I think I have SAD
 

Seasonal Affective Disorder
I never used to be affected by the weather, but I've noticed in the past couple of years if the weather sucks I'm in a bad mood. Good thing the weather has to really suck to affect me. Until today we had four straight days of heavy clouds, temps in the low 30s, and snow flurries but no accumulation. The sky was gray, the ground was brown - it was just ugly. I couldn't work up any ambition to do anything. Today the temps are the same but it's sunny and bright and I've been outside all morning and loving it.
I never used to experience this.

That's my winter complaint also.
I don't mind the cold or the snow...but the lack of sunshine gets to me.

Today is nice and sunny. Wind is picking up, so it's feeling cold.

My dad had that and he found some bright "daylight" color light bulbs in the kitchen were enough to make him feel a lot better.

You need to get out more and exercise. As you get older that becomes more and more important.
Walking is good but you may have issues with your hips or knees so a LOW POWERED E-Bike might be a good idea.

Normally I exercise for about one hour a day but after loosing my job because of Covid (March 2020) I've extended that to about 2 hours a day. I'm 55 and I feel great! (I have a small collection of classic lugged steal framed bikes.)

Please try it Patrick. Turn off the TV and just do something.

Kinda hard to "get out" and exercise in his cloudy, freezing weather. ;)

Patrick, you need an indoor playroom. Could be a workshop or pool table room with a bar. I've has a bit of SAD myself even here in SoCal while on the mend from surgery with more to come. It's hard to get out of the funk sometimes, but you have to have that will.

People have noticed my 'moods' here and I take note.

Not really an issue of "SAD" here as much as it is just "COVID Fatigue" me thinks. Some days lots of energy and some none at all ? Just really tired of this and no real end in sight.

As to weather here , yesterday morning it was 32 at 5:00 A.M and had been like that for quite a few days.... this morning it was 63 and is currently 74 will stay in that range for a week of so.

I've got it too, I have a blue light array that is supposed to be the shizzle, but what works best is to get out and exercise.

Everybody is different, but here's what worked for me:

I bought myself an Apple watch for my retirement, and it is very good at forcing some movement and exercise throughout the day.
In order to "close my rings" I do some combination of cycling and walking each day - a bare minimum of an hour, but often much much more, depending on the activity. (I rode in the hills for about three hours yesterday with an old friend, a nice, easy 30 miles with lots of breaks. Good time.)
I'm sleeping better, my left leg, the one with the artificial hip, is moving freer and is much stronger. My lungs are clearer. The valleys don't last as long as they do when I'm just parked on the couch. Tbh, I'm still an arsehole, but Apple doesn't have an app to change that behavior.

I know how depression works. I hope you can find something to help you in keeping the darkness at bay. Fresh air and mindless exercise is a fast, easy way to change the movie in your head.
Good luck! You're not alone!

Do you take any vitamin D? If not Try it.

I don't think I have SAD but I and my mother have always been effected by light. Over cast, cloudy some rainy days, the period at dusk negatively effect me and that effect is compounded in the winter months when the sun is low in the sky. I avoid certain colors such as gray as the problem compounds with diffused light and the gray color. It drives my wife crazy as she is light sensitive but at dusk I turn every light in the house on, all the bulbs are 100W. Once the sun goes down I am then generally ok and the lights can be dimmed to a normal setting.

Winters are long and grey here in the northeast. I think it affects all of us to some extent . utside

Is "SW Ohio" a cold & snowy place? I was thinking farms, hot Summers and mild Winters. :confused:

It gets cold down here but nothing like some you guys have to put up with. My sister lives in Denver and I've seen photos of my BIL shovelling the drive way... BRRRRR :( If "SW Ohio" is freezing an exercise area/room would be ideal but even a tread mill or stationary bike would do. Patrick has a big house.

One of the best treatments is to get a light box designed for this (or make one) and use it at the times they tell you to. Your PCP may know about these, or may refer you to a specialist.

I also wondered if an LED headlight could be reversed so it points at the pineal gland ("third eye") and wear it at the times you'd use a light box.

I have one. I have an about 45 minute routine in the morning, mostly for my back and hip arthritis. I spend 20 minutes or so in the hot tub (102 degrees), then go to the stationary bike, then stretches, some light weights work, then more time on the bike. The problem is I can't get motivated to do anything when it's so cold and gray out.
It's strange. I have so much to do inside - plenty of projects and I have the workout routine but something about looking out the windows and seeing cold and gray just saps my ambition. It's hard to get out of bed, and even then I sort of listlessly and joylessly go through the routine. This morning and I hit it hard and loved it, and the only difference was the sun was shining through the windows. It is a strange phenomenon.

You know what will fix SAD?

A dawg puppy :).

at the winter solstice we're down to about four hours of usable daylight. some people can't take it.


i get through with dog walking and a **** ton of vitamin D.

the wife tans.

Everyone here gets it.

Vitamin D is HUGE.

Lights are supposed to be good.

I skied a bunch as a kid. Didn't impact me at all then. I suspect that exercise, being outside, daylight, and HAVING SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO made an enormous difference.

SAD is very real. Make some life changes. It can be addressed successfully for most.

Good luck. Report back.

