After-the-holidays blues: Seasonal Affective Disorder affects many people from fall until spring

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January 12, 2009

The Paducah Sun, Ky. The Washington Times-Herald Mon Jan 12, 2009, 09:35 AM EST

It's easy to get grumpy in early January.

You're back at work after the holidays, during which you inevitably squabbled with loved ones, ate too much, maybe drank too much and ran willy-nilly from place to place. And no one's bringing you presents, either.

The post-holiday blues usually pass quickly, as we get back into the rhythms of daily life. If instead the gloom deepens, it might indicate a more serious situation.

About 500,000 Americans suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, a mild depression that usually develops in the fall and lingers until spring, when longer days provide more sunlight. According to the Mayo Clinic, a few sufferers follow an opposite calendar, suffering from the disorder during the summer months. In either case, the symptoms start out mild and worsen deeper into the season.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness says an even smaller fraction suffer from depression in winter and summer but feel fine in spring and fall around the equinoxes.

"It's a type of depression that affects a person in the same season each year," said Phil Woellner, director of Lourdes Behavioral Health Services. "SAD is related to changes in the amount of daylight and the reduction of daytime hours. This time of year, most of us who are working get up in dark and go home in dark."

Woellner said SAD remains milder than clinical depression, which develops regardless of season and generally won't improve if left untreated.

"True clinical depression is not seasonal and it's more serious," Woellner said. "SAD is not going to interfere with daily activities with a lack of energy, a lack of hope, really the lack of the ability to feel able to do anything."

From the other end of the spectrum, SAD is differentiated from, well, being sad because of the length of its stay: bad moods pass, but SAD lingers as long as winter and its short days do.

"After the holidays, the bottom falls out," he said. "There's nobody around anymore, and it just feels like blah. It's a tough adjustment for all of us. But the post-holiday blues, you generally get over that after the first week of the year once you get back to work or back to school. The post-holiday blues tends to go away relatively quickly."

Bright light therapy, which involves extended exposure to light, serves as the main treatment for SAD, Woellner said.

"SAD is directly related to the lack of sunlight," he said. "The average house has 50 to 300 lux (a measure of light levels), while the sun provides 2,500 to 10,000 lux."

The therapy generally uses a lightbox, a source of bright light, indoors for 30 minutes a day, usually in the morning. Woellner said for SAD sufferers, and those whose moods tend to turn gray with the weather, just getting outside can help.

"Taking short walks outside every day can make a difference even if it's not sunny, just to get as much light as possible," he said. "You have to stay out of dark rooms."

Both Woellner and NAMI suggested those who may suffer from SAD consider a self-assessment offered on the Web site of the Center for Environmental Theaputics: cet.org.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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