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During winter, students struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder

  C.J. Cummings - Arrow Staff

Photo illustration by Lynon Lohof and Eric Galpin

   Do you find it harder and harder to crawl out of bed each morning, wishing you could hibernate all winter like a warm and fuzzy little squirrel? Do the dark cloudy skies make you feel dull and blue? Do you spend most of your wintertime sitting inside wishing it were summer instead of going out and enjoying the snow? If so, then you may be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD.

   "I hate winter because I get depressed and I'm more emotional and stressed," says sophomore Christina Collins. "The cold makes me have muscle spasms in my back and all my muscles get tight and it's terrible. I get bad mood swings."

   Scientists suspect S.A.D. is caused by a lack of sunlight. The sunlight-to-nighttime ratio in the winter is considerably lower than in the summer. And there are usually clouds in the sky regardless, so what light you may be getting seems dull and gray compared to the bright summer sun. Considering all that, being depressed is pretty understandable. After all how can you have a sunny disposition if there's no sun to inspire you?

   "Winter sucks," says sophomore Michael Swanson. "Because it's cold and wet outside you can never do anything."

   Symptoms can be from mild to severe. Some S.A.D. sufferers just get the bored wintertime blahs while others become bedridden, irritable, sluggish, and withdrawn.

   That's the bad news. The good news is that it's treatable. Antidepressants, hormones, and heliotherapy can typically do the trick.

   Melatonin and seratonin are two hormones that regulate sleep, body temperature and mood. A 1979 study conducted by Dr. Norman Rosethal discovered that Melatonin production is affected by light exposure to light in excess of 2500 lux (lux is a measurement of luminosity) linking sunlight to your mood.

   Therefore bring out your heliotherapy! Heliotherapy is a treatment that exposes you to more light. Special lamps and tanning beds seem to be the best cure for this ailment.

   Moderate tanning occasionally is safe, but burning yourself to a dark tan frequently can lead to skin cancer, which is probably worse than any case of the wintertime blues.

   Vitamin D is a very important vitamin, and the most reliable source for it is sunlight. The combination of Melatonin supplements and more frequent exposure to bright, warm lights is the best approach, and is safer and more effective than antidepressants like Prozac, which is often used when S.A.D. is misdiagnosed for common depression.

   "I'm glad we don't live in Alaska, or we'd really have a lot of it," says school nurse Margie Cook. "The weather does affect us. When we don't see the fun for months, it really does hurt us. I don't see a lot of it, because, though it affects everybody to some extent, most people don't get too depressed."

   Sophomore Reid Roper says it all for you summer lovers when he says "Except when I'm skiing, I spend my whole winter wishing I was a little boy running and jumping and giggling through a sprinkler on a hot bright summer day."