Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and Depression — Transcription
Hi, everyone! Happy to say today, I’m going to talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder (or “SAD”) as well as Depression or more specifically COVID-19 Depression, since that’s pretty much what we’re dealing with at this point.
So Seasonal Affective Disorder is a type of Depression that is that happens or occurs when the seasons change. So the most common type is Winter onset. So if you think about Winter, the days are shorter, it gets dark earlier and it’s dark long or the weather’s cold so you kind of isolate a little bit more. So that is fine. It tends to happen when it’s Winter or when there’s not as much sunlight and obviously Depression you know, has, this has very similar symptoms as Seasonal Affective Disorder. So with Depression and feeling sad, you have symptoms of lack of motivation or energy, increased isolation – you have not wanting to get out of bed or excess sleeping.
So these are some of the things that you might experience like feeling sad all the time. With feeling sad specifically, it might tend to happen more at night or in the evening when things get a little bit darker. So some of the things that you can do to help both of these are to make sure you’re getting enough sunlight, especially if you live in an area like I do in Chicago where there’s not much sunlight and the days of sun, especially in the winter are very limited.
So making sure that if it is sunny out, get outside, even if it’s just for a couple of minutes and try to face the sun just so you can kind of soak in that sun and feel that, and you can also sit by a window that can help as well. So make sure you’re not sitting in a dark room or a basement where you don’t get much light at all.
And obviously you can do things like talking to a Therapist. There is such thing as “light therapy” as well. So if you look up, there are a bunch of different types of lights that can help you, that you can kind of put on your desk and they just help you to get that light. Because that’s what Seasonal Affective Disorder is, like the lack of light can increase the Depression. So those are some things that you can do to help. And just making sure you’re socializing, try not to isolate yourself if you notice that your partner or somebody that you’re living with is isolating themselves, try to get them out there. I know it’s scary right now to get out of the house, but even if it’s to take a drive with people that you are quarantining with or isolating with, or take a walk even though it’s getting colder, you know, just a 10 minute walk, if there’s not many people out, just so you can get outside and as always just make sure you’re taking care of yourself, notice your signs and symptoms early on.
Notice if you’re getting worse and make sure that if you are getting worse or noticing things that are off, make sure you reach out to somebody – reach out for help, see a counselor and just talk to somebody to help yourself. So hopefully this helps and hopefully you have a good holiday season.
I will be back next week for my Talk It Out Tuesday and that I will be taking a break the following week to give myself some self care. So we will be back next week. If you have any suggestions of what you want to hear for next week, feel free to message me and I will go over them. All right. Have a good rest of your week!