I've written about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a type of depression that is triggered by different seasons. A small amount of people are affected by the late spring and summer, but many more are laid low by winter. What if, however, you don't have SAD per se, but are someone with depression whose depression is exacerbated by the fall and winter darkness? Granted, when you have depression you're frequently unaware of the weather. The most brilliantly sunny day with soft breezes can leave you cold.
But the increase in hours of night that comes with fall and winter is another matter. The lack of light, the absence of color from foliage (if you live in a region where all the vegetation dies or hibernates in the winter) makes your life more emotionally colorless somehow. Since there's nothing you can do about changing the world outside, you might want to concentrate your energy on making your home more welcoming.
Read on
Posted: Nov 16, 2009
tags: seasonal affective disorder,
seasonal depression
"Summertime, and the living is easy." Amen to that. I love summer. Credit it to spending much of my childhood in Florida, but I actually like being hot and sweaty. My absolute favorite place to be is on a beach with sun on my face and my toes digging into hot sand. I crave and need sunshine like a growing plant. And I think it's safe to say that most of the population is the same way. Just think of how many people will lie outside on the grass on the first warm day in spring.
Our Judith Wurtman wrote about the having the winter blues in the summer, due to the weather in her part of the country switching between lack of sun and weather that's too hot to go out and enjoy the sun. But what if your down mood in the summer is more serious than a case of the blues?
Read on
Posted: Aug 17, 2009
tags: seasonal affective disorder,
seasonal depression,
summer depression,
summer sad,
summer seasonal affective disorder
(ABC News) The summer got off to a slow start in Santa Monica, Calif., -- and Saskia Smith could not have been more pleased.
"We had two months of relative cool and cloud coverage," she recalled. "That really was like a soothing balm."
But then the weather got warmer. And unlike the throngs of sun worshippers who head to the outdoors at the first sign of warm weather, the 32-year-old Smith said for her the summer months bring about depression and anxiety.
"I look outside now, and I acknowledge a perfect, beautiful blue sky," she said. "But then I look at the sun and the heat coming off the pavement and I say, 'Ugh, I don't want to go outside.'"
Read on
Posted: Jul 24, 2009
tags: depression in summer,
seasonal depression,
summer depression
