SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder

I notice the weather doesn't agree with me today. This has incited me to talk about to how a cloudy sky could influence our mood. In a greater extent, this may even render some people genuinely sick. This is known as SAD (Seasonal Affective disorder). It's a form of depression that occurs in winter time when sunlight is often absent. In Alaska, as much as 10% of its population runs into this problem.

The associated symptoms are:

• Excessive sleeping without feeling replenish; day time drowsiness.
• Fatigue: everything seems difficult; irritability; difficulty to concentrate
• Depression: feeling anxious, guilty, hopeless
• Excessive eating: increased liking for sugar; weight gain
• Loss of libido: decreased sexual desire
• Problem with digestion; joint pain

I won't go into details explaining how all this happen (Ask me if you want to know, it involves a lot of physiology).

Solution: Phototherapy. Studies show a 60-70% efficacy in most cases. Early in the morning, the patient sit 1-2 fts away from a fluorescent light box of 10,000 lux for 30-45 mins. To do daily from September to April.