Feeling SAD?
Oct 26th, 2007 by katesaltfleet
I don’t know about you, but I really have problems getting out of bed at this time of year. HTB remarked on this the other day. “You were getting up at 5am only a few months back!” Yes, because it was blazing sunshine at 5am a few months back. Ironically, given the washout of a summer we had here, most of the best weather was first thing in the morning and missed by the majority of the populace.
But hip-hip hooray, we turn the clocks back this weekend. Now an extra hour’s sunlight in the morning for those creatures among us who have not yet adapted to nocturnal habits. But what is this? It’s pitch black on my way home from work, and will remain this way until next Spring. Which ever way you cut it, there are fewer daylight hours in winter than in Summer. This is what happens at this latitude, it is how the planet is designed. However, I am always fascinated by the lengths that governments fancy themselves as Time Lords when it comes to the daily lives of their people.
When I spent a year in Guadeloupe, one of the things that I noticed was the lack of the changing clocks ritual. It goes dark at around the same time all year, so there’s no real incentive to change. Most of the former Soviet Union have their clocks set an hour in advance of geographical time all year round. And there’s a weird time zone in Australia that is set on the half hour. Iceland is on GMT all year round despite being two time zones behind geographically. I know all this because I was sad enough to be fascinated by this during my teenage years and spent many happy hours poring over my time zone map. The zig-zagging of the International Date Line was particularly fascinating. Anyhow, I digress. Back to SAD (not my lonely teenage life).
Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD) is supposedly a form of mild depression linked to the lack of daylight hours during the winter months. What a shock, people don’t feel as happy or “with it” in the winter. Does this really qualify for the label “disorder” though? To me, feeing reluctant to drag one’s behind out of bed when the weather is shite and it doesn’t get light until mid-morning seems very much in order.
I was rather intrigued by these light boxes that you can set up, only there is a flaw inherent in this. HTB and I share a room, and a dislike of rising on these dark mornings. Plus, although I like the look of the Lumie dawn clock, I can’t really spend that much money on it right now as the colon cleanse was quite expensive (worth it though, wow). Payday next week, so I may indulge. The real difference is in our attitudes - I would like to feel a bit more awake so that I can leap out of bed and greet the world. He would just like work to start later (and this applies all year round). HTB has a wonderful way of Being while I get my kicks from Doing. We have much to learn from each other.
I am going to be taking St. John’s Wort from this weekend onwards and see if this helps me deal with the lack of sunlight (haven’t actually seen the sun since Tuesday). Results to follow…
Thank goodness it’s Summer here in South Africa. We also have very sunny, though cold Winters, so do not tend to suffer from SAD.
A friend who went to live in Sweden for a few years suffered badly but found that Bach flower remedies helped a lot.
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