wear a black turtleneck all
year round, oh man. And then another kind of thing,
like you said, that was a small study and it
was of people who already had a sleep disorder. Yet
it backs up what everybody kind of anecdotally already knows. Right,
(23:30):
you sleep more in the season, and you're more tired
in the winter season. Another thing that's anecdotal but is
backed up by study is that your appetite changes, right. Yeah,
some of it's cultural, where like you know, Christmas cookies
are around, sure you're gonna eat them, and Christmas cookies
aren't around in March. Say maybe some maniac makes like
(23:53):
Saint Patrick's Day cookies, but way more people make Christmas
cookies than Saint Patrick's Stay cookies. So there are reasons
that your appetite does increase just because there's more delicious
stuff around. But we've also found that just by being
in colder temperatures, being exposed to colder temperatures over periods
of time, hormone levels change in our bodies. And we
(24:15):
crave more calories because as we digest them, we produce
more heat and that keeps us warm. We don't need
bear skins anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Yeah, that's right, we need buckeyeballs. And Emily's aunt comes
to town every Christmas now and all the her mom
and her aunt and her sister and Ruby, they all
make have a night making Christmas cookies.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Oh dude, I did better this year than usual. I
somehow managed to only put on five pounds.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Hey, that's not bad for Christmas.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
From Thanksgiving to January fourth.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
That's not bad because usually that number is more like twelve.
So and I found that that temporary sort of goes
off a little quicker too.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
It's certainly you get back to reason, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, that's the key is getting back to reason faster
than you know, just not putting it off for the
rest of the month of January, That's what I think.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
And the buck eyeballs are gone, and those old fashions
really slow down after Christmas.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Man, those buck eyeballs. I made my mom's Christmas cookies,
my mom's recipe, the one that I grew up with
as a kid, that had confounded me for years because
I couldn't get it quite right. It was always too flowery. Okay,
And in the last few years I've learned enough about
baking that I kind of figured it out on my
own and I nailed it finely.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, and I was going to have some of those.
I'll make you some.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
It takes Christmas though, yes, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Note don't do it, but you got me these cookie
cutters that are all like kind of they're like sentimental
between us, like different shapes. And one of them is broccoli,
so proctally say cookie cutters and I hate broccoli.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
So oh I love that. That's fun.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, I don't have any I oh yeah. We were
talking about how appetite changes.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
That's right. Here's one thing though you might think you've
probably heard that, like, you know, suicide spike around the
holidays because it can be such a tough time of
the year for people. That is actually not true. In fact,
they happen the least in December. They're more common in
the summertime. Of course in Australia that's reversed because of
(26:30):
where they are on how their seasons run. So we're
talking about that, you know, our hemispheres perspective obviously, right.
But I found that interesting and it's good to correct
the record because I think everyone always hears that it's
probably good in a way, because it's anytime you're raising
awareness on something like that, that's a good thing. But
(26:51):
that's not true that they spike over the holidays.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Now. I feel like we've talked about that before, and
they think that maybe like just by people reaching out
more during the holidays, you have a greater social calendar.
Typically just the holiday spirit can get to people. But
then also there's some other explanations for why it might
be more common in the spring or summer months, like
(27:15):
you might just have more energy to actually complete suicide. Right.
Another one that I thought was just horrible is that
there are autoimmune conditions like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis that
are linked to seasonal allergies, and that people who have
those are is this this overlooked population of people with
(27:36):
a higher suicide risk, and that that would account for
it because your loopis is probably flaring up way more
in the spring and summer than it is in the
winter months.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, we've kind of hinted
around about the length of day, and we're going to
talk a lot about that over the next little bit,
but it is, you know, it's intuitive and it's correct
that the more tense that seasonal changes as far as
that length of day goes, the more likely you're gonna
have SAD. That was a I believe it was a
(28:07):
meta analysis from South Korea just last year in twenty
twenty five. They had studied twenty four studies with thirty
thousand total participants, so pretty robust. And for each one
degree of increase in latitude, SAD rose by point two percent,
and the just the winter blues by point three two percent.
