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Seasonal Affective Disorder Blog
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Winter Doldrums Got You Down? Here's How to Bounce Back
Posted 14 days ago by Drugs.com
SATURDAY, Jan. 28 – For some people a change in the seasons can trigger a loss of energy or even clinical depression, according to an expert who describes how to cope with seasonal affective disorder. The condition is caused by changes in ambient light, said Dr. Dan Iosifescu, director of the Mount Sinai Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program in New York City. "A gland in our brain provides a time signal, based on the amount of ambient light, to various parts of the body. Like a metronome, the gland responds to signals from light and uses those cues to orchestrate the day/night cycle," he said in a Mt. Sinai news release. "Ambient light helps our brain determine when our bodies need to be active mentally and physically and when our bodies need to rest. That cycle is thrown off when the days get shorter and darker." Iosifescu offered the following tips to help people overcome the winter ... Read more
Related support groups: Seasonal Affective Disorder
U.S. Sees Slowdown in Spending on Mental Health
Posted 5 Feb 2011 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Feb. 4 – The amount of money spent on psychiatric drugs in the United States continues to grow but at a much slower rate than in previous years, a new federal government study has found. From 2004 to 2005, spending on psychiatric drugs rose 5.6 percent, compared with an increase of 27.3 percent between 1999 and 2000, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The agency's analysis of health-care costs from 1986 to 2005, the latest year comparable data is available, also found that spending on behavioral health accounts for a decreasing portion of overall health-care costs. Of the $1.85 trillion spent on all health-care services in the United States in 2005, behavioral health spending accounted for 7.3 percent ($135 billion). During the 20 years analyzed in the study, spending for mental health and substance abuse health care grew more slowly ... Read more
Related support groups: Anxiety, Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Anxiety and Stress, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Mania, Schizophrenia, Paranoid Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder
For Many, Stigma of Mental Illness Lingers
Posted 24 Nov 2010 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 24 – Persistent efforts to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness haven't succeeded as well as hoped, suggesting that new strategies might be necessary. For decades, a number of organizations have been trying to persuade the public that mental illnesses such as depression, alcohol dependence and schizophrenia are neurobiological disorders, not just people behaving badly, hoping that harsh judgments would subside. Even drug ads unintentionally bolstered the view of the mentally ill as having "lifelong" or permanent problems, with their emphasis on science-focused explanations of the brain mechanisms behind some mental illness, claims a study appearing in the November issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. This study compared people's responses to vignettes describing individuals with mental illness in surveys conducted a decade apart, in 1996 and 2006. ... Read more
Related support groups: Anxiety, Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Anxiety and Stress, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Mania, Schizophrenia, Paranoid Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Postpartum Depression, Oppositional Defiant Disorder
Green Light Exposure Can Reset Body Clock
Posted 12 May 2010 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, May 12 – Exposure to green light can reset the body's internal clock and alter sleep-related hormonal responses, new research suggests. The finding, reported in the May 12 issue of Science Translational Medicine, stems from research conducted by a team of scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and builds on prior research about how the eye handles light exposure in ways that are unrelated to vision. So-called "non-visual responses" had previously been linked to blue light exposure, the study authors noted. In this regard, the eye's photoreceptor system located in the eye's ganglion cell layer, and distinct from the part of the eye responsible for processing sight, had been identified as a center for special cells that detect and absorb blue light, thereby triggering a shift in the viewer's internal circadian body clock. Blue light exposure had also previously ... Read more
Related support groups: Shift Work Sleep Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Jet Lag
How Bad Feelings Can Harm Your Health
Posted 12 Jan 2010 by Drugs.com
THURSDAY, Aug. 27 – A depressed emotional state – feelings of hopelessness and apathy – could have a direct effect on your physical health, new research indicates. A study of stroke survivors found a slower rate of recovery among those experiencing apathy, caring little about themselves and the world around them. And a study of healthy middle-aged women found an association between hopelessness and unexpected thickening of the carotid artery, the main blood vessel to the brain. Both findings are reported in the Aug. 27 issue of Stroke. The apathy study was triggered by a 2006 paper on Parkinson's disease in a different journal, said Nancy E. Mayo, a professor of medicine at McGill University in Montreal, and lead author of the apathy study. "It said that if patients were apathetic the best thing was just to leave them alone," she said. "I was incensed that the author said we just ... Read more
Related support groups: Depression, Postpartum Depression, Dysthymia, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Neurotic Depression, Depressive Psychosis
Psych Drugs Gaining Widespread Acceptance
Posted 16 Dec 2009 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, July 31 – A growing number of Americans now have a positive opinion on psychiatric medications, a new study contends. About five out of six people surveyed felt psychiatric medications could help people control psychiatric symptoms, but many also expected the medications could help people deal with day-to-day stresses, help them feel better about themselves and make things easier with family and friends. "People's attitudes regarding psychiatric medications became more favorable between 1998 and 2006," said study author Dr. Ramin Mojtabai, an associate professor in the department of mental health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. Mojtabai expressed concern, however, that people's attitudes were increasingly positive, even in situations where there might not be a proven benefit to the drugs. "My hope would be for people to be more discriminating in ... Read more
Related support groups: Anxiety, Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Insomnia, Lexapro, Anxiety and Stress, Zoloft, Cymbalta, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Prozac, Celexa, Paxil
Psychotherapy Beats Light Treatment for SAD
Posted 1 Dec 2009 by Drugs.com
THURSDAY, Oct. 29 – As daylight hours dwindle, people with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) can often feel the onset of wintertime depression, but a new study suggests one type of remedy may work better than another at banishing the SAD blues. Cognitive behavioral therapy specially designed to treat people with SAD is more effective at preventing recurrences of depression than either light therapy or a combination of the two, the study found. The psychotherapy may also be a time-saver – potentially welcome news with Daylight Saving Time coming to an end on Nov. 1. "It's an up-front investment, three hours of therapy a week in total over six weeks, whereas light therapy is 30 minutes a day and not just for six weeks," said study author Kelly Rohan, a psychologist at the University of Vermont. "Light therapy depends on a lot of time and effort, a minimum 30 minutes in front of the ... Read more
Related support groups: Seasonal Affective Disorder
Gloomy Days Dim Cognitive Powers of the Depressed
Posted 28 Jul 2009 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, July 28 – A new study shows that gloomy days are linked with memory and other cognitive problems in people suffering from depression. Previous research has shown that many people feel their moods shift with shifting skies, with more depression linked with less sunlight, but this is the first time that light exposure and cognition have been paired, stated the authors of a study appearing in the July 28 online issue of Environmental Health. Light therapy, such as that prescribed for people with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), might also help people with cognitive impairments, the authors added. "This is speculation, but those who have cognitive impairment could be helped with sunlight," said study author Shia Kent, a doctoral candidate at the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "This is very interesting. I haven't seen a study exactly like ... Read more
Related support groups: Depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder
Brain's Serotonin May Explain Seasonal Mood Changes
Posted 2 Sep 2008 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Sept. 2 – Fluctuations in the actions of the serotonin transporter, which helps regulate the mood-altering neurotransmitter serotonin, may help explain seasonal affective disorder and related mood changes, researchers say. In places where the weather changes with the seasons, people commonly feel happier and more energetic when the days are bright and sunny and more depressed and fatigued during the dark of winter. Scientists believe this is related to variations in brain levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in regulating functions such as mating, feeding, energy balance, and sleep. In a study published in the September issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the University of Toronto had 88 healthy people undergo a positron emission tomography (PET) scan to assess serotonin binding potential, ... Read more
Related support groups: Seasonal Affective Disorder