By Hugo Vera
Nov. 27, 2018
For many, winter is a time synonymous with holiday joy, delicious meals and fun activities in the snow where climate permits.
For others such as myself, winter is the most dreaded time of the year because of the ignored threat that comes with it.
I always found the shorter days and longer, colder nights depressing but it wasn’t until I watched a particular episode of “The Office” that I was able to put a name to this menace.
In the episode, the ever-unpopular Toby Flenderson confides to coworkers Andy Bernard and Dwight Schrute that he’s suffering from seasonal affective disorder as the long, snowy nights in Scranton are getting to him.
The entire time Flenderson speaks, Bernard and Schrute laugh at the fact that the affliction’s acronym literally spells out “SAD” and Bernard said, “You act like we didn’t all experience the same winter.”
While the episode presented the disorder in a humorous light, the fact remains that seasonal affective disorder is real and that it’s a threat to our physical and mental health that we shouldn’t underestimate.
According to Mayo Clinic, symptoms of seasonal affective disorder often include fatigue, increased feelings of sadness or hopelessness, loss of appetite and oversleeping.
Often nicknamed “The Winter Blues,” seasonal affective disorder can also lead to a decline in vitamin D and other key nutrients.
While the disorder’s disastrous effects may not be as visible in California, they pose serious health risks to those living in arctic and Nordic environments.
In Alaska, residents often go days without any sunlight because of the state’s location in the higher northern hemisphere.
The lack of sunlight leads to a steep decline in vitamin D and calcium.
The Anchorage Daily News reports that the nutrient deficiency crisis has prompted many Alaskans to buy specially-designed lamps that emit vitamin D along with increased artificial light.
For many people in Nordic countries such as Finland and Norway, seasonal affective disorder is one of the leading contributors to suicidal thoughts.
While nations such as Sweden and Finland rank relatively low on the list of the world’s most suicide-prone countries, suicide is among the top five causes of death in these nations.
Similar to Alaska, Nordic countries are so far north in the northern hemisphere that its residents are also subject to 18-24 hours of darkness during the winter solstice.
TIME reports that suicides linked to seasonal affective disorder make up a large portion of male suicides in the Scandinavian Peninsula.
According to the French news service Agence France-Presse, seasonal affective disorder affects 20 percent of Sweden’s population, which accounts for more than 2 million people.
To combat the epidemic, “Light Cafes” have popped up all across the Scandinavian Peninsula in the past decade. Light Cafes often provide a sauna-type space in which clients are seated in recliners that receive vitamin-emitting ultraviolet light that’s known to improve mood and regulate sleep patterns.
“Taking actions to be able to cope better with the dasrkness is definitely important, but I think a large part of how Swedes deal with darkness is also connected to our attitude toward it,” Swedish-native San Jose State University international student Josefin Stagge said.
“There is a large focus on the word “cozy” in Swedish culture especially when it gets cold and dark. I believe some of us re-orient our focus from feeling sad about missing long summer days and the sun to feeling excited about movie nights, big blankets, huge amounts of candles, warm drinks and wool socks,” Stagge added.
Thankfully, seasonal affective disorder is still one of the most treatable psychological disorders there is.
The National Institute of Mental Health reports that seasonal affective disorder symptoms can be drastically reduced with light therapy, doctor-prescribed medication, exercise and sleeping with a night light.
As a chronic sufferer of the disorder myself, I can laugh at that episode of “The Office” because SAD is something I’d rather laugh at than fear.
Winter is coming, but I, as well as all my other fellow SAD survivors, can get through it because there is literal light at the end of this tunnel-spring.
