Ask HN: How to deal with seasonal affective disorder?

I'm not sure if life hacks and self-psych will make any major impacts on SAD. If you feel down it never hurts to get a mental health consult. I'm from Minnesota so here's more or less how I would deal with winter, ymmv. This list is kind of light-hearted so I hope I'm not offending. Winter is my favorite season so maybe this won't connect very well.

Read lots of books and watch shows to stay away from the gray outside.

Stay in office environments during the day to benefit from florescent lighting.

Take up outdoors activities like skiing, broomball, or hockey (I think it develops a positive association with the winter weather). Otherwise curling is indoor so maybe that would help distract from the weather. Adding friends and beer to all of these events makes them more fun of course.

Feel free to eat heavier foods like cheese curds and pasta. They make you feel good and nobody can tell that you gained 10lbs because you have heavy winter clothes anyway.

Take comfort in talking to strangers and coworkers about how bad the weather is.

Look at the ground during the winter so you don't see the ugly, gray skies. The cold windchill usually forces this anyway.

You mentioned SSRIs. I’m not usually one that’s all that happy about pharmaceuticals, but I started Bupropion today for smoking cessation, and while I was doing research I remember it being mentioned as a potential SAD treatment. It’s a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor (NRDI) instead of an SSRI. Might be worth looking into, given the list of things that haven’t worked.

https://www.aafp.org/afp/2017/0101/p10.html

Thanks, I'll look into that

Regarding your list of things you haven't tried, you should certainly try 2 or 6 and 7 before bothering with the other potential solutions (if you're able). Your diet and your exercise habits are going to be play the biggest role in your physical and mental well-being. I would not bother with supplements. The general efficacy of supplements is debated and you should be getting all of the nutrients you need from your diet anyway. If you're not able to try diet and exercise changes due to depression symptoms you should consider 9 (and 5 at the doctor's discretion).

Sleep is important but you should only be sleeping for as long as your body needs it. Going to bed earlier can help you find the point at which you're waking up naturally and from there you can decide how much time you need to sleep.

Philosophy and self-reflection are really two very different things. Studying philosophy in my experience hasn't improved my mood. Reading and learning in general might, and you might find that reading about philosophy is a passion you didn't know you had, but you aren't going to pick up a philosophy book and just internalize a worldview that will cure your depression. Self-reflection on the other hand will also not cure your depression, but it may help you identify the deeper triggers in your SAD that you could potentially address. What if your depression is not triggered by the temperature? Your problem would likely not be solved by moving to a warmer country.

I think this is a problem for a lot of people in various climates. I'm from central Canada where we experience -50c Januaries and 6 months of snow. Step 1 was moving the fuck out of there, which helped. I've been back, but knowing It's optional is massive.

The problem I've faced for 4 years is the rain on the west coast, and the way I manage that is shifting to a different social mode, combining that with intense exercise, and having something that I find compelling intellectually to do. I'm normally a skateboarder, which is impeded by the rain, but I can still find larking garages or indoor places to do that. Partying with friends is great. Wet hiking is fun. If you're not enjoying your life normally, winter hits hard, so work on making your joy more robust. I'd recommend not bothering with any of the hacks on your list aside from lifestyle changes, because they'll probably prolong your ability to omprove your baseline joy quality.

I'm affected to a lesser degree by SAD just noticing the changes but not really affected for another month or so.

Related to the fasting/microbiome advice is active oral hygiene. My main problem with SAD is lack of motivation/energy to care to do anything which can happen in any month but is especially bad during the winter. For non-SAD reasons I've taken my personal war on plaque seriously, brushing three or more times a day with an super-soft brush (Colgate SlimSoft 2-packs on sale) to save gums, mouthwash, etc. What I've found is that I sleep better and it's 5x (subjectively) easier to wake up at the set time and have energy/motivation to start my day. Since this behaviour is new this year I have yet to see how it does through the winter.

Wow, I'd never heard of this. Going to look more into this thanks!

I moved from Seattle to Austin and I no longer had seasonal affective disorder in the fall and winter.

However, I did get a little depressed in August, because that's when you realize that summer began 4 months ago, and there's still 2.5 months of 100 degree days to go.

Depending on how far north you are and how cloudy, going outside in nature might be beneficial. For me I find that being in a city when it's dark is super depressing, but if I give my body some contextual clues -- the look and smell of autumn leaves, eating autumn food, etc. -- it can help. Then my brain puts the darkness into "circle of life" category a bit more instead of "the light is fading and with it comes death!"

That said, I think that would not work for me in Seattle. It's too dark and too overcast. But has worked for me a bit better in southern New England.

Did you do 1-6 at the same time? Consider adding 'time spent outside.' What social things have you tried? People need to have close relationships with other people. Def look into weight training and avoiding processed foods. Avoid or highly limit alcohol and pot (if you partake in either). Assuming you live in a northern territory with hard winters, try a winter in the south (maybe SoCal, Arizona, or Texas).

No, I haven't been consistent or disciplined enough with diet stuff or getting out and socialising even when I don't feel like it, so that's the first thing to change this Winter.

