Seasonal Affective Disorder
About seasonal affective depression disorder
There are many adverse conditions that can affect an individual's moods. For example, interpersonal relationships can affect people's mood swings. Various circumstantial events such as new employment or the loss of a job can also significantly impact an individual's mood.
Even the changes in the season or the weather can be a detriment to a person's mood swings. Specifically, it is important to look at the impact of the change of seasons on an individual by discussing seasonal affective disorder.
What Is Seasonal Affective Disorder?
Seasonal affective disorder is a form of depression in which the mind takes its cue from the changes in the season. During the fall and winter months, the days grow shorter due to the Earth's relationship to the sun. Subsequently, the daylight hours are diminished in time and intensity. This change may lead to seasonal affective depression disorder, since reduced exposure to daylight can result in diminished production of melatonin, an important hormone.
Symptoms and Treatment of SAD
First of all, it is important to note that the correlations of the depressive symptoms are in direct correspondence to the beginnings of the fall and winter months. Therefore, it is critical, as part of the diagnosis, to note that there is a direct connection between the person's mood and the change in seasons order to accurately diagnose this condition as seasonal affective disorder.
Generally, the symptoms associated with an individual suffering from seasonal affective disorder can include a feeling that the energy has been sucked right out of the individual, an extreme desire to sleep, being lethargic, and an increase in one's appetite which ultimately leads to a significant weight gain.
There are many forms of treatment that can be followed. One significant therapy that can help an individual to be less depressive is seasonal affective disorder light therapy. This treatment therapy simply utilizes the healing properties of light during the fall and winter months and helps the individual cope with the lessening of daylight hours that are attributed to this particular time of year.
Additionally, other types of therapy are being tested as part of a treatment program for seasonal affective disorder. Two particularly promising new therapy processes are negative ion therapy and dawn simulation.