Resumo de Winter Depression-seasonal Affective Disorder

When Max wakes up in the morning he feels tired and sluggish. And this is even though the day before he had slept virtually the whole day. He only manages to get himself out of bed with a battle of effort and the most extreme discipline. There are many people in the same situation as Max at this time of year. They feel tired and lethargic and are plagued by self-doubt and listlessness. Darkness and the hormone melatonin are to blame for this. Melatonin drives our rhythm of day and night. If there is sufficient sunlight reaching the eyes over the day, the supply of melatonin into the bloodstream is turned on: the person feels fit, he is relaxed and happy. But during the cold months, the body is provided with too little sunlight. So it is no surprise that Max is tired. Together with this add the coldness and we have complete chaos. For this reason Max also has a ravenous appetite for carbohydrate-laden meals and chocolate. Chocolate contains serotonin which gives Max a happy feeling. This gives a momentary relief from the sadness. But of course in the long term this can be no solution. At last Max decides to go outside into the fresh air. And he is not wrong in this respect. For even under a cloudy sky, the little sunlight which reaches through is much better than any artificial light. A daily half hour's activity out in the open is sufficient for most. But after two disciplined weeks of daily walks he still does not feel any better, so a doctor advises him to undergo a course of using artificial light. Using this so-called light therapy Max's day is artificially lengthened by using a light source ten times as intensive as a normally purchased light bulb. A visit to the suntanning parlour is of no use for this purpose since it only works if the UV light shines onto the eyes directly and at the suntanning centre the eyes will hopefully always be covered due to the extremely high UV-radiation. Max becomes curious about this and does some research. He discovers on the internet that women suffer from winter depression four times as often as men. Typical female symptoms are mostly: sadness, self-doubt and feeling run-down. Typical male symptoms are: restlessness, aggression and amplified tendency for risk-taking. Luckily it has not yet reached this stage for Max. He feels better again and finds it much easier to get out of bed in the morning. His doctor says that this is just as well, otherwise he would have come down with a severe case of Winter Depression- or SAD- seasonal affective disorder. This can only be cured with a course of medicine. Or by using St. John's wort. This allows the body to use sunlight so intensively that it can not uncommonly result in an over-sensitivity to light. For that reason, if Max were not already healthy again, he should only use St. John's wort on the advice of a doctor and never try it himself from the supermarket.

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