Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms shouldn’t be confused and ignored just in the name of “winter blues.”
“My life is cold, dark, and without any hues!
What if it’s more than just winter blues?”
SIMRA SAJID
Table of Contents
Seasonal Affective Disorder
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a mood disorder that occurs seasonally at the onset of the different seasons ( especially winter) and, the affected ones exhibit depressive mood symptoms.
It is oftentimes taken lightly in the notion of normal seasonal blues due to changes in the seasonal patterns.
Because of this reason, Seasonal Affective Disorder symptoms have to be distinguished properly from winter blues.
It is also known by several other names like seasonal depression, winter depression, summer depression, and seasonal mood disorder.
It is more common in females than males just, like depression. And it is also found more in young adults than in older people. People who live far away from the equator are more prone to have it.
Considerably, it happens due to lack of Vitamin D. Imbalanced levels of serotonin and melatonin also play a part in SAD.
Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D., and his associates at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) first described and named Seasonal affective Disorder in 1984.
Types Of Seasonal Affective Disorder
Basically, there are two types of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Below are them.
1 – Summer Depression
It begins in the late spring or early summer and ends in the fall. This type is quite uncommon.
2 – Winter Depression
This type of seasonal depression starts in winter or fall and ends in early summer or spring. This is a common and general type of SAD.
Let’s move to the Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms and understand the difference between SAD and winter blues.
Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms
Below I’ll put down Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms of both summer and winter depression.
1 – Summer And Spring Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms
Though it’s rare, we should know if we are in the grab of summer depression by following its symptoms precisely.
Agitation
It is one of the symptoms of summer depression. People tend to become nervous and edgy because of SAD.
Anxiety
The ones who have Seasonal Affective Disorder become abnormally anxious and stressed. It becomes so obvious that it can be easily observed by others.
Insomnia
You experience a troubled sleeping pattern. It becomes hard to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Irritability
There is an increase in the level of irritability. You become temperamental and peevish.
Restlessness
You become disquiet and tumultuous. You also undergo episodes of violent behavior.
Decreased Appetite
Your appetite becomes very poor. You do not experience that hunger.
Weight Loss
This is a natural consequence of your decreased appetite. You lose weight unusually. This is absolutely not good for your health.
The above are Summer Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms. Let’s move towards the winter ones.
2 – Winter And Fall Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms
This is a common form of SAD and many of us consider it as “winter blues” and even call it too, not knowing what actually it is and how will it affect our overall wellbeing in the long term.
Let’s look at the symptoms.
Feeling Melancholic
Most of the time and most of the days you will consistently feel sad and pensive. You feel so down for no reason. You have an unnamed sadness.
Feeling Remorseful
You feel very guilty and remorseful for no apparent reason. This guilt is eating you from inside and making you psychologically weaker because of your inaction in treating it.
- Feeling Hopeless
You will feel hopeless, ineffective, and very useless. You don’t seem to have any hope for yourself and your future.
Feeling Worthless
You look down upon yourself. You feel as if you are impotent and utterly valueless. You don’t appreciate your worth as much as any normal human being should do.
Feeling Nauseous
You have this feeling of unwell lingering continuously within you making you feel even nauseated.
Feeling Irritable
You become really bad-tempered and cranky. Becoming irritable at the slightest of things crept into your habits.
Feeling Fatigued
Ah! you feel fatigued and weary very often. Your physical labor will not determine your level of exhaustion rather it’s there due to a symptom of Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Feeling Sluggish
You feel immensely sluggish and hard to function. Your movements, as well as speech, become slowed. This becomes severe enough to be observed by others.
Feeling Anxious
You become worried and fearful for no such reason. Anxiety overtakes you for most of the days.
Feeling Depressed
You feel blue out of nowhere. The feeling of depression runs within you and makes you despair and unhappy. You think it’s because of the season but it’s due to SAD.
Difficulty Thinking
You feel hard to think and contemplate. Your mind does not support you. It is because you are mentally not calm enough to think sanely.
Difficulty Concentrating
You fail to centralize your thought and focus on any particular thing. It becomes troublesome for you to concentrate on anything and will cause many more issues afterward.
Difficulty Decision-Making
Your decision-making power will hamper because of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Decision plays a pivotal role in our lives and, lack of proper decision-making makes us suffer.
Overeating (Carbohydrate Cravings)
You tend to hog on food. You overeat especially those foods which are rich in carbohydrates to suffice your desire for carbs.
Weight Gain
Overeating and less functioning will lead you to put on weight. It’s unhealthy for your physical and mental health.
Hypersomnia
You become excessively sleepy. You don’t feel like leaving your bed whether it’s a bright sunny day or dark cloudy night. You are overtaken by hypersomnia.
Limbs Feeling Heavy
Your limbs feel heavy and difficult to function freely. You become low and weary.
Reduced Libido
Decreased libido(sex drive) is often caused by poor medical condition and in this case, it is a symptom of Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Withdrawal From Social Activities
You experience a pullback from usual social activities like meeting your friends, going on a dinner date, movie nights, and many more. There’s a kind of social repulsion within you.
Withdrawal From Enjoyable Activities
You lose interest in activities and things that were once enjoyable and satisfying for you. You don’t like them anymore for no reason as such.
Continual Causeless Crying
You tend to cry very often without any reason.
Purposeless Physical Activities
There is an increment in purposeless physical activities on which you don’t have proper control.
Interpersonal Problems
You will feel hardships in establishing and maintaining relationships bonds with people. Your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors will interfere and become a cause of interpersonal difficulties.
Thoughts Of Suicide Or Deaths
Evil deadly thoughts of suicide and death will trouble you frequently if you are in the grasp of SAD. They keep coming to you time and again.
Till now, I am pretty sure you must have taken notice of all the Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms of both summer and winter depressions. This article will make it easy to distinguish between the above two types of seasonal depression symptoms.
Symptoms will also enlighten you to put up your guards against this disorder when you might think of it as just winter blues.
I hope to help you with this piece of an article based on “Seasonal Affective Disorder Symptoms” and would love to play a positive part in acknowledging and treating your disorder as soon as possible.
Please tell me, in which category do your symptoms fall, summer depression or winter depression, and how this article has helped you.
Kindly give your valuable suggestions to up my work and notify me of your thoughts to improve my work.
Don’t forget to share it with as many people as you can for spreading the information by shedding light on something that can make anyone’s life much better.
Thank You!