What Causes Winter Depression?
If you think this sounds like depression, you are right. SAD is a form of depression, but it is caused by the reduction of daylight during the winter months. And even if you are inside in artificial light most of the day, you can still suffer from a lack of daylight. Mental health professionals diagnose a person as having SAD if they have these symptoms for two consecutive winters, and do not have the symptoms in the spring and summer. For more help visit at http://www.consumerhealthdigest.com/battle-depression-symptoms
Many of the functions of the human body follow a daily (circadian) rhythm which is close to 24 hours in duration. Circadian rhythms are regulated by the body’s internal clock and by exposure to sunlight, which synchronizes the body’s clock to the 24-hour day. We believe that winter depression occurs because of a decrease in the amount of light that persons receive during the winter months. Winter days are considerably shorter, and frequent cloud cover reduces exposure to sunlight. Reduced sunlight and/or shorter days may result in some of the body’s circadian rhythms becoming out of synch with each other, which may trigger the depression. Treatment with Bright Light Currently, bright light therapy is the treatment of choice for winter depression. Numerous studies have demonstrated that bright light therapy is safe and effective. However, there still is some disagreement as to how light therapy works and more research needs to be done to understand and improve this form of treatment. If