(28:28):
So one, you know, one degree increase in latitude is
obviously a little less daylight.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
It's like Jimmy Buffett said, changes in latitude, changes in attitude.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Never thought about that.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
That's what he was talking about with seasonal effective disorder
in that song.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Yeah, he changed the title though, because you know, when
you title things like Cheeseburger in Paradise, you can't title
something seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, it was originally this song was titled major depressive
Disorder with a seasonal pattern, right, right, So yeah, I
think he was wise to change it. As well. So
let's talk about is you want to get into some
of the causes. I've been teasing this basically the entire episode,
and I'm really kind of jazzed about this part.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Yeah, I mean, here's here's where it gets science y,
because our old friends. Obviously serotonin and melatonin show up, right.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yes, so just as a refresher, serotonin is responsible for
things like mood, sleep, cognition, bunch of other stuff. But
as far as seasonal effective disorder goes, those are the
important things that serotonin does. Right. Yeah, what's really cool.
I didn't actually realize this sunlight hitting your retina actually
(29:37):
triggers production of serotonin. It increases the production of serotonin. Right,
So therefore, when we're exposed to less sunlight, there's a
lower angle of the sun, you just don't get as
much sun physically in the winter months. That means that
your serotonin levels are actually less in winter than they
(29:58):
are in the brighter spring and sou summer months. That's
just a fact. It happens to everybody, but in most people,
your serotonin transporter gene starts producing less serotonin transporter, the
stuff that goes in and gets the serotonin out. Of
the synapse, right, that's right, which means that there's less serotonin,
(30:21):
but there's also less transporters removing the serotonin that's there,
so you keep about the same level of, say, mood,
that you would have in the summer months because your
body is adjusting. What they found, just amazingly is that
there are two things that are screwed up with the
serotonin and the serotonin transporter. That seem to be one
(30:43):
of the major causes of seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
So spill it. You're on a roll.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Okay, So people with seasonal who get seasonal effective disorder,
they have enough serotonin all year to keep them from
being depressed, right, But just like everybody else, when they
are exposed to less light, their serotonin goes down. But
the thing that seems to give them seasonal effective disorder
(31:09):
is that their serotonin transporters don't also go down. So
like everybody else, they have lower serotonin during the winter,
but they have the same amount of serotonin transporters, so
there's less serotonin, and proportionately speaking, there's more serotonin transporters
removing the serotonin keeping it from working, which pushes them
(31:30):
from non depressed to depressive. Symptoms all because they're exposed
to less light during the wintertime.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Yeah, and you know, I mentioned women have it four
times as often as men do, and it was tied
to estrogen, and it looks like variations and estrogen levels
can interact with those changes in serotonin and basically make
it worse. And that probably is the explanation why women
get it more. And you know perimenopause and menopause affect
(32:01):
all that as well, which are that's an episode we
need we need to do for sure. Yeah, and also
there you know, we mentioned there's a genetic element, right,
So it looks like that people is generally speaking, who
have at least one short allele in that serotonin transporter
gene promoter region. I know that's a lot of words, everybody,
Huh the tl d L is too long? Hidn't listen?
(32:27):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Is that it's there's a genetic component. So if you
have that short allele, you're going to be more more
vulnerable to developing just regular depression, to any kind of
like you know, life events or stresses like that, or
just depression period. But that short allele is also associated
with those higher search levels, the se RT levels in
(32:51):
the winter and that's where your increased level is SAD
is going to come on.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, So that's serotonin. That's a big, big factor in
reducing seasonal effective disorder, as well as just any kind
of major impression, right.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Yeah. So melatonin is next, and that just kind of
broadly speaking as far as we're concerned as the one
that you know, kind of makes you sleepy.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, which I mean, it can make you sleepy, it
can make you lethargic, it can make you not want
to go out, and all of this stuff. Remember, there's
a positive heedback loop here with the depressive symptoms that
come on with seasonal effective disorder, the behavior they produce
feeding back into becoming more and more depressed. Melatonin keeps
you from wanting to do stuff because that's the way
(33:36):
our bodies are set up to respond during the winter.
And it all has to do with the circadian rhythm, which,
as everybody knows, most people know, governs your sleep and
wake cycle. Right.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
It also has to do with digestion, it has to
do with body temperature, and all sorts of other hormones.
I didn't know this, but apparently it has to do
with the release of cortisol, which we think of cortisolts
typically as a stress hormone full stop, and it is,
but it also is a hormone that causes us to
do more stuff to produce more energy. So when the
(34:09):
circadian rhythm is not quite functioning correctly, it doesn't just
make us sleepy, it actually makes us less energetic as well.
