Seasonal Affective Disorder, commonly abbreviated to SAD, is a recognised and treatable health condition typically affecting sufferers each year mostly in the winter months.
Levels of intensity of seasonal affective disorder and forms of the condition include:
- Sub-syndromal SAD
- Full-blown SAD
- Summer SAD
What is Sub-Syndromal Seasonal Affective Disorder?
Sub-syndromal SAD, sometimes known as sub-SAD is a condition which is believed to affect around 30% of people. This is identified as when the normal feelings associated with winter begin to have an impact upon one's daily life and become more apparent.
Another similar condition impacting one's energy levels without affecting mood is known as winter vegetative pattern and this is recognised as sometimes overlapping with sub-syndromal SAD.
What is Full-Blown Seasonal Affective Disorder?
Full-blown SAD is identified as greatly impacting lives of those affected and sufferers may find simple things cause significant difficulty such as getting out the house and concentrating at work.
The main difference between sub-syndromal and full-blown SAD is that in the latter symptoms associated with the condition are much more intense and as a result the depression experienced by sufferers has an increasingly disabling impact.
What is Summer Seasonal Affective Disorder?
Although the vast majority (around 90%) of those suffering from SAD have symptoms during the darker, winter months this is not always the case. Some sufferers experience symptoms of seasonal depression during the warmer, summer months. Summer SAD is possibly triggered or worsened as a result of a combination of humidity and intense heat.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of research in the area of summer SAD so little is actually understood about the condition. Although summer is usually associated with increased exposure to sunlight in countries where it is extremely hot some people may actually spend greater amounts of the day inside and wear sunglasses whilst outside unlike during the cooler autumn and winter months.
Seasonal Affective Disorder or Winter Blues?
As with many forms of mental health conditions such as major clinical depression, there are many people who claim to suffer from SAD when actually they are just having a case of the winter blues.
This is, in part, why there are so many misunderstandings and myths surrounding forms of depression, as real depression is not something that one has for a few days. Depression is a long-term experience. Education is clearly important as a means of helping reduce the ignorance and stigma that still surrounds many forms of mental health conditions.
Sources:
Marshall, F. & Cheevers, P. (2002) Coping with SAD London: Sheldon Press
Kate Le Page - Kate Henning-Le Page writes about eating disorders, body image and recovery issues. She specializes in anorexia recovery.
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