SEASONAL DEPRESSION TREATMENT

Seasonal depression treatment is one of my specialties at my office in Scottsdale Arizona. This disorder effects individuals despite the warm climate of Arizona. Seasonal affective disorder or SAD is commonly called seasonal depression. Seasonal depression is term which describes a trigger or some mechanism that provokes a depressive episode with the changing of the seasons.

Most sufferers seem to experience this entering the winter season when short days and darkness appear to be the triggers that bring on an depressive episode. The short winter days don’t always trigger these episodes and individuals can experience an episode during any or all changing of the seasons. can trigger an event. Some individuals are affected by the change from spring to summer. The overall change is what seems to affect them. Seasonal depression is a form of bipolar disorder rather than major depression.

Seasonal Depression Causes

We don’t know exactly why the changing of the seasons has this impact on certain individuals but the occurrences happen too often to write them off situational depression. The DSM-V-TR (diagnostic and statistical manual of mental illness) doesn’t acknowledge seasonal affective disorder as a separate disorder. Up to 9% of certain populations on the east coast of the United States suffer with seasonal affective disorder. This is a good example of how the environment triggers an individuals predisposition to a bipolar episode. As with bipolar disorder, seasonal depression runs in families and has stronger genetic influence than most other mental health conditions.

According to the DSM-V criteria, seasonal affective disorder isn’t regarded as a separate disorder unto itself. It’s called a specifier, and may be applied as an added description to the pattern of major depressive episodes and bipolar I or bipolar II disorder. None the less seasonal affective disorder is still somewhat of a unique phenomenon. The “seasonal pattern specifier” must meet four criteria of depressive episodes at a particular time of the year; remissions or mania and hypo-mania at a characteristic time of year. These patterns must have lasted two years with no non-seasonal major depressive episodes during that same period; and these seasonal depressive episodes out number other depressive episodes throughout the patient’s life.

Symptoms of Seasonal Depression

Symptoms of winter season resemble depression whereas the summer resemble mania or anxiety, the opposite of the following symptoms:

  • Feeling listless, sad or down most of the day
  • Losing interest in activities you once enjoyed
  • Having problems with sleeping too much
  • Having difficulty concentrating
  • Feeling hopeless, worthless
  • Having thoughts of death
  • Guilt and agitation
  • Anxiety

Treatment for Seasonal Depression

Often medication management for depression with the SSRIs works very well for seasonal depression. Surprisingly; the benzodiazepine medications for anxiety work very well preventative at the onset of, and during an episode. Often an individual can mitigate the symptoms if caught early. Those with seasonal depression should know the time of year the episodes occur and prepare to stave it off. Getting a prescription of anti-anxiety medication before this time of the year would help to preclude an episode from beginning. Treatment typically lasts until the individual is in remission, or as needed.

Knowing the signs of seasonal affective disorder, we can then learn some keys to avoiding it: 1. Acknowledge and learn what triggers it in your life. 2. Prepare for it. 3. Change your environment to possibly avoid future occurrences. Sometimes just knowing that you have the extra medication in your purse or wallet is enough to preclude the depressive episode or anxiety attack. 4. If the short cold days of winter tend to bring on a depressive episode; put your lights and appliances on timers so you don’t go home to a dark house.

Keep the TV and radio on as well. Take vitamins, eat well and exercise during these trigger periods and stay positive. Our emotions follow our thoughts and our emotions can be responsible for the number of healthy neurotransmitters in our systems that keep our moods stable. Getting light from the sun increases the vitamin D in our bodies and helps with the production of serotonin.

Treatment may be augmented to include light therapy which involves sitting in front of a “light box” for 30 minutes a day. These boxes provide 10,000 lux (measure of light intensity). Light boxes are around 100 times brighter than indoor lights. In comparison, exposure to direct sunlight may provide 100,000 lux or more. These lifestyle changes will sometimes keep these triggers from sending you into an anxiety, panic attack, depressive episode, or mania. If you are in need of treatment for seasonal depression in Scottsdale Arizona, please contact my office. Read more about the different types of depression. and SAD

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