And the whole thing, the whole circadian rhythm is controlled
by a little part of the hypothalamus called the super
chismatic nucleus or the SCN.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Nice work on that one.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I practiced a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Yeah, the SEN And this is where we can throw
a little German in there. It relies on zeitgebers or
time givers. And these are just clues from the world
around us telling you you know, what's going on. And
mainly what we're talking about here is light. Sunlight again
hitting those retinas, it travels to the SCN and then
(34:52):
that signals the pineal gland to release or produce that melatonin.
So the more light you have, the less melatonin have have.
That's why you know you're not supposed to be looking
at your cell phone or avoid like really bright lights
before you try and get some sleep. But the tldal
here is it just means our bodies make more melotonin
(35:12):
in the wintertime than the summertime, So you're gonna be
sleeping longer and probably a little more lethargic.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, exactly. So serotonin plus melotonin being messed with it
happens to everybody, but most people's bodies respond in a
way that that regulates it and keeps it from becoming depression.
Some people do not have that same way to regulate it,
and that's who has seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Yeah, and I thought this is really interesting. So it's
you know, we just said that if you experience sad
then you're you're gonna have a greater than average increase
in melotonin in the winter than you know, your your
average person. But this is really interesting. You know, we
talked about sunlight coming through your retinas, and that's the
pathway that it initially travels, right, maybe a little on
your skin, but mainly through your retinas. They found that
(36:01):
your retinas actually actually react less to light in the
winter compared to the summer.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
You're right, Chuck, that is really interesting, Thank you, Josh.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
And I guess before we break, we should talk about
the third little thing after serotonin and melotone in which
are social and environmental factors. You know, if you have sad,
you when it's when fall rolls around, you start to
get that dread. You're going to have a negative emotional
response to winter. It's not the cause of it, but
(36:32):
that's part of that feedback feedback loop that you were
talking about. You're like, oh man, the days are going
to get shorter if you live in the Pacific Northwest
or other places where it rains a lot and it's
just more gray days that time of year. You just
you start to have that dread and that that just
feeds everything.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yep, yeah, it just makes it worse. And then, yeah,
the whole thing is that feedback loop. Chuck, I'm going
to do it again. I think we should take a
message break.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
All right, we'll finish up with sad right after this.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Lately I've been learning some stop about insomnia or aluminia.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
How about the one hon borderlin disorder that are younger
order that one be warm But it was so nice.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Hoar why except nobody listen up?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Job stop stop stop, Yes, all right, So we talked
(37:51):
several times that about sad being a form of major depression,
which means that it is highly treatable. Actually thanks to
our friend, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor SSRI or antidepressants apparently well,
BUTTRIN works really well to treat SAD. But basically any
SSRI is going to work. One thing that stuck out
(38:13):
to me, I believe that if you have seasonal effective disorder,
but you you're not. You don't have bipolar, you don't
have major depressive disorder, it's just seasonal. I guess they
suggest that you take SSRIs. You ramp up and say,
like the fall before it becomes winter, and then you
(38:33):
wean off as springtime comes around. So they would have
you on SSRIs, but not year round because you wouldn't
need them year round. I thought that was fascinating because
that can be that can be risky if you don't
do it right, it can be really risky.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
Yeah, and you know, one of the things after that
they suggest with all of these treatments is that you
you you start before it hits like you know, and
depending on where you live, like when fall starts rolling around,
maybe you start some of these therapies to see if
you can head it off at the pass like in
the Old West. Yeah, but CBT is another thing that
(39:11):
they suggest. Like all cognitive behavioral therapy, it's basically, folks,
you know, trying to get you to change the way
you're thinking about a thing. It might be a group
therapy a couple of times a week over a couple
of months maybe, but specifically in this case, it's like,
let's try and get those negative thoughts about the upcoming
(39:33):
season or the season that is upon you with positive
ones and maybe do things like, hey, I know this
is a thing for me, so I'm gonna plan some
things specifically for this winter that I know that I
will enjoy.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, Like CBT seeks to break that feedback loop up,
so at least you're not getting worse and worse because
of all the other the cascading effects that has. Yeah,
for sure, one of the other ones, like as that
nineteen eighty four study right off the bat came identified
a really great treatment for seasonal effective disorder that's non
(40:09):
pharmaceutical that you can do at home. As a matter
of fact, you can do it at the library. I
saw that the libraries in Northern Ireland rent out light boxes.
