S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder)

It's an interesting topic. I don't know enough of it to tell why, but I do know I always feel 'strange' during this time of year.
Here in the Netherlands the amount of sun-hours does not seem as low as in Scaninavian countries ... but while the sun is up (higher than the horizon) there are many days we do not see it! It's hidden behind a blanket of grey clouds (often with rain). Especially November and December are 'grey' months.

So, not only don't we get much sunlight, we (the Dutch people in general) also prefer to stay indoors because outside it's wet and stormy! I do my best to be outdoors at least for a little time each day (f.e. in the garden). I know I feel worse when I don't go outdoors for a whole day.

Most of the year, I do what R Scott does and get outside for sunrise.
I go for a walk with the dogs through the small power line laneway ( not much power) to greet the sunrise coming up over the lake . I do some stretching and warming. Once my hands start seizing up from the cold I head back through the forest usually improving the trail each day through snow then I get back quickly enough to be able to do it all over again at home, enjoying the sunrise just as much the second time. And yes I look at the sun too. I'm usually wearing a tunic or similar housedress with shorts and my ankle length button down hoodie when there's snow but open that up and get some sun to my thighs which have always been impervious to the cold.

Once the snow gets too deep I stop, and go out for the dog walks and critter feeding as Carla does and that's the motivation I need.

I do take supplements, which I didn't until I was tested in iqaluit Nunavut and was a bit low, so now I take a D with K2 plus an extra D in winter, and I don't suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder at all, even in Iqaluit where I might add it's a lot easier to get up before sunrise which arrives late morning! Walking outdoors daily in iqaluit has completely reset my system so I don't feel the cold anymore. I don't drink anymore either and discovered that rather than a cold beer around mid day in summer isn't as refreshing as a  homemade citrus concoction from my crock pot. I don't feel the heat as much anymore either!

I used to suffer from the blues in winter, and even in the summer, and getting out in the sun always helped. There were other contributing factors, knowing myself being a big one: so I think it was a combination factor.  I now know myself and have learned for some people depression is because they know there is something wrong but don't know how to fix it. With age and self improvement came wisdom and serenity., and if the vitamin D supplements aren't helping my mood, they are helping my immunity along with zinc

I set up a grow tent and having things growing in the house all winter really helps on cold winter days. I sit beside the tent with the door open and it's like being outside in the spring on a nice sunny day.

S.A.D. is from lack of any UVB rays able to reach so far through the atmosphere in temperate or arctic winters when the sun is over the other hemisphere, Other healthy parts of the spectrum have no problem. This lack of natural UVB drops our D blood level, destroying our microbiome and critical deep reparative sleep cycles. Just 20 minutes, skin mostly exposed in high summer, noonish, gives palest folks around 20,000IU (2hours for darkest) but depending on latitute, no UVB at all reaches us for varying lengths of winter, even in California/Northern Florida. Food sources are never enough unless eating ancestrally high summer-pastured/D-laden fatty meats or sea blubber *back before we poisoned the seas with mercury! (D is a preHORMONE we make in the cholesterol layer in our skin, though we can also get it from food and  supplements but can overshoot if not producing it ourselves from UVB! Our skin/metabolism is very smart, but not so much our gut for oral D since we evolved into brainy humans under copius year round Tropical African UVB!

Blood level, not dosage is the critical number. It is critical to get your D level measured regularly Winter & Summer and take a high enough dose to maintain over 50ng/ml, though above 60 will improve deep reparative NREM sleep cycles by hitting our sleep paralysis switch in our brains that depends on D to function. Yes, we must be paralyzed while our brain is being cleaned by our GLYMPHATIC system. If you've never been low in D (tropical zones and outside carefully non-burning unprotected UVB doses year round or supplementing), this will function with a level around 50ng/ml, too. Winter's solar spectrum, lacking any tiny UVB, is still quite healthy, but unlike for UVB, stripping is not needed to absorb the healthy infrared parts of the spectrum that predominate at dawn & dusk. *Fauci, when younger, was taking 6,000IU in Summer, 8,000IU in Winter, but as our bodies age (or especially fatten!) we need more. Obese people who are not sufficiently supplementing are almost always deficient! When obese, we cannot ever get enough from the sun.

