Understanding Seasonal Affective Disorder: The Hidden Trigger of Depression in Changing Seasons

A person may wake up one day with sadness in his heart that he does not know its source: no event or news arouses grief or evokes sadness, nor does pain support it, but rather a state of confusion «haze and psychological weakness. There have been events or events that have passed.. But it may also be something that you do not think of: Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
Psychologists classify seasonal affective disorder as a spectrum of depression that is closely related to seasonal climate changes (SAD), in which a person experiences a feeling of depression and a desire for isolation, perhaps for days or part of the day, and loses interest in the vital activities that he used to practice and do daily, then the symptoms vary between reluctance to eat A desire to sleep, difficulties in concentrating, attempts to escape from normal daily duties, a desire to remain silent and avoid speaking.
According to medical statistics, twenty percent of North American citizens (the United States and Canada) suffer from mild bouts of it, although there are severe cases that require hospitalization for psychiatric treatment.
The main cause of seasonal affective disorder until now is unknown, but there are explanations for it that may fulfill its purpose, including the difference in the number of hours of the night and day from each other, the different air temperatures, and exposure to sunlight or not, and these are influencing elements in causing several variables, directly or indirectly, linked to a low level of stress. Human psychological mood in humans: including changes in the biological clock of the daily rhythm, the availability of serotonin in the brain, and then the disturbance of the mechanism of activating the balance of the level of the hormone melatonin.
Science believes that exposure to sunlight stimulates the secretion of serotonin, which gives the soul a feeling of joy and helps to focus, while the receding light stimulates the secretion of the hormone melatonin, which supports the desire for sleep.
Numerous scientific studies confirm that one of the strongest reasons for the decrease in serotonin in the brain is the low periods of exposure to sunlight. Indeed, there is what is known as “February sorrows” from that spectrum of spectrum of depression that afflicts, especially the elderly, as a result of their isolation in their homes in the month of February, when snow falls and the cold reaches its peak in Canada, and they are rarely exposed to direct sunlight.
The change of seasons and the difference between the length of the day and the length of the night causes an imbalance in the level of the hormone melatonin, which plays a pivotal role in regulating the sleep process and moderating the psychological mood.
How does a person face the sway of seasonal affective disorder?
Maintaining psychological vitality during the succession of seasons is something that a person must pay attention to. Commitment to the usual amount of sleep that is consistent throughout the seasons of the year so as not to disturb the biological clock rhythm and exposure to sunlight for sufficient periods during the day, especially in the morning
They provide people with positive energy that dispels the sense of gloom that accompanies the successive periods of changing seasons.
I think it is really important information that I wanted to share with you. I had to know it when I was invited to attend a lecture given by a doctor specializing in geriatric medicine at the weekly symposium that the Royal Victoria Hospital invites and allows everyone to attend.
Hospitals here not only provide medical service, but also practice many other service activities for human health.
May you all be safe