Have you heard? A new study has found no evidence that depressive symptoms vary from season to season. Put another way, the study calls into question the validity of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), at least as a “legitimate” psychiatric disorder.
What of the 5.8 bajillion other studies from the past 30-odd years (or more?), the ones establishing SAD as A Thing?
Flawed. Yep. Every last one of them. This latest one, though, is perfection. How do we know? Because the researchers said so. OK, and maybe some reviewers and editors. Sheesh.
As someone who has experienced consistent, predictable depressive symptoms every September through early March since the early 1980s—before the term “Seasonal Affective Disorder” was even COINED—I cry “foul”.
And it’s not just me. I know lotsa people who experience winter depression. Put THAT in your pipe and study it.
Hey, I even experience the rare, exotic summer version of SAD. Extra credit for any researcher who can explain that freak of nature.
I was in high school when I realized that I became depressed every winter. It was Christmas break. I was standing in the living room wrapping presents on the ironing board while talking to girlfriends on the phone. I felt so down and fatigued, like a plane that’s run out of fuel and is coasting toward a certain crash landing. I realized I wasn’t interested in whatever social events my friends were excitedly cooking up for our holiday break; I’d prefer to curl up in a ball at home, thank you. And it occurred to me that this feeling wasn’t new. I’d felt it the winter before, and the winter before that. All winter long. As a teenager, I had a hard time remembering back to a winter when I HADN’T noticed this precipitous decline in mood and energy.
It wasn’t until at least college that I learned of any clinical, “official” description of this malady. Dr. Normal Rosenthal is the psychiatrist, Georgetown professor, and author who christened the condition and who’s studied and written extensively about it.
I was self-diagnosed with the rot until about five years ago, when I finally consulted my doctor about the possibility I might have SAD, or something like it. After three decades of dreading winter, I was ready to ask for help.
I tend to tough things out, to a fault. But I understate.
I think there’s a continuum ranging from “I love winter!” to “Sometimes during winter I feel a little glum” to “Just This Side of Clinically Depressed, All Damned Winter” (which I recently discovered is technically known as “sub-syndromal SAD”, or more commonly, the “Winter Blues”) to full-blown SAD. I straddle the latter two categories.
Dr. H. and I discussed treatment options. I decided to try light therapy. While it’s no cure, in the five or so years that I’ve used the light almost daily from October through early March, life during winter has improved from just barely functional to functional and then some on good days.
In my book, this is progress.
I sit in front of the light first thing in the morning 5-6 days per week, for 30 minutes. While it’s no cure, it has definitely made winter more bearable. I use the time to write and read email. I enjoy the quiet solitude.
Though my mood, energy, and productivity are still diminished during winter, they’re far less diminished than they were in the winters Before Light Therapy. To some extent, I think it’s natural and normal and healthy to slow down a bit in the winter. It’s just that our society doesn’t allow for it. If our society had a front door, it would be plastered with signs, including one that says, “No hibernating. Strictly enforced.”
No kidding. It sucks.
Come to think of it, our society allows for little that’s natural and normal and healthy.
I feel a political joke coming on ….
I’ll do you a favor and refrain.
Before I started using the light, I was all but incapacitated during the winter. Now I’m a notch or two above that level. It’s not ideal, but I’ll take it.
The Science Daily press release about this study says, “LoBello and colleagues note that conditions with so-called “low base rates” are difficult to detect in large-scale studies. As such, it’s possible that major depression with seasonal variation does exist but only for a very small proportion of the population.”
Now, I don’t know from “low base rates” (my late dad, a social scientist, would have), but I take that all to mean, yeah, we admit that SAD as it’s currently defined may actually exist, but if it appeared in our study, it flew under our radar, see.
The press release also states, “Depression is by definition an episodic disorder and people may well experience depressive episodes in the fall and winter months. But, the researchers argue, ‘being depressed during winter is not evidence that one is depressed because of winter.’”
Correlation does not equal causality. I get that. But this opens the door for studies on WHY so many of us feel depressed during the winter, even if winter is not the cause. What’s the relationship, if any? You want anecdotal evidence of SAD, I’m your woman. And there are plenty others out there. Hell, SAD and its lesser sidekick, Winter Blues, are so prevalent there’s even a collection of Tweets about them.
I’ve read that thyroid hormone levels can fluctuate in response to seasonal weather patterns, requiring those who take thyroid medication to adjust their dosages accordingly. I’ve wondered if some subclinical thyroid wackiness might be behind SAD and winter blues in general. Not to mention vitamin D, although surely exploration of its role in SAD, if any, has been wrung sufficiently dry in the land of scientific research. And, Temperature and Barometric Pressure, count your lucky stars I’m not a scientific researcher, because I’ve got my eye on you too.
Full disclosure: I have been clinically depressed, and it was not limited to any one season. When I was 20 years old I was diagnosed with Anxiety/Depressive disorder. I suspect that by that time it had been dogging me for many years. I was treated for it, too, and although that treatment improved my mental health, for various reasons it did not finish the job. For related and overlapping but other various reasons, I’ve exhibited depressive tendencies all of my life. Fortunately, exercise, yoga, meditation (yes, I’m one of THOSE people), writing, and several rounds of a few types of psychotherapy have helped minimize those tendencies.