D needs a critical team for effectiveness and safety. Magnesium is critical for building more D-receptors in all our organs & systems, but it is not vitamin K1 from green veggies (which thins the blood and is contraindicated for many common medications), but K2 (bacterial fermented foods) which pairs with D. One of D's powers is to dramaticallly improve our microbiome and general gut health, allowing us to absorb far more calcium from the exact same food. But without K2 that calcium can become dangerous and even cause hypercalcemia with solid deposits in every unhealthy and/or painful place. K2 (I've read 400mcg of MK7 form is great daily dose to protect against atherosclerosis.)  K2's main job is to direct all that extra calcium safely into bones and teeth where we want it!

Early in Covid, when I finally got my severe D deficiency of only 6ng/ml (where people were at highest risk of dying of Covid) up above 50ng/ml, my long severe depression lifted and my arthritis and backpain disappeared completely. In new hope and painlessness, I started a Keto lifestyle and finally began to lose a whole lot of weight fairly quickly. But quick fatloss is a D danger timezone! If the blood level has been raised like mine was, that fatburning will dump all the burned fat's D into the blood and I did shoot over 100ng/ml! (Hypercalcemia is exceedingly rare, but very common D deficiency is causing far more health issues.) Easy to solve as long as testing is regular enough to catch it, I just took a pause on dosing, then started up again at a lower dose, as a lower D3 dose is needed the less fat we are carrying around. D & K2 are fat-soluble, so take these supplements with a fatty meal. Magnesium is water soluble, so scheduling time of day for that dose is much freer. Most Americans are far too low in all three of these nutrients/hormones.

(I also managed to encourage my elderly PhD of Nursing mother with COPD to take D3, K2 & Mg, and her constant coughing and breathlessness has disappeared! At her age of 85, she takes 10,000IU of D3 with 200mcg K2 along with Mg glycinate 4oomg? Her D blood level is now around a sleep healthy 60ng/ml and she sleeps through the nights again. But everyone is different, so NEEDS TO TITRATE DOSE TO OWN BODY/BRAIN NEEDS. Please test D blood level regularly and take the dose you need to get to your target LEVEL. It is so important for so many conditions.)

larry kidd wrote:I set up a grow tent and having things growing in the house all winter really helps on cold winter days. I sit beside the tent with the door open and it's like being outside in the spring on a nice sunny day.

Midwestern winters would be waaaaay longer without growing things indoors. Just make sure the grow lights you choose produce the UV light you want and need and then stay indoors if need be.

One word: chocolate.

Les Frijo wrote:

larry kidd wrote:I set up a grow tent and having things growing in the house all winter really helps on cold winter days. I sit beside the tent with the door open and it's like being outside in the spring on a nice sunny day.

Midwestern winters would be waaaaay longer without growing things indoors. Just make sure the grow lights you choose produce the UV light you want and need and then stay indoors if need be.

I just using 4000k shop lights.

I remembered a thing I saw long ago. I don't remember where or when but it was about a group of people that lived somewhere far north on the planet with limited things to eat specifically vitamin D things. Somehow these people lived long healthy lives anyways. Researchers wondered why. At some point they determined it was due to them foraging for mushrooms and then drying the mushrooms in the sun which caused the mushrooms to create vitamin D that they could eat all winter. Genius.

Anyone heard about this or see a show on this? I'd like to learn more about how well that could work for people who already grow mushrooms but may not dry them in sunlight. Or maybe even grow lights.

Randy Eggert wrote:One word: chocolate.

That might be the magnesium Elsie is talking about that we need along with D and K2. I didn't think to mention magnesium (or chocolate / cocoa) but I take it or else I get leg cramps. Magnesium is to mammals as chlorophyll is to plants.

I have had S.A.D. all my life, even in Texas.  I have tried those lights 👎.  I have tried anti-depressants.  I have tried exercising.  This year by November I was already seriously affected, so I asked my psychiatrist what to do.  He said to take iron gluconate and 7-8,000 IU of vitamin D.  (Using the drops in water or other liquid is easy and has no taste).   I thought it was worth a shot; certainly nothing else had helped.  My heavens!  This has been the best winter, in terms of S.A.D., of my entire life!!  No exaggeration.
Maybe this suggestion will help someone else, too.

