Here in Boston, we are through the worst of the gloom-sunrise is now almost at 7:00 AM, and sunset is 4:47. My question: for those of you with SAD-when do you fell things getting better? Are you generally OK by February, or do you need the equinox to start feeling better?
Looking for shared opinions? IMHO is the place for your OP. Moved from GQ.
samclem, moderator
I refuse to acknowledge Seasonal Affective Disorder on the sole basis that its acronym is too fucking cutesy.
However, I am strongly affected by seasonal light levels. I feel better right around Opening Day, and start feeling bad right after the World Series. Not this year or 2010, but you know what I mean. When it gets dark at 5 PM, and light at 7 AM, ugh…
I don’t think I have “SAD”. No doctor has ever told me so and I hate people who self-diagnose. That being said, I do feel significantly more down in the dead of winter.
Usually as soon as the temperature starts going back over freezing I start to feel better. So, not this week, when it’s been in the single digits or less all week.
Brr.
Before the Epiphany rolls by; about ten days after Christmas. The three weeks going up to Christmas are hell, though. I’m still getting sleepy as soon as the sun is down (which is a bitch as I’m now in northern France and that means “before leaving work”) but I’m not gloomy any more.
Lucky bastard. I’m in hell until mid-March.
It sucks ass. Starts around the middle of November, and just drags on and on and on forever. I think that I might feel better earlier based on the sunlight alone, but we always get our giant freezing ice storms that last two weeks in the beginning of March, so even though the sun is technically out, it’s dark and sleeting and fucking frigid.
I thought about getting a lamp this year, but I’m on meds instead, and they seem to be holding off the worst of it. I don’t like taking them, so I’m going to press for a light next fall. (Broke, so I have to get whatever the insurance covers, and they won’t spring for a light unless meds “don’t work” for the condition. Assholes.)
I live in SC, so I can’t even imagine how hellish it would be if I lived in Maine or somewhere where it really gets dark in the winter. I do know when I was in England for a term (August til January) I didn’t snap out of my winter funk until June that year.
The sight of the first snowdrops goes a long way towards making me feel better.
I start in late September, though. I’d lend you my Magic Lamp (I even have a Magic Ceiling Lamp, you can buy “blue light bulbs” for normal lamps now) but you’re a bit far - by the time it passed through customs, I’d need it back!
I grew up in, and spent 41 years in Alaska. During the dead of winter, we get about 5 hours a day of daylight (in the South/southeast areas, fewer hours of daylight as you go further north). I never really had SAD, but I think most people are affected to some degree or another. So while I never felt as if I suffered from any sort of depression during the winter months, by the same token, I always felt a very noticeable lift sometime in February/March time frame. We started gaining daylight December 21st of course, but it seemed as if the daylight really started to MEAN something during that time of year (don’t know how to explain it better). Sometimes, on a sunny day (even at 10 degrees) you could catch a little bit of …not warmth exactly…but maybe “weather waiting to be ‘not cold’” for lack of a better phrase.
Thoughts started to turn to gardening, break up, summer (my fave time of year)…YAY.
I’ve been in the Seattle area for over two years now, and I haven’t quite been able to pin down when I feel that lift. And it’s not as obvious a lift either. But it is there. There’s this thing I’ve heard on the radio described as “the GREY” but I haven’t really noticed that it’s overwhelmingly grey. Maybe compared to all of those years of deep dark winter in Anchorage it’s just not.
Self-diagnosed, and it’s not a full-tilt depression, but I find the lack of light in winter wearing.
It starts improving toward the end of January – I effin’ hate January, longest effin’ month of the year – but there’s usually an afternoon (always an afternoon for me) in early March when it’s really clear that we’ve made it through another winter. There may well be snow on the ground on that day, but there’s something about the quality of the light on that day, when it comes, that is a profound relief.
Around March I’d say. Not formally diagnosed but in the camp that believes everybody gets it a little, it’s natural really. Some people it affects enough to definitely border on the ragged fringes of mental illness though. Some of those people are in my family.
