by Heather K. Peake

So it hasn’t been much of a summer in the Green Mountain State: cool and damp interspersed with periods of hot and humid. But now that’s over, and winter is just around the corner. For some people, that’s not a comforting realization.

The acronym “SAD” always struck me as a bit too cutesy. What we’re talking about here is week after seemingly endless week of lethargy, fatigue, depression and carbo-gorging… all the hallmarks of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Every winter, 10 million Americans north of the Mason-Dixon Line face often crippling bouts of the blues. Another 25 million suffer less severe, but still life-affecting, cases of seasonal depression.

Certainly the connection between season and mood has been intuitively understood for centuries—phrases such as “cabin fever” and “spring fever” entered the vernacular long ago—but it has only been in the last 20 years or so that science has begun to unravel the biochemistry that causes cyclical updrafts and downdrafts in the human brain.

How it works

A hormone called melatonin, secreted by a bean-sized gland behind the sinuses, is the substance responsible for regulating the body’s internal clock. More is produced at night, which is probably why we begin feeling sleepy when the sun goes down. Some scientists now believe that this figures heavily into SAD; that is, it’s not the absence of sunlight that’s a problem, but the fewer hours of daylight. The earlier sunset and later sunrise tricks the body into producing more melatonin over a longer period of time, leaving sufferers feeling like it’s perpetually 11pm.

Because hormone production is so individualized, this would explain why not everyone living in northern climes develops SAD. Some people—and you know who you are—love winter, finding it an energizing, rejuvenating time of year. Women, whose hormones are constantly in flux anyway, and those who already suffer from depressive or bipolar disorder, are disproportionately likely to develop SAD.

I myself had a double whammy as a woman already prone to depression. My worst bout came in 1997; I’d been moderately depressed all spring and summer, but still able to function. Then October rolled around, and it was like falling into a huge black pit. All I could do was sleep and cry, in cycles of about 14 hours at a time. Forget functioning, I could barely get out of bed. Preparing a meal for myself or taking a shower constituted a major accomplishment. By December, I was blacking out on long drives along Route 7, half-hoping I’d hit an errant ice patch and be permanently relieved of my suffering.

While my case fell to the extreme end of the spectrum, fueled as much by preexisting problems as lack of sunlight, it is not atypical.

Recent studies indicate that people suffering depression score generally higher on the Beck Depression Index in the categories of anger, hostility, anxiety and irritablity during the winter months.

If you were feeling bad in the fall, in other words, you're likely to feel worse in the winter. And you need to do something I didn't have the sense to do: get professional help. Immediately.

How to deal

I chose the most radical form of therapy: I moved 2500 miles to the south and west. During two winters in Northern Arizona, I haven’t even had a hint of seasonal depression. (Of course, I have become a weather wimp—40 degrees now feels unbearably cold to me, and like everyone else here, on the one or two occasions per winter when it actually snows, I go into immediate hibernation—but it seems a small price to pay.)

But most people don’t have the freedom, or even desire, to uproot their lives just to avoid the rigors of the Northeastern winter. For them, light therapy is the most viable form of treatment.

The use of light boxes to combat the effects of SAD began in the early 1980s. The first boxes were huge, weighing in at about 70 pounds and putting out about 25,000 lux—100 times brighter than standard household lighting. The earliest test subjects were asked to spend four hours a day in front of it. However inconvenient the equipment and subsequent changes in routine, the positive results were undeniable.

Through experimentation, researchers learned that the same results could be attained with less power and less light. The standard treatment today is 30 minutes per day with a box emitting about 10,000 lux. Beneficial results have also been seen by the use of timed lights, which steadily brighten a room in a sort of artificial dawn. You don’t even have to be awake to feel the positive effects; the key is to trick the body into believing the sun is on the rise.

Other treatments for severe cases of SAD include conventional antidepressant drugs, including lithium, and new, highly experimental hormone therapies, whereby tiny amounts of melatonin are injected at regular intervals.

For those suffering just a minor bout of the blues, sometimes just getting outdoors and trying to enjoy the splendor of a winter’s day is the best medicine.

And remember… spring will come. At least, it always has before.