http://www.usatoday.com/news/health...d-therapy_x.htm

By Patricia Anstett, Detroit Free Press

A little grouchy, aren't we?

Perhaps you feel sluggish, less creative or withdrawn. Maybe you're eating more than usual. Join the club of 14 million Americans with Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, a type of depression.

SAD and its milder form, the "winter blues," are caused by shortened exposure to daylight.

Symptoms begin in the fall. Five or six months later, the blues are gone, only to return the next fall. Peak SAD season runs through all of February, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

About 6% of the U.S. population has SAD, and another 14% cope with winter blues, says Norman Rosenthal, a SAD expert and author of Winter Blues (Guilford, $15.95).

Come fall, our brains and our behavior change with shorter days and less daylight exposure, Rosenthal says. We produce more melatonin, a hormone that is made almost exclusively at night. Some call it the hormone of darkness.

People with SAD are more susceptible to the extra melatonin, which affects their mood. For reasons that aren't clear, women with the problem outrank men 3 to 1.

SAD can sneak up. "It starts with feeling sluggish," says Rosenthal, a Georgetown University psychiatrist. "You start sleeping in. You aren't as pumped up as usual."

Jennetta Helton of Dearborn Heights, Mich., started noticing the problem shortly before she was diagnosed seven years ago.

"I start feeling down; I just don't want to do anything," says Helton, 37, a homemaker with a 12-year-old son. "I could sit around, pretty much all day."

Today, she uses antidepressants and light therapy to help reduce the symptoms.

The three known therapies are antidepressant drugs, light or phototherapy and counseling known as cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT.

CBT helps people take negative thoughts and turn them into realistic ones, says Jed Magen, chairman of the Michigan State University Department of Psychiatry.

Antidepressants such as Prozac work in 50% to 60% of people, and light therapy is effective in as many as 70% of patients, says Alireza Amirsadri, a psychiatrist and SAD specialist at Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Medication is the main choice for people who want a quick, convenient option and whose insurance does not pay for light units or counseling. In the long run, a light unit that costs $200-$300 is much cheaper if a person has no insurance drug coverage.

For some, there's the option of escaping someplace sunny. For others, try an outdoor sport such as skiing on sunny winter days. People also can cultivate indoor plants in a sunroom or drink their morning beverages in the sunniest spot of the home.

Or, people can take a day now and again to hibernate by rolling up on the couch, covering up with a blanket and watching television.

I use a 500 watt halogen lamp in a
SHOP LIGHT in my office to illuminate
the place in winter. I don't recommend
this since it is supposed to be used outside
and in event it caused a fire, the insurance
company might not payoff.

But it is cheap! $15.00 and it puts out
a hell of a lot of light. I just have to keep
remembering to turn it on, or I can get
lost for a day or two.

Vitamin D with calcium and magnesium is much safer and more effective.

I know this is rather an old thread but I was poking around and decided to read it anyway.

I've had SAD for years and years and so has my husband. For about 15 years of our married life we had one fight a year, always in February. (Yes, we truly don't fight any other time.)

A few years back I was remodeling my office and I wanted some good light in it so we decided to go with a 4' 2-tube fluorescent fixture, and because we didn't want distorted colors we put in full-spectrum bulbs. It was in either September or October when we finished it.

I tend to spend quite a bit of time at my computer, especially during the winter months and I was completely amazed at how much better I felt over that winter than all the previous winters. I had more energy and very little depression.

We've since moved into a larger house and there are two fixtures like that in our kitchen. I also pulled off the cover of the two-bulb fixture in my office and replaced those bulbs with fluorescents. I don't think I get quite the benefit in my new office as I did with the old 4-foot tubes, but between that and the kitchen it still helps bunches. When we get out from under a few other projects we'll be changing out a lot of the light fixtures so they'll be able to handle fluorescents. (We had almost everything switched over in the old house.)

Oh, and on a really positive note, DH and I no longer have our annual fight. LOL

Sold commercial lighting for a while. Learned that if you have SAD you don't have to buy the expensive light panels, etc. All they are is regular fixtures with special bulbs in them. Somebody is making a killing off of us with those.

All lighting stores, and Home Depot, etc have fluorescent bulbs in what is called "Full Spectrum". Sometimes called C-50. They put out the same light as sunlight.

If you have fluorescent bulbs (we do in our kitchen), just replace the regular soft white, etc, fluorescent bulbs with the full spectrum.

Regular 4 ft are about $2 maybe. Full spectrum may be about $5 or $6 depending on where you buy.

And remember, they all lose their true strength after a year or so, even if they are still burning, so replace them.

I hate the kitchen (am mechanical/technical not domestic at all), but love to be in that room because it's like being in sunshine.

If you don't have a place in your house, just buy one of those cheapy fluorescent "shop light" fixtures for $8 at Home Depot, but put the Full Spectrum bulb in it. Stand it in the corner of a room you are in a lot - office, bedroom, etc. Turn it on when you are in there.

Let the Sun Shine and Get Happy!

Anne

That is a GREAT idea!
I am gonna buy a florescent
light panel at Home Depot
tommorrow and put 2 Full
Spectrum Bulbs in em and
enjoy the sunlight.

And I am betting that since
it is Florescent that it won't
be a FIRE threat either, am
I right?

I previously used 450 watt
shop lights with those hot
bulbs but they kept burning
out and they were definitely
too hot, and a fire threat.

I have a full spectrum Ott-Lite, and it seems to really help. I have it on at my desk all day. I got it from JoAnn Fabrics. It's that time of year again - the days are getting short FAST!

But only if taken at an effective strength.
Our paleo ancestors lived and ate mainly outdoors. All day every day.

They would have maintained a vitamin d status between 60ng/ml and 80ng/ml 150-200nmol/l.

Given ample exposure to sunlight our modern bodies still attain and maintain a NATURAL level between those numbers. Hollis has demonstrated that here.

If you look at figure one you will see how below 40ng/ml 100nmol/l you get very little build up of Cholecalciferol stores. The body is working on a cash in hand basis with intakes up to 4000iu/daily simply being used for day to day needs. Obviously to save money you have to earn more than you spend. So in the Vit D economy you need to intake more than you utilse to build up reserves for the winter. You may just scrape by with 125nmol/l 50ng/ml (requires about 5000iu/daily in total) but to achieve the equivalent to Paleo man you require more. Look at Hollis's fig 2 and you see to get optimal vitamin d in breast milk flowing he was providing 6400iu/daily and that matched the plots obtained with ample regular sun exposure.

If people think just taking one calcium/mag/vit d tablet they can solve SAD they are mistaken. You need a separate effective strength D3 tablet Something like this

For the Magnesium you need 600 -800mg of magnesium Malate, taurinate, Mrs D here has some good magnesium information.

I personally think food sources of calcium are best but that depends of if your low carb is including cheese. but the green leafy veg should be a good source. I've put Doctor McCleary's supplement recommendations for optimal brain health here.

Vieth has shown that 4000iu/daily D3 improves feelings of wellbeing. but that was in Canada and they get more sunshine than the UK, much of the population lives further south and they also have Vit d fortified milk/cereals which the UK doesn't so we will require more.

Since I've used 5000iu/daily/D3 I no longer use my SADLIGHTS. They've stayed in the loft for the last 2 winters not needed anymore. I do also get sun at every opportunity so keep my status around the 150nmol/l mark. 60nm/ml.

The proposed safe upper is limit is 10,000iu/daily but in practice adverse events have only been recorded at 40,000iu/d and only after many months.