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Mental Health Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) Support and Advice

neversickanymore said:
I think it really interesting that allot seem to turn nocturnal around this time of the year and allot of us have or have had Bi Polar symptoms. :(<3
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In the summer time i am usually up and about not long after dawn as i like that time of day before everyone else get's up and fucks the day up. I also tend to suffer from insomnia alot more during the summer. In winter i often don't get out of bed until noon or later so i only see a few hours of sunlight a day. Instead of having trouble sleeping i have trouble staying awake. Most doctors i know all say the same thing which is that the onset of winter and also when spring comes around are the worst times of the year for anyone with bipolar disorder as the changing seasons cause mood swings in either direction.

ad lib said:
This year is particularly difficult for me for some reason :(
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Oh man last winter was the absolute fucking worst winter i have ever had and it was about as depressed as i have ever been. My stomach pain which was excruciating certainly didn't help and as i only got out of this town and into the city maybe 3 times last winter i had awful cabin fever. Combine that with nothing to look forward to at all and i was beyond fucking miserable.

I actually have something to look forward to in the New Year as i will most likely be travelling abit so that should make this winter much easier to deal with.
 
paranoid android said:
I actually have something to look forward to in the New Year as i will most likely be travelling abit so that should make this winter much easier to deal with.
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I'm happy to hear that :)

I have no plans for travel and really nothing to look forward to, but it's never too late to change. Perhaps I'll travel during Christmas or thanksgiving week- where? I don't know, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Maybe I'll just get in my car and drive and see where it takes me.
 
paranoid android said:
In the summer time i am usually up and about not long after dawn as i like that time of day before everyone else get's up and fucks the day up. I also tend to suffer from insomnia alot more during the summer. In winter i often don't get out of bed until noon or later so i only see a few hours of sunlight a day. Instead of having trouble sleeping i have trouble staying awake. Most doctors i know all say the same thing which is that the onset of winter and also when spring comes around are the worst times of the year for anyone with bipolar disorder as the changing seasons cause mood swings in either direction.
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Makes sense pa.



Grey world today.. just cooking and chilling.. exercise for tomorrow though.
 
Pretty chill right now.. 30-40 minutes of aerobic followed by an hour to an hour and a half of light high rep weights with heavier sets thrown in occasionally. I just slipped back into the gym as I was doing tennis (singles), hiking and other things like cutting and stacking trees.. when it get cold enough I will be on the outdoor rinks playing stick.
 
Getting up in the morning has been hard. My strategy is that when my alarm goes off, I give myself the option to snooze but not before turning the lights on. Then I get up and make some hot lemon water to get my stomach going.

Everything is sluggish at this fucking time of year. My sleep is so messed up thanks to the shortened light cycle. On the plus side, the solstice will be in 1 month and then we will start getting more light again.
 
I've been doing a lot better this year than I have in previous years (so far anyway). I think a lot of that is due to me being completely sober for it for the first time in 17 years. Having something to look forward to is definitely helping too. I've been doing a TON of planning and even though I'm not really doing much physically and have been mostly staying at home, my mind has been extremely active.
 
hey guys, I'm so glad i found this thread! Iv been a member on BL for years now but very rarely post as usually there are about 10 people already said what i have to contribute! Yeah iv suffered with SAD ever since i can remember really. I suffer with depression anyway so it tends to get much worse this time of year.
I do actually have a light box for it and i must say they are pretty good. Iv tried every antidepressant available on script in the UK and the light helps more after the third day of using it for an hour or 2 a day (i put it on while I'm watching tv and often forget to turn it off afterwards!) than i have ever had help from my antidepressants. To be honest i don't think my imipramine actually helps me in terms of depression i just can't sleep at all without my tricyclic antidepressants.
Its nice to have a thread where i can talk to other people that have SAD that are also drug users as iv only ever met one other person who suffers from it ( a close friend who was nice enough to give me the lamp as he had a spare)
This year has been particularly difficult for me because i lost my fiancé around 7 or 8 months ago from an overdose and have since got clean and this is my first winter without benzos or opiates.
I must say though, now that i am a few months clean of benzos and about 2 months clean of opiates now and i am happier in general to be honest.
I should have come and posted on BL earlier really. I think it would have really helped me when i made the last jump off of subutex as the lack of sleep, depression, increased anxiety etc stayed for aaaaaaages! oh well, I'm here now!
@Foreigner: Thats a fantastic way of making yourself get up actually! i like that, I'm going to nab that idea and use my SAD lamp instead of the normal light. Speaking of which, have you seen those alarm clocks that have a built in SAD lamp that gently eta brighter and brighter and apparently makes you wake up really naturally! I'm not entirely sure that would wake me up on its own though! they are really expensive though!
 