I grew up with a very healthy wariness of mood altering pharmaceuticals watching family fall into addiction. As a result I have always avoided them. However after struggling to quit smoking, and repeatedly failing and with a lot of convincing from the Dr, I decided to give Ziban a try.
And I have to say the difference in ‘who I was’ was marked. Even to me. I started it a couple of weeks before Christmas. I was brighter, happier, more focused and much more active. On reflection I realize this is how I am in the summer! Huh.
I have quit smoking, since the beginning of the year, which is awesome, of course. And I really am struck at what a difference it’s made in how I feel, day to day. Maybe I’ll quit smoking every year, round December, for a few weeks.
I think I succeeded in my attempt to quit this time as I wasn’t defeated and down, worse after each failure, of course. It’s near impossible to exert your will in the way breaking a habit requires. And to think, I resisted this drug for a long time because of the known mental health affects, they scared me.
After years of knowing it was inevitable, hunkering down and waiting for my spirits to lift some dear friends helped me realize that I could be more proactive.
I educated myself, sought diagnosis and eventually got a high spectrum light. It doesn’t do much good if you wait to use it by the time you are feeling down. The light should be started to coincide with the dwindling amount of sunshine as Nava indicates.
I needed, as most people with depression do, to change the way I thought about the condition and my attitude. Negativity is poisonous on top of a low mood.
And I learned what things were mood elevators for me, made a mental list and used them in adjunct to the reframing and the light.
A couple that work for me are: long, brisk walks, trips to the tropical plant section of the greenhouse, light-hearted human interaction, visiting the indoor sections of the zoo.
Oh yeah, and chocolate.
ETA: So to answer the question, I can happily claim to no longer be incapacitated by SAD. Still have my down days like everyone but I feel as though I am not at their mercy.
Never diagnosed because it doesn’t affect my ability to function, but I get sluggish and negative after Christmas and stay that way until the weather gets comfortable again around mid-March. I have a major burst of energy and enthusiasm when that happens.
Ive never been diagnosed by a doctor, I think it is a pretty normal human reaction to our environment, but I definitely get more interested in sleeping in and taking random naps in winter, and some days are just freaking blahhhh, but for me its not something Id ever seek treatment for. Seems less pronounced now at age 35 than it did in my twenties for sure. I spend a lot more time outdoors in winter now, I sometimes wonder if simply being outside in the brighter natural light makes a difference. As to the OP, It depends on the weather, when its time to uncover my motorcycle and start picking away at any pre-season maintenance etc you can bet any hint of it will have been forgotten!
Recently I was talking about this to someone, actually time of year I feel worst is between about March thru early July…I’m not sure if this is something chemical in my brain, related to old memory, both, neither, or ? I feel alot better in late October thru December than I do march thru July
Oh… my… god, it’s not even February yet…
My husband and I are both getting tired and fat. Since the weather doesn’t encourage being outside, we’re doing a lot of sitting around and feeling lethargic. We’ve resolved to start taking more walks, and I’ve resolved to go out and run in the mornings more, weather be damned. We just bought a vitamix blender so I’m going to learn how to make the best veggie drinks ever, and maybe sit in front of the fire and knit a pair of socks? I’ll also buy us dance lessons for valentine’s day and I want to take some pole dancing classes.
All those who don’t happen to live in warm climates, can you share your secrets to getting through midwinter?
I think that exercise and a good fruit and veggie filled cleanse after the holidays are the best ways. Also, I know it causes bad stuff later, but tanning in January and February really lifts my mood.
Also, vacations.
Cross country skiing, really any kind of exercise, did it for me. Sometimes I didn’t want to go, made myself and always felt better for it later.
Membership at a local gym or YMCA. I wouldn’t recommend running outside if it regularly gets below freezing (as it does where I live). A slip and fall could give you a lasting injury that prevents you from running anymore. You may find it more motivational to join a gym with a pool. I actively dislike most forms of exercise, but I’d swim every day if I could. Also, a lot of places have indoor tracks. If you really LIKE to run, that’s the best place to do it in winter.
I merged two threads on the subject.
— Ellen