Beating Seasonal Affective Disorder


Filed Under Overcome Depression | Nov 3, MST 12:23 pm

 
According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, up to twenty percent of people suffer from seasonal affective disorder, also known as SAD, with about six percent of cases being severe. I’ll caution that the exact numbers are currently unknown, and that the numbers of cases for winter depression vary depending on how rigorous the study was and where the study was taken. Canadians, for example, are much more likely to be diagnosed with the condition than are Americans. What we know for certain is that SAD is a very real and common condition, and that it makes the winter season a miserable one for millions of people.

SAD Symptoms

Not everyone experiences SAD in the same way. Some symptoms are more pronounced in certain sufferers than they are in others. Personal genetics and environmental factors play a role in shaping how people experience seasonal affective disorder. With that out of the way, the following list of symptoms will give you an idea of some of the things SAD sufferers might experience:

  • Unwanted weight gain
  • Constant fatigue
  • Lethargy
  • Feeling irritated
  • Carbohydrate cravings
  • Decreased interest in sex
  • Mood swings
  • Feelings of apathy and depression

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The 5 Factors of Depression


Filed Under Overcome Depression | Sep 24, MDT 10:58 am

Five Factors of DepressionThe ancient Greeks used to divide people into four temperaments: phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholic, and choleric. We’ve come a long way since then. We no longer fit into little neat categories, and things are now decidedly more complicated. Genetics has now replaced the temperaments, and there are far more than four genes to contend with.

Everyone has a different genetic profile, and these profiles are a bit like canvases on which mental states are painted. The genetic qualities of the canvas determines how certain colors — like the dark hues of depression and anxiety, or the warm tones of happiness — are expressed in a person’s life. Some people have canvases that favor darker colors, other people have canvases which favor lighter colors.

Your personal biology, your unique blend of genes, provides you with the form and quality of your canvas. However, environmental factors will bend, twist, break, and mend this canvas into different shapes. It’s this combination of nurture and nature that will ultimately determine the quality of your experiences.

Depression will be painted differently depending on the canvas it finds itself on.  There is no single image of depression. That’s one of the reasons why different drugs work differently on different people.  Despite the symptomatic similarities that depressed people share, each case is unique, because each canvas is unique.

Let’s consider five factors that will help determine the nature of your depression. These five factors can also shed light on different mental states, like happiness, anxiety, and anger. Each of them twists your canvas in a different direction, leaving you with different experiences.

1. Genetic factors

The genes you inherit play a large role in determining the experiences you have.  Some genes that may play a role in regulating depression are 5-HTT, monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, and COMT. In time, we’ll have a fuller understanding of these genetic variables.

It will be years before we have an understanding of how our genes combine to create our human experiences.  Despite the existence of genetic profiling services like 23andme.com, we are still a long way off to understanding the very building blocks which predispose us to conditions like depression. For this reason, though genetic factors are perhaps the most important in causing depression, they are also currently the least understood.

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