And yet, every year, around the Autumnal Equinox, during my favorite season, I descend into melancholy.
A few weeks later, in early October, I reluctantly pull the therapy light from the back of my clothing closet and set it up on the makeshift desk in the spare bedroom known as my office. I commence my daily sessions, and then I’m reminded why I bother.
Because it helps.
I’m in pretty good shape through Thanksgiving, my preferred Major Holiday. In December, though, when expectations for merriment are off the charts, I plummet from melancholy into sadness, fatigue, and irritability. I’m even less interested than usual in socializing. Admittedly, I do not like Christmas and its pressures. Also, a lot—and I mean a lot—of my relatives have been hospitalized or have up and died around Christmas. Are you in my family and planning on dying? Are you ready to set that special date? Have you given any thought to Christmastime?
They cannot resist. It’s family tradition.
Despite the deathy associations with Christmas, I enjoy the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. It’s still festive, but without all the fuss. Except for maybe a funeral or two.
After New Year’s Day, I’m pretty much stalled like a car with a drained battery until early March. There’s a gulf between who I am—what I enjoy, what I want out of life, what matters to me—and my body. I’m a walking shell of a woman, at once overly sensitive and out of touch with both myself and the world. Someone, I can’t recall who (Emily Dickinson?), once likened it to walking around wrapped in cotton batting. Everything’s muffled, just out of reach. Stagnation rules the day. The engine won’t turn over. Click, click, click.
And then, sometime during the first two weeks of March, I feel a shift. Seemingly overnight, the world returns to sharp focus. I care again. I can make things happen, something upon which I thrive. My energy levels rise, I’m more relaxed, my sense of humor blooms like one of those retractable clown bouquets. And I feel vindicated. All those months I just KNEW that something wasn’t right, and the fact that the something has so dramatically released me from its grip proves it.
I live for that moment, all winter long. Nothing I do can make it happen before it is time.
I just have to wait it out.
So, yeah, researchers—what gives? Don’t tell me it’s just me—I know it’s not. And you know it too.
To be fair, could a less-than-welcoming attitude toward winter predispose one to depression during the season? Generally speaking, attitudes can predispose one to a whole lot. Attitude isn’t everything, though, despite what the memes and snake oil sales associates would have you think.
I don’t like much about winter.
Winter is a big, uncomfortable, inconvenient, messy pain-in-the-butt.
I don’t like weather extremes, especially cold, and particularly when there’s wind. Snow is tolerable only when it’s either 1) strictly cosmetic and does not interfere with driving or safe walking, 2) in the form of a storm that traps everyone inside for a couple of days without killing or injuring anyone, outing the power, or freezing the pipes, and then melts within the week.
And ice? Don’t get me started on ice, and don’t let the name fool you—ice comes straight from hell. Not to mention the grayness, for days on end.
Rather surprisingly, rates of winter SAD in some Scandinavian countries are relatively low, considering their latitude. These are places where winter is colder, snowier, darker than in any state in the U.S. and quite a few nations. Some attribute this to a mindset adopted in these cultures that counterbalances the effects of harsh winter weather, short days, and weak-ass sunlight.
Norwegians call this concept koselig. The Danish know it as hygge. Both words translate, roughly, to “well-being”, or “coziness”. Yes, the Scandinavian secret to staving off winter depression in the bleakest of conditions is: cultivating coziness. Sipping mulled cider by the fireside with friends. Slipping on thick warm socks, brewing a cup of tea, and curling up under a wool blanky to knit and watch a movie. A candle-lit potluck with the neighbors. Hiding under the covers with a book, but surrounded by your dear ones, including your pet mouse.
We’ll get through winter together, seems to be the ‘tude of those in the land of the midnight sun.
Once you get to concocting snuggly scenarios, you can almost forget that it’s still winter.
Am I really that upset over the results of this research study? Nope. I know that something is afoot with the seasons, weather, moods, the winter blues, and clinical depression, for me and for millions. Most reasonable people wouldn’t deny it. Besides, I haven’t yet read the entire study so that I can justify pretending to understand it and indignantly waggling my finger over the nerve of some people. I haven’t yet seen the list of funders, which is probably benign but then again might give one pause. It could be fun to see someone way smarter than I rip the study to shreds and expose all its flaws.
I’m joking. Mostly.*
Then again, if the research methodologies and analysis are solid, then we’re that much closer to data that can be put to good use to help people who are suffering. I’m all for continued rigorous scientific inquiry in the name of bettering our world. May the results of this study lead to further study of the questions that those results beg.
Until then, I’m going to crawl under a hand-knit afghan with a hot Toddy and a bowlful of carbs.
Join me?
*I’m making light of my take on this study, and I’m employing humor in my discussion of the broader topic of clinical depression. Clinical depression, though, is a serious condition. It’s also treatable. If you are feeling depressed, please seek help from a trusted family member, friend, teacher, doctor, or nurse practitioner. Being depressed is nothing to be ashamed of. You don’t need to suffer, and you don’t need to go through it alone.
If you are considering suicide or are in extreme emotional distress, please call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at:
1-800-273-TALK (8255)
photo credit: Sad snowman on Commonwealth Ave. via photopin (license)
This Must Be Normal 