Emilie McVey wrote:I have had S.A.D. all my life, even in Texas.  I have tried those lights 👎.  I have tried anti-depressants.  I have tried exercising.  This year by November I was already seriously affected, so I asked my psychiatrist what to do.  He said to take iron gluconate and 7-8,000 IU of vitamin D.  (Using the drops in water or other liquid is easy and has no taste).   I thought it was worth a shot; certainly nothing else had helped.  My heavens!  This has been the best winter, in terms of S.A.D., of my entire life!!  No exaggeration.
Maybe this suggestion will help someone else, too.

So glad your doc is prescribing HORMONE D! It really is the basis of general human happiness & brain health, along with all the other immune, metabolic & yes, bone effects too. Sounds like a solid dose (though not enough for me when very obese and on a d-depleting med!) Did they order a blood test to find out your blood level or suggest a target level? Our brains' switch for "proper paralysis" during our deepest reparative delta wave cycles is covered with D-receptors, I think that is when our glymphatic system is running? (Our brains build up toxins everyday, then need to wash out the trash using pulsing waves of cerebral spinal fluid to flush things clean in the glymphatic system.) But that sleep reparative target LEVEL is 60-80 ng/ml after being low. Great reparative sleep cycles are extremely helpful in preventing dementias/Alzheimer's later in life. And great D, maintained all year round with UVB and/or supps, is helpful there too. You can maximize D's effects by adding magnesium (Mg glycinate in general or Mg L-Threonate to cross the BBB are good ones) to help you make more receptors and K2 (as MK7) will help direct the higher blood calcium (from D fixing your microbiome effectiveness) safely into bones and teeth instead of vessels, organs or joints, too. K2 is from bacterial ferments, not the blood-thinning K1 from green veggies that is contraindicated with many meds. I am not a doctor, but did very intensive research on D during our lockdown on hundreds of NIH studies of identical CovidComorbidities/Low D conditions! that you can read for yourself at PubMed.gov. Also discovered Neurologist/SleepSpecialist Dr. Stasha Gominak (vids on YouTube) who discovered the sleep switch/D level needs with her young female sleep clinic patients when their sleep improved dramatically at the higher levels. They also needed a temporary B vitamin complex while their bodies caught up on all the long-postponed repairs at a very fast rate.

Emilie McVey wrote: take iron gluconate and 7-8,000 IU of vitamin D.  (Using the drops in water or other liquid is easy and has no taste).   I thought it was worth a shot; certainly nothing else had helped.  My heavens!  This has been the best winter, in terms of S.A.D., of my entire life!!  No exaggeration.
Maybe this suggestion will help someone else, too.

I'm so glad you've gotten your SAD beaten! I know the B's are a big deal, and it's a bit complicated that D needs to go with K2 and also A and taken with dietary fat, but also calcium, magnesium, melatonin for some if having trouble sleeping but not more than 3mg, and now it seems iron (and vitamin C to help process it)

If I ever learned the iron connection I promptly forgot it because I have high iron in my well water, but when I go up north for the winter I'm eating fish so I should keep this in mind! I imagine a multivitamin would do the trick. I also learned the hard way that a few days of my son's zinc supplement put me in a better mood because I finally got rid of some sort of cold that I guessed was actually lung irritation from mold in heated forced air filters.

I tend to get SAD... for the month of July. Yes, I am in a somewhat northerly part of the northern hemisphere.

I think it's because there is a lull in the summer where it's too sunny, hot, very dry, not terribly much is ripening, and I can be sensitive to the excess light so it makes me feel tired. I live in a sunny part of the valley, too. Once the late summer rains get started, I start feeling better with all the mushrooms, ripening fruits & vegetables, et cetera.

Winter, I don't get seasonal depression. I used to get schooling-induced depression, but that's another thing entirely. I notice that the more I try to resist the seasonal pull to rest and recover and stay inside, the worse I feel, so I have been finding it best to let myself sort of hibernate, not do more than I'm up for, and minimize energy expenditure. I don't "hibernate" as deeply as some people around here, but then again the house I live in is hot on account of living in a very well insulated house with people who like warm air. I'd not have it so hot if it were just me!

I find it helpful to start the day with natural light—start my morning in the dim dawn light coming through the windows rather than turning on the electric lights.

Of course, this might not work if you need to get up very early at high latitudes.