It’s not unusual for many people to experience a stint of the blues during the doldrums of winter. If feeling blue becomes a regular occurrence, however, it may be a sign that you’re suffering from something more serious than the winter blues. More specifically, it might be an indication that you’re experiencing seasonal affective disorder or SAD.

What IS SAD?

SAD is a type of depression that is more serious than the winter blues. Rather than just feeling down for a few days as the days get shorter at the onset of winter, people who suffer from SAD experience changes in the way they feel, think, and handle things for greater lengths of time.

It’s thought that millions of people in the U.S. alone may suffer from SAD, but many might not know they’re dealing with a form of depression. Women or more susceptible to SAD compared to men as are people who live farther from the equator. People with another type of depressive disorder or bipolar disorder and individuals who have relatives with mental illness are also candidates to develop SAD, which typically begins during early adulthood.

Symptoms of SAD

Since it’s a form of depression, SAD shares some symptoms with major depression. Here are some of the symptoms SAD and depression have in common:

• Feeling depressed daily for most of each day
• Decreased interest in formerly enjoyable activities
• Changes in weight and/or appetite
• Newly developed sleep problems
• Feeling sluggish, anxious, worthless, and/or hopeless
• Lacking energy
• Having a hard time concentrating
• Recurrent thoughts of suicide or death

Like the less common summer-pattern SAD, winter-pattern SAD has some symptoms that are specific to the condition. Hypersomnia or oversleeping, craving carbohydrates, overeating, weight gain, and social withdrawal are all signs a person is suffering from winter-pattern SAD.

If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms that indicate you’re suffering from SAD, make an appointment to visit our facility. Our Matthews, NC preventive care facility offers mental health services that can help you kick your SAD symptoms to the figurative curb and enable you to make the most out of winter.

How to Improve Mental Health in Winter

Several treatments are available for winter-pattern SAD. Light therapy exposes people to a bright light that’s supposed to make up for the reduced sunshine they’re naturally exposed to during winter. Psychotherapy or talk therapy helps individuals with winter-pattern SAD replace their negative wintertime thoughts with more positive ones and it can help people re-engage in activities they’d lost interest in. Several medications and vitamin D are also used to treat people with winter-pattern SAD.

In addition to seeking professional treatment, there are a few things you can do on your own to combat SAD. For starters, you can exercise regularly. Whether you choose to exercise indoors or outdoors doesn’t matter. The key is to find an activity you enjoy and push yourself.

You can also make it a point to socialize with others. Interacting with others is sometimes enough to elevate a person’s mood. Socializing is often effective against SAD because it draws your attention away from yourself and your depressed outlook and feelings.

To learn more about winter-pattern seasonal affective disorder and how we can help you combat its impact on your life, give us a call or visit Matthews Internal Medicine.