What is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)?
Every winter, like clockwork, you feel it coming. The exhaustion. The sadness. The carb cravings. The internet tells you it’s seasonal blues. The reality is your brain is actually starving for light. Meet Mark. Every October, he sleeps ten hours a night and wakes up exhausted. By December, getting out of bed is impossible. He has gained fifteen pounds. Living on pasta and bread. His friends think he’s lazy. His boss is frustrated. But Mark isn’t lazy.
Seasonal affective disorder isn’t just seasonal blues. When sunlight drops, your body’s internal clock, your circadian rhythm, gets confused. Here’s what happens in your brain: Special receptors in your eyes send light information to your internal clock. When winter darkness hits, two critical chemicals go haywire: serotonin and melatonin.
SAD vs Major Depression
Here’s the difference between SAD and regular depression: SAD makes you oversleep and overeat. Major depression causes poor sleep and poor appetite. The solution? Light therapy works as well as antidepressants. A recent study found that bright light therapy had a more than 40% response rate. No side effects. No pills.
But here’s what most people miss: A morning walk outside, even on a cloudy day, is the same as a light therapy box. Timing is key. Morning light, within two hours of waking, resets your clock. Evening light makes SAD worse because it delays your rhythm even more. Twenty to thirty minutes daily, starting in the fall before symptoms hit.