Fairbanks may not be especially prone to infectious diseases like tropical climates, but the cold dry winter climate is known to cause temporary physical and mental instabilities in 28 percent of local residents during the winter season.
This melancholy is an affect of SAD or SAD symptoms.
As fall turns to winter many people notice and experience fatigue, weight gain and bouts of "the blues." For some, this wintertime depression and lack of energy become debilitating, affecting relationships, work, activities and self-esteem.
For others, these symptoms have milder affects but still encompass depression.
The problem
Although the winter season brings warm and happy holidays, it also brings bad weather and a time when depression hits the hardest. It's reported that during the long cold and dark months, 28 percent of people suffer from doctors call Seasonal Affective Disorder.
SAD and a milder version, known as the "winter blues" or subsyndromal SAD, are characterized by depression, overeating, sleep disturbances, lethargy, anxiety and mood swings.
These symptoms are especially harsh in northern environments where light loss is extreme and the winter weather makes regular outdoor activities difficult to do.
Fairbanks, where it is icy, dark and temperatures drop to 40 below zero regularly, makes activities especially difficult near impossible.
About 70-80 percent of those diagnosed with SAD are women.
The most common age of onset is in one's 30's, but people report being diagnosed at all ages.
Megan Brown, a counselor at the UAF Center for Health and Counseling, said her clinic treats about 15-30 patients a year with complaints of SAD symptoms during October through February.
"As soon as we start losing light I start to get patients with complaints of lethargy," Brown said.
Margaret Kellogg, the office manager and insurance coordinator for the Center of Health and Counseling, said that although she has not been diagnosed with a medical condition, she experiences some of the SAD symptoms every winter.
"You notice the energy days because there are so few of them," Kellogg said. "The light box helps with fatigue."
Her primary reason for using a light box is because every winter she feels fatigue and has a lack of energy.
Causes
SAD is mainly attributed to a lack of exposure to sunlight. Studies find there is a relationship between an individual's vulnerability to SAD and the degree of sunlight exposure from their environment.
But SAD is not related to temperature.
People who live at higher latitudes are more likely to be subjected to seasonal depression.
SAD is prevalent even in mid-latitude places with mild winters, such as Seattle. But people who live in the Arctic region are especially susceptible because of the long polar nights and prolonged periods of overcast weather.
The brain chemical melatonin is involved in making humans happy under sunlight. The release of melatonin is influenced by exposure to sunlight and this chemical may cause winter depression.
"It (SAD) did not occur to me until I saw it in my son," Kellogg said. "I got a light box and started using it."
Kellogg's son was most affected in November through January, she said. She was most affected from February through April.
Studies also show that some people have an inherent susceptibility. Genetic factors can account for 30-40 percent of those diagnosed with the winter depression. So, if you suffer from seasonal depression it is likely that your mother, sister or someone else in your family will too.
"I grew-up with a SAD light box in my house. My mother had SAD," said Emily Schikora, a 22-year-old senior history major, who also reports other family members experiencing SAD symptoms.
Causes are also linked to biological hormonal changes during the winter. The fact that women are four times as likely to get the condition than men points to hormones as an obvious factor. The female hormones estrogen and progesterone play a role in depression.
SAD can occur from a lack of exercise, a natural by-product of uninviting dark weather, Brown said. Many women say that they stop running, hiking and walking outside during the winter, thus decreasing their daily exercise.
Exercise releases endorphins; hormones that affect emotions and reduce the sensation of pain.
Exercise also boosts the release of the chemical serotonin.
Serotonin is believed to play an important role in the regulation of mood, sleep, sexuality and appetite.
If bad weather prohibits you from exercising not only will your pants be tighter, your mood will suffer and chances are, you just won't be in the mood.
"People get depressed for lots of reasons, but environmental factors are the most common on-setters," said UAF psychology professor John Gonzalez. "Lack of sunlight may trigger someone's depression."
SAD is a common secondary diagnosis to someone who may have clinical depression.
"When a patient is extremely depressed or every winter they are debilitated with SAD symptoms it is usually not just SAD but other things are going on with that person too," Brown said.
Solutions
To avoid SAC, stay healthy. This includes all the major factors in physical and mental health.
Eating right and getting plenty of exercise can be the most important thing to maintain throughout the winter.
Maintaining a healthy living style and daily routine is also important to staying active. Engaging in social activity and going out will help keep lethargy at bay, and being around the people that make you happy will raise your spirits.
Light therapy treatment is the most common solution to SAD and the winter blues. The use of a full spectrum artificial ultraviolet light-box is the most effective, leading to around 85 percent success.
Kellogg starts using her light box in October, as soon as the weather starts to get dreary. She has it set on her desk at work.
Light boxes are purchased for $150-500. Usually you sit in front of it for 30-60 minutes in the morning. Light boxes are sold at clinics, and sometimes electrical stores, such as the UAF Center for Health and Counseling and Brown's Electric. The UAF health center rents them to new users for a week, which is the amount of time it takes to determine if the light therapy works.
Brown said that most often she treats her patients with talk therapy and light treatment. If the effects are more severe she will prescribe medication, such as antidepressants like fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft, Lustral), or paroxetine (Paxil).
"You have to know yourself pretty well to know that something is not right." said Kellogg. "If all you want to do is watch TV instead of skiing like you usually like, then maybe you need to realize that something is wrong. I may take a while of just not feeling like them self for somebody to realize something's wrong."
