Seasonal Depression: Symptoms, Causes and Treatment

Seasonal depression is believed to be caused by changes in light levels during the winter, which affects the body’s biological clock and leads to disturbances in sleep, digestion, and mood, as well as productivity and work performance.

Seasonal depression

Seasonal depression begins with the end of summer and the beginning of fall. Many things change in our daily lives, and the most important of these changes is our mood, which often worsens in winter and sometimes develops into depression, withdrawal, and lack of social activities. Through this article, we will learn about the nature of this type of mental illness, its causes, symptoms, and ways to treat and get rid of it.

What is seasonal depression?

Seasonal depression is a state of sadness and emotional disturbance, which is why it is sometimes called “seasonal affective disorder” that occurs in a person during the change of seasons. Seasonal depression begins with the fall and ends with the end of winter.

It is not only associated with winter, but there is also something called spring or summer depression, which is not a unipolar mood disorder, but rather a bipolar one, and is also known in medical references as Seasonal Depression, or Seasonal Affective Disorder.

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What are the symptoms of seasonal depression?

Depression in general has many symptoms that distinguish it and make it stand out to the person suffering from it or perhaps the person being treated for it. The most important of these symptoms are the following:

• Extreme sadness for no reason when fall and winter approach.
• Feeling hopeless, frustrated and disinterested in all life’s pleasures.
• Avoid mixing with people and being at home or in a room alone most of the time.
• Thinking about death and always feeling that the moment of death is approaching.
• Sometimes it may develop into suicidal thoughts.
• A noticeable change in appetite, eating excessively or eating very little, but the tendency to overeat, especially carbohydrates, is one of the most prominent symptoms of seasonal depression.
• Low body energy and constant feeling of fatigue and pain in all parts of the body.
• Inability to concentrate well.

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When does winter depression start?

Begins winter depression Or seasonal depression with the beginning of the fall and continues throughout the winter, and after the end of winter these symptoms disappear, and the person feels better, after he felt sad for unknown reasons, we find him accepting life, and starting his day active and not frustrated, and the person does not suffer after the end of the winter period, from the disorders that he complained of while suffering from winter or seasonal depression as it is called.

What are the causes of seasonal depression?

All the reasons that we will mention are estimated and not confirmed. Some of them have not been subjected to actual experience, and others have been subjected to experience, but they may be similar to other symptoms of mental illness. We must know that depression is a temporary symptom and not a disease that a person suffers from as a result of certain circumstances, and it can disappear without medical intervention. The most important of these reasons are the following:

• Vitamin D deficiency.
• Low serotonin levels in the body.
• Increased levels of melatonin.
• A change in the number of hours of night and day, as the number of hours of night increases more than the number of hours of day, which decrease in winter.
• Disruption of the human biological clock.
• Lack of exposure to the sun, which leads to lethargy, lack of activity, and poor mood.

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What are the signs of depression?

Depression is similar to seasonal depression in many symptoms, but there are signs that distinguish one from the other, which are:

• Sleep disturbance such as insomnia or excessive sleeping.
• Loss of interest or passion in any fun, social activity, or hobby.
• Fatigue and inability to do any activity, even small.
• Constant feeling of guilt.
• Negative thoughts control the mind.
• Excessive thinking about death and suicide.
• Physical pain that has no medical cause, such as persistent abdominal pain without a cause and headaches.
• Loss of appetite or excessive desire to eat.

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What is the treatment for seasonal depression?

There are two types of treatment for depression: one that you can do yourself at home or with the help of others, and one that requires medical intervention.

How to get rid of seasonal depression

• Go out during the day as much as possible and avoid staying up late at night.
• Exposure to sunlight during the day as much as possible to compensate for vitamin D deficiency.
• Practicing one or more types of sports, especially running.
• Contact your doctor who may prescribe vitamin D supplements if you have severe vitamin D deficiency.
• Following a healthy diet that suits the body’s nature so that body weight does not increase significantly during the winter is a very important step to avoid seasonal depression in the winter.
• Engaging in various social activities to enhance your mood. Being constantly busy is a great antidote to depression, whether it is seasonal depression or psychological depression.
• Practice your favorite hobby daily, especially in the evening.

Medical treatment for seasonal depression

In some cases of mental illness, medical intervention is necessary for treatment. The most important methods that the doctor resorts to are the following:

light therapy

Light therapy is done by exposing the patient to white light every morning, where the patient is exposed to a light box that emits white rays that simulate sunlight in order to cause chemical changes in the patient’s brain, which in turn greatly improves the mood. This type of treatment is suitable for most patients except for diabetics and patients with retinopathy.

Drug treatment

In some cases of autumnal mental illness, the doctor may prescribe therapeutic medications that are antidepressants and serotonin inhibitors, but you should not take these medications except with a doctor’s prescription.

Psychiatric treatment

There is a third type of medical treatment for autumn depression, which is cognitive behavioral therapy. This is done by talking to the patient and identifying the negative thoughts that dominate his thinking and trying to replace them with positive thoughts using a technique called behavioral activation.