Coping with Seasonal Affective Disorder

When it comes to dealing with seasonal affective disorder — an extreme lethargy and sadness that accompanies the onset of winter — most sufferers have already heard it all when it comes to solutions. Here’s the drill in a nutshell: spend a good chunk of time in front of a lamp that emulates sunlight; meditate; plan trips to warm places; take long, soothing walks; keep a balanced diet and try to sustain a positive attitude. There’s really nothing new on the scene when it comes to treatment methods for SAD. But there’s a lot more to SAD than meets the eye — way beyond the feelings of listlessness and sadness that set in alongside the cold, dark days of winter. If nothing’s really worked to alleviate your challenges with SAD, it is because something that you don’t really understand is going on in your mind. To draw on the findings in neuroscience, there are absolutely millions upon millions of synapses firing in our brains at every moment, most of which are completely reflexive. Think about it: most of the time, we don’t even register that we’re breathing. Similarly, why the onset of winter would bring about SAD usually is a total mystery. To put it simply: often, things go on inside ourselves that we can neither explain nor understand. So we can’t really fix them. We may be able to alleviate the symptoms, but we’d rather have a cure. Start trying to conjure up everything you might not be consciously aware of that could be causing all ...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Depression Disorders General Healthy Living Psychology Seasonal Affective Disorder Emotion Fatigue (medical) Source Type: news