Tag Archives: melatonin

How can I manage SAD symptoms? Part Two – dawn simulators

Posted on by
2

Hi again! icon smile How can I manage SAD symptoms? Part Two dawn simulators

This is part two of ‘How can I manage SAD symptoms’.  Part one covered the main kind of light therapy that is recommended for treating Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and Winter Blues – bright light therapy, which is delivered by a SAD light.

This second part is about another type of light therapy – dawn simulators.  I’ve also discussed making the decision to invest in light therapy here. In part three, I’ll talk about medication and talking therapies.  Then in part four, we’ll take a look at some other management strategies that I hope you’ll find helpful.

Dawn Simulators
These aren’t the best photos (I’m sure Lumie will want to sue me for these!), but this is my faithful old dawn simulator, which I’ve had for seven years and counting!

Dawn Simulator collage 1024x723 How can I manage SAD symptoms? Part Two dawn simulators

I use it every day, even in summer because it’s still lovely as a bedside reading light and an alarm clock.

As you can see, a dawn simulator’s purpose is to prepare your body for waking up by gradually raising the light level in your room.  The artificial sunrise provides a cue for your body to reduce production of the sleep hormone melatonin and to start gradually increasing the production of cortisol, which gives you some ‘get-up-and-go’.  You might find my earlier post, ‘Why do we suffer from SAD?’ and Lumie’s page on dawn simulators interesting too.

Dawn simulators don’t reach the same light intensity as a SAD light, so although they’re great for helping you to wake up in a more natural way, they won’t treat all of your SAD symptoms.

Mary Poppins 10976 Medium 290x300 How can I manage SAD symptoms? Part Two dawn simulatorsI’m not going to tell you that I leap out of bed in the depths of winter à la Mary Poppins.  What I will say, is that it is a really lovely way to wake up, feeling like you’re ready to be awake.  I recommend dawn simulators to absolutely everyone, regardless of whether they suffer from SAD or not.

I honestly couldn’t go back to a traditional alarm clock now.  Being shocked out of sleep in the pitch black by a wailing alarm, feeling disgruntled and stressed, before I’ve even started the day – no thanks! icon wink How can I manage SAD symptoms? Part Two dawn simulators

I have a basic model, with fixed duration sunrise, sunset and alarm features.  For the sunrise, you simply set your alarm for the time you want to get up.  So if you set the alarm for 6.30am, it will come on very dimly at 6.00am, and then gradually brighten over 30 minutes.  There’s a back-up beeper for peace of mind, but I usually wake a moment before it goes off.  When it does, it’s not a shock because my body’s already awake – if that makes sense?  The sunset is nice too, allowing me to wind down and the room to gradually darken as I drop off to sleep. Zzzzzz icon smile How can I manage SAD symptoms? Part Two dawn simulators

More expensive models allow you to vary the sunrise/sunset duration, may have radio, soothing sounds, snooze and security facilities, etc.  It just depends what you want and what your budget is.  Lumie’s basic model is around £60.  There are other manufacturers, but Lumie are the original specialists in light therapy, and the manufacturers of my product, so I can only recommend them.

Investing in light therapy
1269975 69331015 coins in hand 300x224 How can I manage SAD symptoms? Part Two dawn simulatorsI appreciate that paying around £100 for a SAD light and another £60 for a dawn simulator seems like a lot.  Personally, I would pay many times this, for the huge difference that light therapy has made to my quality of life in autumn and winter – and in fact, this summer!  I was curious what this worked out at per day, so I’ve done some very rough calculations:

At £170 in total, my big lamp, plus my LED light, have cost me about £0.10 per day.  This is based on using them daily for six months over nine years.

At £60 for my dawn simulator, used every day for eight years, I’ve paid about £0.02 per day! icon biggrin How can I manage SAD symptoms? Part Two dawn simulators

One of the main concerns when deciding whether to buy a SAD light or dawn simulator is whether they’ll work for you.  If you don’t want to buy outright, you can hire SAD lights and dawn simulators, from e.g. the SAD Shop.  Or, you could buy a product direct from a manufacturer, who may give you a money-back guarantee.  Lumie give you 30 days and Philips give you 28 days’ free home trial.  Most people will notice their symptoms improve in around a week or two, so this would give you plenty of time to see if the products are helpful for you.

Given that light therapy is the first line of recommended treatment for SAD and Winter Blues, I really would encourage you to invest in at least a SAD light if you can.  If light therapy works for you, you’ll be amazed by the difference it makes to your quality of life.

And if you find light therapy doesn’t work for you?  Well then, firstly you have my sympathies.  But there are other treatments you can try, such as medication and talking therapies like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - look out for more on these in part three.

What’s your experience with light therapy?  Have you tried a dawn simulator?  Have you any tips and tricks of your own to share?

Neens icon smile How can I manage SAD symptoms? Part Two dawn simulators

Image credits:
Mary Poppins: http://www.thefancarpet.com/uploaded_assets/images/gallery/919/Mary_Poppins_10976_Medium.jpg
Coins in hand: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1269975

Why do we suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder – SAD?

Posted on by
2

Hi folks icon smile Why do we suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD?   Finally, here is instalment number two of my ‘who, why, what, where, when and how’ of Seasonal Affective Disorder – SAD - and Winter Blues.  I’ll warn you – it’s a long one! icon biggrin Why do we suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD?

