If You Think You Have Seasonal Affective Disorder (The Dell Guides for Mental Health) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Do you have wintertime depression?

The days are getting shorter; winter's on the way.  Getting out of bed in the morning takes a colossal effort.  You're craving cookies, chocolate, bread, and pasta.  You try drinking coffee to perk up, but the truth is--you feel down in the dumps.  If so, you may have SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, a condition that brings wintertime suffering to up to 10% of American men, women, and children.  This informative, compassionate guide explains why seasonal depression strikes, tells you how to cope, and best of all, reveals how most people can cure this painful disorder.  Discover:

The time to look at the calendar--and your life--for the first signs of the disorder
The difference between SAD and wintertime blues
Where to find the best light-therapy devices and avoid rip-offs
The plain truth about PMS and SAD
What behaviors to look for if you think your child has the disorder
How to recognize the symptoms
Which men, women, and children are most at risk
The exciting 20-minute-a-day cure...and more

Foreword

People with seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, seem to fit the description of a "couch potato." Typically, symptoms include increased appetite with a craving for sweets or starchy foods, weight gain, a decrease in energy level, and apathy. All this results in an inability to start and finish tasks, a decreased attention span, and difficulty concentrating. In addition, SAD patients have a tendency to oversleep, and the quality of all that sleep is reduced. They also have a decreased sexual desire and tend to withdraw and avoid social contact. Another behavioral symptom of SAD is irritability owing to a sense of having too much to do. Feeling overwhelmed by the usual tasks of living and not knowing why produces enormous distress. Children, as well as adults, can fall victim to this syndrome. But in children, SAD typically manifests in difficulty getting up in the morning, a decreased desire to go to school, and a drop in academic performance in the winter months.

In short, SAD impairs the "drives"--those biological imperatives necessary for the health and fitness of any living organism. In animals, SAD might be described as a hibernation response, which is an "adapted depression" because it ratchets down all systems in order to preserve precious energy needed to survive through the winter. Although there are times when we, too, would like to crawl into a cave to get away from it all, our lifestyle requirements do not grant us this luxury. Instead, a SAD sufferer may crawl into bed at seven p.m. This happens to a patient of mine, a schoolteacher who starts to fall asleep right after dinner in winter. This causes him to feel extremely guilty because he cannot respond to his wife and children and remain involved in their after-dinner activities.

Seasonal affective disorder should not be confused with situational sadness, such as the holiday blues, which is psychological and stems from bad memories, loneliness, conflict, or shouldering too much responsibility. SAD, by contrast, has a physical basis and is related to a sensitivity to decreased sunlight in the winter months. Another hallmark of SAD is a palpable improvement in mood, increased energy, and diminished food cravings with the return of spring.

Some SAD sufferers are also affected whenever there are several overcast days in a row, regardless of the season. Likewise, in many work settings, people have to work long hours in windowless offices and hardly see the daylight. One of my patients must rise before sunrise in the winter and drive to work in the dark. Because of the shortened days and her long hours, it is dark again on her commute home. She rarely sees the light of day until the weekend, if the sky is not too cloudy, of course.

Fortunately, there are a number of highly effective, surprisingly inexpensive treatments for SAD, and this book covers them all--thoroughly and objectively. It is my sincere wish that the information that follows will help you transform your wintertime sadness into joy.

-Clifford A. Taylor, M.D.