It's called bright light therapy. Us is very intense white light.
Don't worry, there's a protective UV cover, so you're not
blasting your face. You're not going to get a tant
(40:30):
from it, essentially, but your retinas are going to pick
up on that white light, and so serotonin is going
to increase, your melatonin is going to not be so high,
and it can actually treat especially moderate forms of seasonal
effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Yeah, for sure. The idea is you put this light on.
You don't just sit there and stare at it. You
just kind of maybe do it in the morning fifteen
minutes to an hour, maybe forty five minutes or so,
cast it upon your face. This goes is that funny? Yeah,
this goes all the way back actually to the seventeen hundreds.
It was an Italian physician named Vincenzo Chierra Rugi who
(41:14):
way back then said, hey, if you're depressed, I think
sunlight would help. So it's been a thing for a
long time, but now you know, obviously they still say
get out in the sun if you can. But in
a lot of places where there's limited light in the
winter or just gray days like we were talking about,
this is where the blt that bright light therapy comes
in play. I saw they also make little hats, little visors.
(41:36):
Oh yeah, that just shine down on your face at
all times.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Nice like Collective Soul said, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
I don't think you're supposed to I think it's supposed
to be limited. Still, though, you're not supposed to have
that light on you at all times because it can
disrupt your sleep and cause eye strain and fatigue and
stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Right. Yeah, you don't want to overdo it for sure,
And I think it's different for each person how much
you actually but it does work. I know firsthand it
works because you may used to get what I guess
you would call sub syndromeal seasonal effective disorder. She didn't
definitely didn't have major depression, but it was like she
was impacted noticeably, and she found out about light boxes
(42:17):
and got one and it helped her a lot.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
That's cool. I have friends that use these things just
for not even seasonal, just for you know, regular depression,
and they say it helps them out. Dawn stimulation is
another thing, and it's kind of the same idea, but
it's like one of those alarm clocks that slowly starts
brightening your room over the course of like thirty minutes
(42:39):
or so as you're waking up, so again, tied into
this circadian rhythm of rising with the sun's rise.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Do you remember that alarm clock from the seventies and
eighties that like it would light up. It had a
picture of like I think, like a fence out in
the Old West, and the sky would go like dark blue.
It would like it would change the color of the
sky on the alarm clock picture depending on what time
(43:06):
of day it was. You don't remember those, no, I
don't they've ever seen that. They were amazing. My oldest
sister had one of those. I would love one. I
don't know what happened to that, probably broke.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
Yeah. My brother had one of those clocks, the alarm
clocks that had the like a rollodex. It would flip
the numbers around like mechanically. Oh n yeah, those were fun.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yeah. The one I always had was like that.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Kind of oh man, no really yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
When I was a teenager, that's what I needed.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
Or the two bells with the hammer.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I had one of those too.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
There was a period where I had the one that
went I wouldn't do it, so I had to switch
over to the two bells one.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Oh, i'd be always had a hard time waking up
like that?
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, have I I don't anymore, but yes, I used
to when I was a teenager.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
Well, because I get emails from you at like five
thirty in the morning. What the hell are you doing?
You farming?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I've seen I've milking the cows and email at the
same time. Sometimes I have decided that getting up at
five is way too early for me. So good, I'm
doing six.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
Now, Hey, that's reasonable.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
It is seven sometimes if I'm feeling frisky.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
They had a really late night the night before.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, I went to bed at ten.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
We should mention vitamin D speaking of cows, because vitamin
D deficiency does correlate with a more likelihood of having
or developing SAD. But they haven't found any like good, hard,
consistent evidence that vitamin D supplements can help a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
There's one place. Remember you said that high latitudes. Yeah,
the higher the latitude, the more negative the attitude, right,
the likelier you are to have seasonal a factor of
disorder that does not hold true at least in some parts,
some of the most extremely northern parts the world. In
particular's a town called trumsa Norway that is very northern.
(45:06):
It might be the most northernmost city in Norway. It's
really high up there. Suffice to say that they are
absent from sunlight. I think two full months out of
the year. Oh man, like nothing, nothing like the sun
comes out. I mean, I think it might get as
much as it would get like before sunrise on a
(45:28):
normal day, And they go like that for two months.
And yet the rates of seasonal effective disorder are much
less in Trums of that than you would expect.
