Does the Rain Have You Feeling Down?
According to the Sacramento Bee, the northern Sierra Nevada range had its third-driest December ever. While Californians recognize this year's dry winter season, many can’t help but mourn the sight of the much-needed recent showers.
How many of you find the weather getting to you at this time of year? Generally I love the winter weather, but endless gray skies begin to get to my usually sunny nature.
Seasonal Affective Disorder affects many people. People become more tired, cranky, moody and unhappy than usual due to the lack of sun in their lives. Symptoms of SAD include sleepiness, depression, overeating and carbohydrate cravings, lack of sociability, loss of libido and mood changes. It is natural for most people to have some of these symptoms in winter, being that we respond to nature. The diagnosis of SAD occurs when the depression becomes so severe that a person has a hard time functioning.
About 85 percent experiencing symptoms of SAD respond to the use of a light box. The duration of recommended usage per day varies depending on the strength of light from the box. A 10,000 lux box available for $169 only needs to be used 30 minutes a day, whereas a 2,500 lux box requires four hours of exposure. It should be used daily and is usually effective within three or four days. You can sit in front of it and do any normal activity such as reading or writing or working at your desk.
There are other treatments for SAD. One of the best mood elevators is doing fun things with your favorite people. In addition, exercising keeps your energy up and increases circulating endorphins that are good for the mood. In terms of nutrition, a low-carbohydrate diet helps the blood sugar remain steady, preventing ups and downs.
People who get severely depressed sometimes need antidepressants to get them through the season. If that is the case, it is best to begin medications in the autumn before symptoms get really bad. Drugs like Prozac, Wellbutrin and Effexor tend to help people be more alert and active.
If you are against using these kinds of medications there are many herbs and supplements that can help support the mood. If you have a doctor who understands how to use herbs, you can get a supplement that is personalized to your particular symptoms. 5 HTP, SAM-e, St John’s Wort, Shizandra and B-vitamins are among just a few. A Vietnamese plant called holy basil can be very effective at calming the adrenal glands and anxiety without a drug effect.
Winter is a wonderful time to focus on your inner self and do things that you wouldn’t do at other times of the year. Invest in your happiness and take time to do things that you love this season.
valeri hood
8:38 am on Wednesday, February 1, 2012
There are two things I do- it's not the rain that gets me down- it's the lack of clear days and 'weather' modification-for SADS i've found that if I go out at first light, and look at the horizon, those first rays, even on an overcast day- I no longer call it cloudy- are healing- Where I work early in the morning, most of the staff now does this and the results have been overwhelmingly good. The other thing I think is important is to protest against the weather modification going on in the skies- the persistent jet contrails- that 'cloud' 'over -white out our skie, day after day. for more info on this, go to commonwealth club -(NPR)- Direct link here: podcast
http://commonwealthclub.org/events/2011-03-28/man-made-climate-change-skies
John Ferguson
12:49 pm on Thursday, February 2, 2012
Anybody who's had SAD symptoms this year is doing it out of sheer habit. We're approximating the climate of northern Mexico this year. I'm SAD that it hasn't rained more..
Stinky
5:29 pm on Sunday, February 5, 2012
*Looking for the "agree" button*
Osgood Fileding
4:49 pm on Thursday, February 2, 2012
This article could not be more ill timed as most are finding the lack of rain to be depressing especially after suffering 14 spare the air days since early December. Every day we wake up to the glare of the sun which casts its fetid light upon the land with its dirty smile. Calling this incessant sunshine "pleasant" is akin to calling TS Elliot's "The Waste Land" a pretty little ditty. Rain is life affirming, life giving and cleansing--rain is good.
What on earth possessed you to write such an article?
Zoe Adler
1:54 pm on Friday, February 3, 2012
Osgood Fielding: I couldn't agree more! Rain IS good, beautiful, refreshing, and HELLO - necessary!!! I think the majority of people walk around in a coma state, and are simply programmed to refer to clear sunny weather as "nice" or "great", and rainy weather as "nasty", "bad". Very shallow. Rain requires that people stay in and, god forbid, perhaps read or do something introspective. Rain quiets people down, which is really a good thing in this fast-paced noisy society we live in. So everyone just shut up about this "nice weather" and cross your fingers for rain.
Chris Corbett
9:07 pm on Friday, February 3, 2012
I'll be going to Pacheco Pond tomorrow, so I need some dryness!
c.richards
11:11 pm on Friday, February 3, 2012
The sun sucks, To bright , to hot , gets in your eyes when you are driving. Give me overcast any day !
Addison DeWitt
1:48 pm on Saturday, February 4, 2012
Uh, the rain does not have me down, but rather the lack of does.
Is this an old recycled article? (scratching Head while looking at my brown lawn).
Cuz, I don't get it.
Don Scioli
4:35 pm on Saturday, February 4, 2012
What rain?
Stinky
5:31 pm on Sunday, February 5, 2012
Did you perhaps hold this story, thinking that by now many of us must have SAD? 'Cause it hasn't rained this week, and we've had clear skies. What gives?
Dorothy
11:33 am on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
I often think that it is more than the grey skies that bring on SAD. In some parts of the country, you can end up in doors and almost housebound with the bad weather. When you don't get out and about, you may find yourself more depressed than usual.
Lauren Ayers
9:07 am on Sunday, February 19, 2012
Another approach to the short days of winter is to make sure you're getting enough vitamin D since it’s harder to make it from sunlight in winter. There is tons of research on the role of vitamin D deficiency correlating with depression. Think about it, whatever D you soaked up last summer is gone by January, February, or March.
Did you know that this far from the equator we can't make vitamin D from sunlight from October to March? That's because the tilt of the earth means the ultraviolet B rays have farther to travel so they get absorbed by the atmosphere before they reach us.
In fact, due to our latitude, even the rest of the year the UVB rays only get all the way to us between 11 am and 1 pm.
Other factors that prevent us from make D from sunlight is that, unlike our evolutionary past, we wear a lot of clothes and stay indoors much more and, we eat a lot less fish, and, the latest innovation, we wear sunblock.
More info at:
http://goodschoolfood.org/pdf/fightfluwithD.pdf
Lauren Ayers
9:09 am on Sunday, February 19, 2012
P.S.
Kaiser is hip to vitamin D and is willing to prescribe a blood test to see where patients are. Lifeguards are the gold standard because they make their own D; their average blood level is 60 nanograms of D per mililiter of blood. The average American is about a third of that. If lifeguards get 100% on their D Repletion Test, the rest of us get 33%!
It's even bad for children -- 70% of American kids are below optimum, it's 80% for Latinos, and 90% for African American kids (melanin is a sunblock).
The research shows people can safely take up to 10,000 international units, which is a lot more than the 400 IU our behind-the-times government standards suggests.