The Roots of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) Essay

The Roots of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) Essay

Growing up in Alaska certainly taught me how to live peacefully with the bear minimum in life. Hauling water from a creek in the back of my house, using an outhouse in fifty below zero weather, and above all, living for almost nine months with an extreme lack of sunlight. When I lived in Alaska I treasured the beautiful yet short summer months that seemed to come and go with such swiftness. The difference in weather and amount of sunlight that I got to enjoy was just as drastic as my mood in the wintertime compared to the summer. In the summer life seemed remarkably pleasurable, I was happier with my appearance, and I worried much less about petty obstacles that I was confronted with. Unlike in the wintertime when every little thing ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...There really have only been studies conducted on people with possible SAD since 1984 when a man named Norman E. Rosenthal actually defined the psychological disorder (Lam). Since Rosenthal defined SAD as a syndrome characterized by recurrent depressions that occur annually at the same time each year characterized by hypersomnia, overeating, and carbohydrate craving (Newsome), there have been several studies conducted and published on people with possible SAD. Many of the studies that have been published for the general public focus mainly on the different forms of treatment for SAD, such as light therapy and different forms of Phototherapy, rather than focusing on the cause. Discovering the main causes of SAD would help to clearly identify who is actually in need of treatment related to light therapy compared to anti depressants. In my situation I had symptoms that were both characteristic of what identified SAD patients and patients suffering from mild forms of depression. When symptoms of one disorder are so closely related to symptoms of

McClain 3 another type of disorder it is very important to identify a key differentiation, which I believe could be found in a person's family history.

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