I live in the UK, so it would be more like moving to Southern Europe, which I can't really do at least in the next couple of months.

The weather has been particularly shite the last 3 weeks or so, hasn't it?

I would suggest booking a trip somewhere warm and sunny, even if it is for Jan or Feb. Having something to look forward to makes things better.

I’m not sure what kind of light therapy you did. I would recommend trying a tanning salon. Try to find beds with high UVB (the “bad” kind). This is better fir getting vitamin D. And they are the cheap beds too. You do t need to stay in long enough to get much of a tan. I feel better after a single session. I do 1 or two short sessions a week.

However, I also crave regular light. So me assumption is that visible light serves a purpose also.

Just as a matter of safety, UV tanning is a great way to get melanomas. That's why they've been banned (commercially) in Australia.

I'm not sure it is worse than getting the same amount of UV from the Sun. But, when I go to a tanning salon, I do see some people who overdue it. I would agree that is bad.

Hmm, I'd actually never thought of using a tanning salon as an extreme form of light therapy, I might have to try that out. I'm just using a lightbox myself.

Elizer Yudkowksi(sp?)'s wife had SAD they were having problems treating. He talks about it here

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yPLr2tnXbiFXkMWvk/an-equilib...

He says basically they just kept on increasing the amount of light therapy and eventually it cured her SAD.

Ah, I have indeed read this - thank you for reminding me. I tried unsuccessfully to do this two years ago. Worth a try in my new accommodation which might be more accommodating.

There is a separate post from his wife here btw - http://agentyduck.blogspot.com/2014/09/my-experiences-with-s...

Potentially helpful to others reading this.

Thanks for the link, I hadn't read it from her perspective.

What are people's experience with types of indoor lighting?

I know that you can't really get any vitamin D through glass but much prefer any kind of natural light over fluorescent. Other things I do is adjust the color of my monitor to emit less blue light (even during daytime ours) which seems to help. I even use ComfortView (less blue) on my phone 24x7.

Get your Vitamin D levels checked? Higher dosage?

Agreed. When I did my research on this, I found the recommended amounts are far lower than what is required for someone living near the poles. And dangerous levels are also very very high, so there is no risk in doubling or tripling the amount of the recommended dosage and seeing if it helps.

No first-hand experience with SAD, but a few thoughts:

1. Perhaps the change in season promotes some secondary issue, like more mold growth, and that's the real problem that needs to be addressed.

2. One of the better tools for self experiments is a journal. Try to track diet, symptoms and anything else that might come into play.

3. Fasting seems helpful with a variety of issues.

Thanks. You're correct, I should learn from Gwern and run these kind of self experiments properly. Will at least do a better job of journalling this year. I did this with microdosing and it was quite helpful.

Have you tried fasting specifically for SAD or otherwise depression?

I do not appear to be prone to either SAD or depression.

But my general understanding is that a. Fasting impacts the microbiome and b. The microbiome is increasingly being shown to impact the microbiome.

When this kicks in, I get an urge to eat a large amount of high caloric foods including desserts and to sleep for many many hours. If I comply with this, the situation is manageable. When summer and heat returns, I loses interest in food and will automatically drop the extra weight gained during winter.

I have this too. Are you saying you feel better when you do eat the high caloric/sweet foods?

Yes, much better. I have tried not eating high caloric/sweet foods to be more healthy, but then the winter months just became pure hell. If I eat the food, I'm able to get things done and be functional.

The high carbs work for me too but sweet/sugary foods just makes me hungry so fast that I can't concentrate for long before I'm distracted by it.

I would advise you to go for a small vacation to place like india and brazil during that time. Sometimes relocating works best, If the seasonal disorder affectz life. This is my one cent.

You should pick up one of the many books on this topic if you haven't.

From what I have read, the only thing specifically you can do is light therapy. Buy a light specific for this.

Moving obviously has the biggest impact.

Weightlifting, microdosing shrooms.and light therapy.

Never tried them all at the same time, but these three things at different phases in life, were effective, for at least one season.

It gets me too. I’ve found embracing the change with seasonal foods helpful. Buying produce from my local farmers market helps build some excitement and anticipation.

Moved to California.

Used to live in Canada (eastern ontario) and this became intolerable.

Living in shitty weather conditions and trying to compensate with artifical means never really worked for me.

Did it completely disappear once you moved?

exercise went from kind of works to OMG when i hit 30+ miles per week - suddenly running was easy, effortless and amazing natural high

obviously 9 miles per week is better than zero

Move to Australia. In most cities SAD is so rare that people aren't even aware that it is a thing.

Get some outside time. Pets (dogs, cows, etc) are good for this as they force you to attend to them.

Spend every winter in Thailand or some other sunny place. Worked for me for 10 years..

You know the real solution is #3.

But at the same time you know there is a price.

How about SAM-e?

Move?

I spend week-long visits at a remote cabin in the Central Cascades. During the winter I have to get outside and get some significant exercise every day. Outside. Exercise. Every day. Or I will go crazy. That's it. Think of the trappers who spent all winter in cabins in the mountains. Outside. Exercise. Every day.