Vitamin D is toxic in doses that are too large, 4,000 IU, so be careful.

Probably ok on the toxicity thing. From the Mayo Clinic:

Taking 60,000 international units (IU) a day of vitamin D for several months has been shown to cause toxicity. This level is many times higher than the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for most adults of 600 IU of vitamin D a day.

Any vitamin that is not water soluble can be toxic, probably some water soluble ones also.

I'd stay below 40k to avoid calcium regulation problems.

yes, all lipid soluble vitamins can be toxic


anyway a light box plus more D3 should be tried - a visit to your MD is a good idea

I usually get somewhat depressed, and cranky the more cloudy/windy/cold grey days that we get, but it affects me greatly because of how much I do on the farm outdoors. I am taking vitamin D this year, and my wife found an APP for 52 hikes during the year, so have been doing that also, which really helps with a new destination, and adventure every week....mostly short local wildlife area hikes, but some boardwalks, and metroparks.

A few years after moving to Portland, I had a winter - which means most of A YEAR here - when nothing seemed right. I finally figured out that the lack of sunlight was affecting me. I started riding my bike to work. I also changed every light bulb in our house to daylight CFL and yelling at the kids if they forgot to leave the light on when exiting a room, which confused them. I also bought clip on lights for each monitor at work and put 100 w equivalent daylight CFLs, which meant 600 w of light bathing me twelve hours a day. Other than the unnatural wintertime farmers’ tan, this worked well. No more SAD.

Seriously, put high watt daylight LEDs in your kitchen and shop, as many as you have fixtures for, and see if that doesn’t help a little.

Go buy some viagra and cheer up bud!:D

When it comes to artificial lighting, you need a broad spectrum which you don't get with many bulbs or tubes these days. Whenever my wife changed offices the first thing I did was change out a couple cool white fluorescents to more of a grow light and added a tungsten bulb table lamp to be placed on or near her desk.

I can't believe how some people have to work without natural light and windows. No one seems to know much about lighting Kelvin except for supermarkets and dept stores. They have it down to a science.

i used to be ace in winter, clubbing , didn't see daylight for months on end. love it.

but at 44. i'm getting the sad as well..
The covid measures and working from home for over a month don't help either

^ This

There’s some effect from not hanging out with buddies, having ppl over for dinner, throwing parties, meeting a friend at the pub for a pint . . . a virtual, isolated life isn’t good for us, even if our inner misanthrope welcomes it at first. So it’s not all SAD, probably.

I have a good friend, the last time I saw him in person was January at a political “house party” I held that turned into a rockin’ party party. Everyone who was at that event tells me they are glad that their last weekend before Covid was at my house, and we’re all planning to do it again as soon as enough of us are vaccinated (lot of oldsters in the crowd). He and I joke about how we’re saving our livers for that day!

Last evening we invited a friend over and built a fire in the fire pit and sat around, socially distancing and yucking it up. It felt almost normal. It's sunny today and I've been outside most of the day. Feeling good now.

SAD is very real. Look at studies in places where they have no sun for long periods of time. As others have said: moderate addition of Vit D, natural light spectrum bulbs (grow bulbs work), and human interaction.

After I retired five years ago I fell in with a great group of about 15 guys & gals at the local Starbucks patio. It's a loose group, no roll call, no roster, no dues. A few are regular, every day, a few are once a-weekers. Some stay an hour, some five minutes.
It all happens between 10AM & 12 noon. The discussion ranges from grandkids to baseball to quantum physics to vacations to home repair. Last week the retired M.D. had some great advice on who, what, when, where and how to get a COVID vaccine shot reservation. We celebrate birthdays (somebody buys your coffee & donut). Only rules are no politics and no multi-level marketing.

With COVID we've been meeting in the park next to Starbucks, so you have to bring your own lawn chair. We sit in a circle six feet apart.

Find a like minded person, sit near a traffic area, invite folks to join for a minute. You'd be surprised how many folk will express the same desire for some human contact, ironic humor, and a good story.

Get a light. I got one when I lived in Seattle. It helps me, big time.

Dr. Freddy is in the house, 1 try some Just for men vitimans daily, 2 florescent lights, 3 your might have something, see a shrink and get on some meds..

My eyes aren't as bright as they used to be. Maybe that is part of the reason Winter seems so gloomy now. I was out all day yesterday, and it was damp, cold, and gloomy. It isn't very fun or motivating. I'd rather it was 20 and sunny than 35, cloudy and damp cold. Yesterday it was both cold and cloudy with wind. I do the stuff that needs doing, but it is hard to get enthused about the optional activities. They just don't seem as fun in lousy weather.

There's more than one reason most the NE "blue bloods" have winter homes in Florida and the Bahamas.

https://jacarandanassau.files.wordpr.../873877055.jpg

FYI, a copy of this book in good condition fetches several grand these days.

I get like that too, the older I get, the more I hate winter days, grey days... I'm kinda depressed in winter... 2 weeks of rain in a row makes me wanna move. I am starting to understand the appeal of FL or tropical islands now.. I'm sure Covid confinement has not helped !

You can get daylight lamps that emit a spectrum similar or the same as daylight. I understand it hellps a lot to turn them on & expose yourself (not that way, though) in the mornings when you get up.