Caring Minds^2:
Teenage mental health Support
Seasonal Affective Disorder
It’s a type of major depressive disorder, and people at all ages are at risk for this disease. This disease is a periodic disease, which means you can be seriously depressed in a certain season, winter most possibly, while in a good mood and maintain a great psychological and physical condition during the rest of the year, because it is highly affected by the amount of total sunlight hours. During the seasonal changes, especially when summer and winter is coming, patients are more likely to outbreak the disease.
Part 1. Definition
Seasonal affective disorder(SAD), also called seasonal mood disorder, is a mood disorder in which there is a predictable occurrence of major depressive episodes, manic episodes, or both at particular times of the year. The typical pattern is the occurrence of major depressive episodes during the fall or winter months. (APA)
Subsyndromal Seasonal Affective Disorder is a kind of SAD, but milder.
Part 2. Symptoms
Common symptoms of SAD include drowsiness, listlessness, having a sense of hopelessness and worthlessness, a loss of interest in socializing, agitation, overeating and difficulties of concentration. Anxiety occurs more often in summer. Although it is categorized as a major depressive disorder, the patient's symptoms are often not as severe as major depression, but rather a lack of energy for daily activities.
Part 3.
Pathology
Many kinds of animals are less active during the winter time, especially for diurnal animals. Humans are diurnal animals, which demonstrates that the feeling less passionate or energetic in conducting daily activities coulde be consedered as an inherent part. From an evolutionary and genetic perspective, winter is the most difficult time of the year for our ancestors to hunt and live, since winter is cold and dark. Thus, now we’re more likely to associate warmth, brightness with happiness and liveliness, while cold and dark are more likely to make people feel depressed or listless. Consequently people who live in higher latitude cities are more likely to have seasonal affective disorder, especially in the polar regions, such as Alaska. Moreover, a long stretch of cloud covered days also contribute negatively to the SAD.
It is not inevitable for people living in high latitude areas to develop SAD, but they are facing a higher risk of having it, especially for people who are sensitive to weather or having an intense feeling of a certain weather or season.
Part 4. Treatments
There are four major categories of SAD treatments: Light therapy, Psychotherapy, Taking antidepressant medication and vitamin D. Before introducing these treatments, it is worth mentioning that all of these treatments should be processed under the guidance of a professional health care provider.
1. Light therapy is the most common therapy for treating winter-pattern SAD. This therapy requires clients to sit in front of a light box in order to increase the exposure to bright lights. Although this treatment is suitable for most of the SAD clients, people with certain eye diseases or people who are taking medications that may have side effects from prolonged exposure to bright light should consider other treatments.
2. Cognitive behavioral therapy(CBT) is an effective therapy that can exert a longer positive effect than light therapy on clients. The main part of CBT is to focus on converting negative thoughts related to the season into positive thoughts. Moreover, CBT contains a process called behavioral activation, which aims at encouraging clients to identify and engage in interesting activities to offset the loss of interest they typically experience in the certain season.
3. Taking antidepressant medication and Vitamin D could also be helpful. However, it might take you some time to discover which antidepressant medicine suits you best, and you might have to try different medicines. Also, the effectiveness of vitamin D is still uncertain, since some research shows that it is effective while others don’t.
Part 4. Suggestions for School decision
Besides medical disease, weather and climate can also affect people’s emotions. Research shows that life satisfaction declines while the precipitation increases. If you value weather and climate much, then you might consider choosing a school located in a city with a livable climate. Think prudently when you decide to apply for schools in the northern part of the United State, or the U.K, or Canada, because these regions have a cold, dark winter. As a foreign student, you might face a challenge of adapting to a different climate and daylight saving time, being upset about raining for a whole week. If you are a person who has intense feelings for certain weather conditions, such as you hate rainy days or cold days, then you should be cautious about developing SAD.