LIMA, OH (WLIO) - If you have noticed your mood or someone else's mood start to change as the daylight hours start to get less, it could be due to Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Seasonal Affective Disorder is caused by the change in daylight and your sleep cycle. It usually starts in the fall and lasts until spring. Through the winter, we also tend to stay inside longer because of the cold weather and that limits our time in the sun even more. A person may feel sad, lose interest in activities they once enjoyed, lack energy, have difficulty sleeping, and experience a change in diet. The good news is there are ways to help cope with these symptoms.
"Notice it early, get treatment early, right? Anti-depressants take about four to six weeks to start working and so if that's the route you wanted to take to improve mood, then you'd want to get in right away to see somebody and talk to them about it. Another great thing you can do is just attempt to get as much natural daylight as possible, so where we would normally want to isolate, let's get out and take a little 30 minute walk, let's look at the sunrise and watch it set and just try to be out and about more than we normally are in Ohio," suggested JJ Truman, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at Lima Memorial Health System.
Truman says you could also use light box therapy, which could be purchased for about $40 to give you some simulated sunlight as you sit inside this winter.