Speaker 4 (45:38):
Yeah, it seems to be because they've done just sort
of studies and questionnaires, and people there agree with statements
like I love the coziness of the winter months. Winter
brings many wonderful seasonal changes. They don't agree with winter
is boring when winter is limiting. So it seems to
really be a lot about the attitude. And you know,
(45:59):
I think if you live there, a lot of people
probably don't just move there. It seems to be a
place where you're usually from. Or maybe people do move
to one of the most northernmost cities in the world.
I'm sure it happens, but generally, if you have grown
up in a place and that's the thing. Everyone knows
that's the thing, and so there are probably many many
events and traditions and activities that they do to thwart that.
(46:22):
And it seems to work because they get into their skiing,
they get into their winter hiking, they get into their
cozy drinks and their warm blankets and their fireplaces, and
it seems to be that they look forward to that
stuff and it bears out by them not having a
prevalence of sad there.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
It's kind of interesting, yeah, And some people point to
that as evidence. They say that there's no such thing
as sad. That just does not make sense. If sad
is this response to biological imperative that happens every year
among people who are maladjusted for that imperative, then that's
just not be the way in TRUMSA And there was
(47:02):
actually a study from twenty sixteen from researchers at Auburn Montgomery,
the University of Auburn and Montgomery, and they studied CDC
data and they found no seasonal variations in depression symptoms
and it was a massive population that they studied. I mean,
(47:23):
if there is such a thing as seasonal effective disorder,
then there should be an increase in the winter months
and they didn't find it. That does not seem to
be the consensus among the scientific community. As a matter
of fact, I wanted to go click on the link
in this Scientific American article that we were checking out
that exploded. It was gone. It couldn't find it.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
So it made me wonder if they quietly retracted it,
or maybe it was just a broken link. It never
can tell. But for the most part, if you look
up seasonal effective disorder, every reliable website in America like
Johns Hopkins or Harvard Health or Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic,
(48:07):
I could keep going. They are they all are all
all in non seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
I'm now I'm picturing just like a couple of scientists
in a ditch being shoveled over with lime.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
So just one thing before we stop. It has nothing
to do with Norway, really, but it reminded me. I
saw a there's a good true crime. I don't know
if it's a docudrama, but it's based on real life
and it's Danish. It's called The Investigation. It's so mellow,
The Investigation.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
I love those I love story set in those parts
of the world. I love Danish filmmaking and Norwegian filmmaking.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
You'll love it out. It's like there's at least one
episode where almost the entire time nothing happens, and they
just show nothing happening. It's it's but it's really good.
It's really in growth, so I would recommend it. Awesome,
Chuck said, Awesome. That means he just triggered the first
listener mail of twenty twenty six. Everybody, that's right.
Speaker 4 (49:11):
This is from Megan and Michigan. Hey, guys, thank you
for the many years of engaging in interesting content. I
first started listening in twenty twelve when I moved out
of my home state and would download episodes onto CDs.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Nice. Wow, that is why I love old.
Speaker 4 (49:27):
Well, this will make you feel old too, to pass
the time on the long drives in my old Cavalier.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Wow, they don't still make the Cavalier, do they.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
I don't believe so. No. I think they buried them
with those Auburn and Montgomery well twenty twelve.
Speaker 4 (49:40):
I'ms probably wasn't in the camery. I just listened to
your Dolls episode. Guys. I had to write in I
have three kids and they have at times acted out
scenarios with dolls and toys that would have been very
disturbing if I had not been prepared that it was
very normal and healthy. Actually, the most recent example is
when my five year old came into the house and
told me that he and his three year old sister
had made gravestones in the backyard because their twin baby
(50:02):
dolls had died. Oh my, even knowing it's normal, I
do have to take a deep breath and remind myself
that part of raising emotionally healthy kids as letting the
process through play. Still, I was a bit relieved the
next day, and they threw a big party the babies
first birthday. So she skips out the part where they
dug them off out if they exhumed them from the grave.
(50:23):
Thanks again for bringing so many topics and perspectives to
light while somehow keeping things humorous and upbeat. Looking forward
to learning more in twenty twenty six. That is Megan
and Michigan.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Nice Megan, thank you for that. That was a great,
great email, and God bless your kids for being awesome.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
If you want to be like Meghan and tell us
about your awesome kids, we love that kind of thing.
You could send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app
Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to your favorite shows. MHM.
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