Do you worry that your bout with seasonal sadness has lasted longer, or is more severe than normal? How do you know whether this is merely a short-lived problem, or whether you may be facing a serious condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)? Do you need to seek counseling? Educate yourself about the signs of SAD, how it can affect you, and what treatments are available.
SAD is not just experiencing sadness when the weather is bad. This disorder begins in autumn, when the season moves toward winter and daylight hours are shortened. Symptoms usually start sometime during late summer or early fall. Moreover, since SAD and other types of depression are so severe, physicians need extensive evidence of the condition before they are willing to make a definite diagnosis. Despite the fact that signs can be very serious, physicians do not usually diagnose patients with SAD until after he or she reports symptoms for at least three winters in a row.
People who suffer from this condition begin to experience feelings of sadness, decreased motivation, and tend to sleep for excessive periods. Furthermore, they develop a craving for carbohydrates or candy. Additionally, most people who experience SAD also have poor immune system functioning. Frequently, they become ill much more quickly than people who do not suffer from SAD.
This disorder can negatively decrease a person's ability to function at work or educationally. This decreased motivation can make getting out of bed or engaging in one's usual daily activities difficult. People with SAD have trouble participating in social situations, or even at home. They frequently experience times of intense anxiety and negativity. Sometimes, symptoms become serious and distressing enough that people even think about suicide and require hospitalization for treatment.
Interestingly, women appear to have a higher rate of SAD than men do. Furthermore, this disorder usually improves yearly at springtime. In fact, in March or April, symptoms typically decrease or resolve completely - until the following autumn. This remains true even in states that tend to be dismal all year long. In fact, almost twenty percent of the people diagnosed with seasonal depression will at some point develop signs of bipolar disorder.
These sufferers primarily tend to be depressed in the winter months, but have normal moods during the remainder of the year. In some cases, however, individuals describe instances of unexpected elation, also known as mania. As with other types of depression, SAD can become quite severe and even result in disability if left untreated. Moreover, some individuals suffer from very mild forms of SAD; they may experience sleepiness, decreased vigor, and loss of appetite. Such people, however, do not usually endure episodes of depressive moods or anxiety.
This type of depression is fairly rare in sunny areas such as Tennessee, southern California, and even Colorado. In contrast, people who live in states with a large number of cloudy days, like Indiana, Michigan, or Washington are much more likely to develop this condition. Residents of countries including Denmark, Sweden, and England also face an increased risk of seasonal depression.
Scientists have attempted a number of alternative strategies to help affected individuals overcome this debilitating condition. They have tried placing people under artificial light in an attempt to help them manufacture more serotonin and decrease depression symptoms. Scientists have also tried medicines such as antidepressants, and supplements, like melatonin, in an attempt to relieve these signs of depression. Many persons who develop SAD also seek out counselors when their symptoms are at their peak.
All of these therapies have been used with different amounts of success. Despite this, all are much more costly and require more time than two recently introduced, innovative techniques. Hypnotherapists have perfected the art of providing assistance with learning both NLP and
hypnotherapy techniques for depression. Using self-hypnosis, people learn to talk themselves out of a depressive period and resolve their symptoms. These innovative treatments, hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, have resulting in an astonishing degree of success in helping people to heal from, and avoid future episodes of SAD.
Summary:
SAD is a kind of sadness that reappears every year at almost the same time. Only persons who face this problem are able to determine whether they will continue to fight the symptoms on their own, year after year, or to look for help in healing from this problem forever.
Hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming to treat SAD are both beneficial, innovative approaches that provide a rapid relief from these feelings without spending enormous amounts of money or energy.
Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in stress and depression related symptoms as a certified hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner. During his 30-year career he's helped thousands of clients. He offers CDs for
hypnotic depression therapy. Visit his
Neuro-VISION self hypnosis website for the hypnosis article repository, or watch his
free videos on hypnosis.