Hey, theatarisfan, welcome to Bluelight :)

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss <3

This too is my first winter without opiates-- still on benzos but have been trying to taper for months. Good to know about the light box- I may actually invest in one of those.
 
theatarisfan said:
Thats a fantastic way of making yourself get up actually! i like that, I'm going to nab that idea and use my SAD lamp instead of the normal light. Speaking of which, have you seen those alarm clocks that have a built in SAD lamp that gently eta brighter and brighter and apparently makes you wake up really naturally! I'm not entirely sure that would wake me up on its own though! they are really expensive though!
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I would love if you would link these things as i was just thinking about this today.. thats it im hooking up a timed low what grow lamp in my bedromm.. not even playing its getn hung tonight. =D
 
Haha funnily enough my mate who gave me the lamp was telling me a story about his dad. He had one of the first SAD lamps and apparently they had two sets of bulbs. One spectrum for the SAD setting and hen apparently on this model u cul ha he te bulbs and he had another set tht worked as a tanner! I culd just imagine sitting at my desk in the morning in the winter with my sun glasses on!
I'll shove up a link for the alarm clock in a tick mate!
Thanks for the kind words! One good thing has fed come from it all and that's me finally getting clean before I myself died so its nt all bad!
Make sure u hang a MH or HPS grow lamp then u can get 2 birds stoned at once and use it as heating too!
 
Hi guys, I'm glad to see there is a thread about SAD here. <3 I've suffered from this for at least 12 years now, but didn't know what it was until a few years ago.

Every winter I get all the symptoms. Not just feeling depressed (which is the worst) but also feeling very tired in the afternoon, no energy/motivation, difficulty concentrating, being completely anti-social, ... And every year in spring symptoms disappear again in a matter of weeks.

This is the first year I'm trying light therapy with a strong SAD lamp. I use my lamp 10-15 minutes in the morning before work, and another 30-40 minutes in the evening after work. More on the weekends.
I also increased my exercise by walking 25 minutes every morning and evening to/from the train station rather than getting the bus. Bonus if the morning walk is in the sunshine. And I've been going to the gym 2-3 times a week as well for cardio exercises.

So far, I'm feeling mostly ok apart from one or two days where it was really gloomy. But my toughest time is always January and February, so time will tell. The good thing about having my lamp is that if I recognise the symptoms (ie. feeling totally distracted at work) I can go home and have an extra session in front of the lamp, and it instantly lifts my mood.

I've never taken any antidepressants, and I hope that with the light therapy I won't have to. I recently read this study that claims that light therapy and antidepressants have similar results in treating SAD: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=96561

theatarisfan said:
Speaking of which, have you seen those alarm clocks that have a built in SAD lamp that gently eta brighter and brighter and apparently makes you wake up really naturally! I'm not entirely sure that would wake me up on its own though! they are really expensive though!
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I have one of those alarm clocks (for a couple of years now) and couldn't live without it anymore. It helps me so much with getting up in the dark. I still use my phone alarm too, I set it so it goes off when the light is about 70% on, then I can still snooze for a bit while it gets lighter.
Edit: these alarms are not full SAD lamps, they are not strong enough in lux, so don't use them as your main SAD lamp.
 
Alright my sleep pattern is totally whacked as I am almost totally nocturnal at this point. I am so glad this thread is working as I never realized that I became way more nocturnal in the dark times and I still haven't come up with a reason why we evolved this way? I think I will have to make or buy on of these lamps and try and get one of these alarms as they are sounding like they are the way to go.

exercise is definitely helping but is also causing me to have bigger troubles sleeping at night but is making me feel way better.
 
That's so strange, because I don't get that nocturnal at all in winter. I start feeling tired when it gets dark in the afternoon and could easily go to bed at like 8pm. And still sleep until well into the morning.
In summer is when I get more nocturnal, I can stay up very late and not get tired. It's really to do with the amount of daylight for me.

But if you do suffer from insomnia this could be to do with our circadian rhythms (body clock) being out of sync with the natural world. This means the sleep-wake cycle is being delayed (sleep later, wake later).
Light therapy could help restore these rhythms back to normal. For example if you are really sleepy during the day and awake at night, use a light box in the morning. After a while that should bring your circadian rhythms back on track so that you feel awake during the day and start getting tired in the evening.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1408021/?page=3
 
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