Most people think back fondly on their time at uni as a blur of Jägerbombs, straw-pedos and other weapon-based hybrid drinks I imagine exist. Malibu-guns, perhaps. I mainly recall freezing cold winters and an annual four-month hibernation. I graduated with a 2:1 and a diagnosis of Seasonal Affective Disorder, and apparently I’m not alone: a recent study found that 29 per cent of UK adults suffer from SAD – with women 40 per cent more likely to self-report it than men.
But what is it? Is it real? How can you tell whether or not you’ve got it?
My answer to those last two questions would be ‘Yes’ and ‘Listen, I’m going to tell you’. For me, it was triggered because I had moved from Australia to study in Durham (deep in the north-east of England), where suddenly the most sun I got was a pouch of Capri Sun from one of the three Greggs located within 10 feet of my door.
My history degree got off to a solid start, despite an initial hiccough where I revealed I didn’t know what Hadrian’s Wall was. But in November, I was shocked to come out of a 3pm lecture to find it was full-blown night time. No-one else reacted, so apparently it wasn’t the apocalypse.
Then, as winter rolled in, my productivity slowed down and my mood changed. I started sleeping in until lunch, skipped classes and socials, and stopped working – not in a cool Ferris Bueller way, in more of a Donnie Darko way. I had more contact hours with my duvet in a week than the history department throughout the rest of my entire degree. Eventually, I sought help for depression, and could now identify my symptoms as Seasonal Affective Disorder.
A new study has found that over half of the UK population reports feeling a bit sadder in the darker months
It’s commonly known as SAD which, apart from blatantly spelling out the mood of its sufferers, is a form of depression in which mood, energy and motivation are affected negatively by the winter weather.
‘But we’re all a bit down in winter,’ I hear you, the British public, saying politely, while donning a cap and strolling out into a blizzard. ‘We just bloody well get on with it!’ On top of that, a new study has found that over half of the UK population reports feeling a bit sadder in the darker months – so isn’t getting sad in winter just a normal thing?
I asked professor of psychology Dr Lance Workman this question and he bedazzled me with the theory that most of our human evolutionary development occurred in equatorial Africa, so Northern latitudes – compounded by the industrial revolution and more recently, the computer revolution – mean we are somewhat divorced from the environment and therefore receive less sunshine than our brain is adapted to receive.
So, in short, yes we do. It’s not often you hear, ‘Well, this is a nice barbecue but I can’t wait for the daily challenge of showering in my wind-tunnel of a single-glazed Victorian terraced house!’
So where does Seasonal Affective Disorder fit into this?
‘I think it fits in one of three ways,’ explains Dr David Lewis-Hodgson. ‘Even the best of us find it hard to get out of bed if it’s dark and tipping with rain, and some people can shake that off and get on with it. It’s not a question of them being stronger. Someone who is depressed is not a weak person as they are often seen. The chemistry in their brain has changed which makes them suffer negative aspects.’
Frankly it can be a bit of a relief to know you’re not just lazy, and there is some science going on
Now, a doctor telling you the chemicals in your brain aren’t doing what’s best for you shouldn’t be joyous news. But frankly, it can be a bit of a relief to know you’re not just lazy, and there is some science going on. Melatonin, for example, is a hormone the body produces when it’s dark to make you feel sleepy, and I seem to have stocked up on loads of this. Serotonin (the sexier of the tonins) is a hormone which affects mood, appetite and sleep. In less sunlight, you get less serotonin, and so brain messages may not be transmitted properly, which can lead to an emotional change.
At this point, I am imagining my brain as a warehouse where the workers are cold and tired so they’ve got their melatonin/serotonin batch numbers mixed up. The boss (again, in my brain) should have spotted the error but she’s asleep under her desk.
The psychologist waits patiently for me to finish explaining the above analogy.
‘Secondly, if somebody is already feeling a bit down, a bit frustrated, or a bit unhappy about life then the fact that the nights are getting longer and the days are getting shorter, and it’s grey and dark even in daylight, can enhance someone’s negativity.
‘Thirdly, if someone is feeling they are on the edge of depression, winter can be one more straw that breaks the camel’s back,’ she says.
‘So there are two aspects: a physiological aspect – changes in brain chemistry produced by lack of sunlight – and also the psychological affect – we feel happier when we are warm.’
Winter is awful. Christmas, the opium of winter, gets us through the first hump, distracting us with good cheer and small fruited cakes. But once it’s over, there are so many more shit days to get through. Sky Travel once initiated a campaign to up sales by naming January’s first Monday back to work ‘Blue Monday’ – The Most Depressing Day of the Year.
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Alright, but if everyone is feeling a bit miserable in winter, how do you (or rather, professionals who are trained to do this) distinguish between normal fluctuations in mood and Seasonal Affective Disorder?
Dr Workman tells The Debrief: ‘Well SAD isn’t really a disorder. It’s more a continuum along which you can plot people’s moods. In terms of diagnosis, you really need to have two seasons where there is a noticeable difference in mood between winter and summer. The same people who are very down in winter need to be in very high spirits in summer.’
It’s one of the types of mental health illness that people can easily misunderstand because it is very common to associate the winter months with feeling a bit low
Now I’m not saying that in summer I’m the life and soul of the party, crowdsurfing on a sea of Care Bears to my job at the Smile Factory. But I could tell something wasn’t right in comparison to my normal behavior. I sought help when other people would perhaps internalise their struggles. You Brits aren’t exactly famed for getting in touch with your emotions.
It’s really about the contrast in normal behavior and the severity of the symptoms affecting your life. I’m on the mild end of the spectrum. ‘It’s one of the types of mental health illness that people can easily misunderstand because it is very common to associate the winter months with feeling a bit low,’ says Beth Murphy at the mental health charity Mind.
‘Because people think, “I feel a bit down but I still get up and go to work in the morning,” it can be easy to stigmatise it. It’s hard to get across how debilitating it can be for some people.’
I’m able to tackle my symptoms with a range of psychosomatic measures. This weekend, when it becomes November, I will fire up my sunlamp2000 – a tiny lamp which shines the brightness of the sun into my room each day. The long-term effects of this are still being debated, but I stick to it. There’s another light therapy tool called the Dawn Simulator, which, well, it simulates dawn. And who wouldn’t want that?
Like any form of depression, treatment is individually tailored. The most important thing is to seek help. Whether you’re sad, or sadder, or you think you might have SAD, get to a doctor. The worst that can happen is they’ll tell you to buy a heater.
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Follow Liz on Twitter: @bettygleadle
Illustration: Assa Ariyoshi
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.