Does winter season make you feel sad?

Have you ever felt sad in the winter season? If yes, you may be a victim of seasonal depression. It is a type of depression that usually occurs in the same season each year. Most of the time, it occurs in winters. Seasonal depression is also called mood depression, wherein a person feels sad from the inside and doesn’t like to be involved in any activity. People with seasonal depression may start seeing the symptoms during autumn and continue till the winter months. This particular mental status drains out their energy and makes them highly moody.

In India, 10 million people experience seasonal depression or are affected with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). SAD occurs in climates where there is less sunlight at certain times of the year. According to psychiatrists, people with SAD are just as affected as people with major depression.

People who possess sub-syndromic levels of seasonal depression manifest a higher level of skin conductivity to low light stimuli during winter/spring in comparison to non-depressed. Based on ongoing research on SAD, researchers found that people with SAD show more skin conductivity to winter weather than people with non-seasonal depression. Overall, researchers suggest that people who are affected by SAD may find winter anxious and stressful. There is no specific age of being affected with SAD.

Causes of SAD:

Here are some reasons that may cause seasonal depression:

• Your biological clock: In winters, sunlight gets reduced, which may result in winter-onset SAD. This reduced sunlight causes change in our internal body clock that may trigger depressive feelings.
• Serotonin level: A reduction in the level of the brain chemical, i.e., serotonin (which affects mood), might act as a driving factor for SAD. Reduced sunlight affects the serotonin level and ultimately causes depression.
• Melatonin levels: Seasonal changes might disrupt the body’s melatonin level, which plays a significant role in sleeping behavior and mood.

Factors causing SAD

Some factors may trigger the significant risk of seasonal depression, as mentioned below:

• Family history: People (having SAD or any other kind of depression) with blood relations are more likely to be affected.
• Suffering from major depression or any bipolar disorder: Any of these conditions may worsen the state of SAD.
• Located in a colder region: It has been seen that SAD is prevalent among those people who reside in a colder region. Such areas have low sunlight even in the summer season.

Symptoms of SAD

Sometimes people experience seasonal affective disorder during early winter and it goes away by summer. Some people experience the seasonal affective disorder in summer and it goes away in winter. The timing of the SAD or its occurrence can vary from person to person.

Symptoms of seasonal depression may include:

• Hyperphagia
• Depressive feeling nearly all-day
• Loss of interests in the activities that once you’ve enjoyed
• Anergia
• Hypersomnia
• Craving for carbohydrate
• Loss of energy
• Sleeping issues
• Experiencing appetite and weight changes
• Feeling inactive or agitated
• Having trouble in concentration
• Losing hopes

Treatment of SAD:

Seasonal depression can be effectively treated in many ways, including therapies like antidepressant medications, light therapy, talk therapy or their combination. While SAD symptoms will usually amplify on their own as the season changes, symptoms may get better more rapidly with the proper treatment and care.

If you think you have the symptoms of seasonal depression, you should seek medical help from a trained professional. However, in some instances, SAD may be misdiagnosed with the presence of other diseases like hypoglycemia, infectious mononucleosis and any other kind of viral infections. Hence, proper evaluation is the key to prevent SAD.

Mental health experts can help diagnose the current condition of the patient and discuss the available therapy options. One things that everyone should know is, SAD is manageable and curable.

References: American Psychiatric Association