Seasonal affective disorder
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Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a mood disorder subset in which people who typically have normal mental health throughout most of the year exhibit depressive symptoms at the same time each year.[1][2] It is commonly, but not always, associated with the reductions or increases in total daily sunlight hours that occur during the summer or winter.
Seasonal affective disorder | |
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Other names | Seasonal mood disorder, depressive disorder with seasonal pattern, winter depression, winter blues, January blues, summer depression, seasonal depression |
Bright light therapy is a common treatment for seasonal affective disorder and for circadian rhythm sleep disorders. | |
Specialty | Psychiatry |
Common symptoms include sleeping too much, having little to no energy, and overeating.[3] The condition in the summer can include heightened anxiety.[4]
In the DSM-IV and DSM-5, its status as a standalone condition was changed: It is no longer classified as a unique mood disorder, but is now a specifier (called "with seasonal pattern") for recurrent major depressive disorder that occurs at a specific time of the year and fully remits otherwise.[5] Although experts were initially skeptical, this condition is now recognized as a common disorder.[6] The validity of SAD was called into question, however, by a 2016 analysis by the Centers for Disease Control in which no links were detected between depression and seasonality or sunlight exposure.[7]
In the United States, the percentage of the population affected by SAD ranges from 1.4% of the population in Florida to 9.9% in Alaska.[8] SAD was formally described and named in 1984, by Norman E. Rosenthal and colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health.[9][10]