In this post I’ll be covering a couple of the accepted theories of why people get SAD and Winter Blues / Winter Depression.  This is my own understanding, based on what I’ve read over the years and a little background reading I’ve done for this post.  It’s taken me quite a while to write, as I keep changing my mind what to put in!  I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much info, but wanted to give you enough too.  As always, do let me know what you think?

Anyhoo… the first thing to say is that nobody seems to really know what causes SAD and Winter Blues!  There’s a lot of theories, but it’s very likely that there’s a complex interplay of factors that will determine whether a particular individual develops SAD or not.

The most commonly held theory is that a lack of exposure to daylight in the late autumn to early spring months affects the brain’s production of the hormone melatonin and the neurotransmitter serotonin.

The body has an internal body clock, known as the circadian rhythm.  It regulates sleep/wake cycles, appetite, digestion, mood and many other functions.

Before we learned to artificially light our homes, people went to bed when it became dark and woke when the sun rose.  They also spent a lot more time outdoors and had more physical jobs.

The brain responds to decreased light by increasing production of the hormone melatonin, which signals to the body that it’s time to sleep.  In the morning, when light reaches the eyes, melatonin levels begin to decrease and the hormone cortisol is released.  This gives us the get-up-and-go that 1146532 15639168 alarm clock 300x251 Why do we suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD?we need to start the day.  In the depths of winter, when many of us need to get up while it’s still dark, the body hasn’t received the correct signals to wake up.  This is why it can be a real wrench to get up and why you may feel shocked out of sleep by a traditional alarm clock – your body simply isn’t ready to be awake!

But the problem isn’t only to do with waking… with very dull days, your levels of melatonin can stay high throughout the day, leading to those feelings of lethargy and sleepiness that you might recognise all-too-well.  Before I was diagnosed with SAD, I would return from college and want to go straight to bed – I couldn’t keep my eyes open!

The neurotransmitter, serotonin, is also thought to have a key role to play in SAD, as it appears to in other types of depression.  Researchers have found that levels of serotonin can vary from day-to-day and across the year, with levels markedly lower in winter.  People with lower levels of serotonin appear to be more likely to experience symptoms of depression, SAD, Winter Blues / Winter Depression and even PMS in women.

Reading about how to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs (Dr. Simon N. Young, 2007), this theory makes sense to me.  If you’re anything like me, in winter you’ll be less likely to go outside at lunchtime, or whenever (funnily enough, I don’t enjoy sitting in the freezing wind and rain as much as I enjoy reading a book in the sunshine in the summer! icon wink Why do we suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD? ).  Often eating at my desk means I move my bones less, get less natural light and I’m probably eating stodge, too.  I mean - who really fancies a salad in the middle of winter?  Certainly not me!

Haha – yes, yes, I’m aware that I don’t always follow my own advice! icon biggrin Why do we suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD?

So, if light, exercise and a healthy diet are major natural ways of increasing serotonin production, then it would seem to follow that not doing/having these things may cause you to feel rubbish.  At least, that’s how I’m understanding it! icon smile Why do we suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD?

As always, if you haven’t already, I’d recommend you have a look at the following excellent articles about SAD, which explain a bit more of the why in more medical terms than I have done:
NHS
Mind

If you’re interested in doing a bit more digging around into theory, here’s a few other theories that caught my eye:

People who suffer from SAD may have retinal sensitivity anomalies -
Evidence of a Biological Effect of Light Therapy on the Retina of Patients with Seasonal Affective Disorder - Marie-Pier Lavoie,Raymond W. Lam,Guylain Bouchard,Alexandre Sasseville,Marie-Claude Charron,Anne-Marie Gagné,Philippe Tremblay,Marie-Josée Filteau,Marc Hébert (2009), Biological Psychiatry, Elsevier

People who suffer from SAD have lower levels of cortisol production in winter -
Seasonal differences in the diurnal pattern of cortisol secretion in healthy participants and those with self-assessed seasonal affective disorder - Thorn, Lisa and Evans, Philip D. and Cannon, Anne and Hucklebridge, Frank and Clow, Angela (2011), Psychoneuroendocrinology

I’ve said to my mum and friends several times in the past that I bet there’s a correlation between babies born in spring and summer and high incidence of SAD… I should have put money on that, as it appears to be true!  I can’t find the published article, but this is what was reported in the Daily Mail.

There’s a lot of debate still ongoing, though, as many of the theories don’t give absolute or satisfactory answers.  So for example, suppressing melatonin doesn’t ‘cure’ SAD; anti-depressants don’t work for everybody; not everyone born in spring/summer suffers with SAD.  It really does seem that individual differences can play a big part.  So you may be more at risk of developing SAD if you or your family have a history of depression, if you’ve been under chronic stress, or sudden stress, such as bereavement.  If you suffer from depression that isn’t seasonal, it can feel worse in the winter.

Having said that, there does seem to be strong evidence to support the theories surrounding melatonin and serotonin having a key role to play.  Correspondingly, there’s also strong evidence to support light therapy.  If you want to do some more reading still, have a look at Lumie’s page of research abstracts.

I hope that this will have been a helpful post for you.  Do you think there’s anything I need to add?  What other theories have you read?

Speak soon icon smile Why do we suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD?

- Neens -

Image credit
Alarm clock: http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=1146532