BoomerGirl Diary

Dear Crabby:

Now that fall is on upon us, I am having the darndest time getting up and out of bed. I’m achy, tired, and out of sorts. I seem to get this way every year. Help!

Fall-ing Apart

Dear Falling:

Ah, the changing of the seasons. The snap in the air, the gorgeous leaves, the complete inability to get your carcass out of bed and face the day ... the earlier night falls, the faster your mood plummets ... have you noticed?

No? It’s just me? Hmmph, I thought not.

So let’s talk about it. We’re just getting SAD. That’s “Seasonal Affective Disorder,” not “the opposite of happy,” although that kind of fits, too. SAD sufferers experience recurrent depression, lethargy, fatigue, cravings for sweets and starches, headaches, sleep problems and irritability. These symptoms occur during the fall and winter, when the amount of sunlight received is minimal. There are some people who get SAD in the summer, though this is much less common, so I will focus here on Winter SAD. Here is a more complete checklist of symptoms for SAD.

• Depression

• Anxiety

• Loss of energy

• Social withdrawal

• Increased sleep and sleepiness

• Loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed, including sex

• Overeating, especially foods high in carbohydrates

• Weight gain

• Difficulty concentrating and processing information

Sound familiar? Sound like another cyclic malady you know? If you said PMS, you’re correct. If I wasn’t so sleepy and stuffed with carbs, I’d give you a prize. Interestingly, and somewhat irritatingly, women are more likely to suffer from SAD. So, you may ask: does SAD have a biological basis? Are we just big ol’ mammals, like mama bears, designed to chow down, hibernate and put our brains on auto-pilot once the sun withdraws its precious rays? (That actually sounds pretty good … when was the last time you heard a bear worried about how big her belly was?)

Well, whether we are biologically disposed to hibernate or not, we are no longer cavewomen, rising and retiring with the sun, thawing out a side of mastodon for our mate “Urg,” and enjoying grooming hour with our fellow tribeswomen. Our modern lives demand that we rise before the sun and work until sunset, arriving home to our artificial lights to work or play for at least 4-5 more hours before hitting the sack. Our days are filled with artificial caves (the office), artificial suns (those unflattering fluorescent lights) and artificial social interactions (“Oh, just great — and you?”)

Anyway. I digress. As usual. It seems that SAD is caused by a lack of sunlight, which in turn leads to dropping levels of serotonin (a feel-good neurotransmitter), and melatonin, among other factors, and hence, a commensurate plummet of the old mood. This problem could be and sometimes is treated with antidepressants, but for those who don’t want to add a(nother) pill, light therapy can often do the trick.

“Now, wait a minute, Crabby … didn’t you tell us sunlight was bad for us?”

Oh, a smarty-pants, eh? And I thought you all had crappy memories ….

Now remember, light has many beneficial effects. Like Vitamin D production, stray chin-whisker illumination, and you can add prevention of the “if I don’t get out of this gray miserable winter landscape, I’m going to throttle someone and you’re looking like the likeliest candidate” blues. Ahem.

So, where do you get one of these light box thingies? On the Internet, of course, the source of all manner of alternative health swag. Some good, some bad, some outright crazy. But repeat after me: “Light box goooood! Home colonics kit bad!”

What you want is a light that provides full spectrum lighting at 10,000 lux, whatever lux is (Didn’t it used to be a type of soap?) and sit in front of it, about 12-24 inches away, for about 30 minutes a day, early in the day. With your eyes open. This last point cannot be stressed enough. The light has to enter the eye to affect the brain. Interesting, isn’t it? So tanning beds don’t work, and are dangerous to boot (see my earlier rant here). Somehow, this early exposure to light helps the brain wake up and be active, so you gotta do it early. If you sit under the light box while you watch Jon Stewart, you’ll be up all night cleaning closets. And we wouldn’t want that, would we, now? The cleaning thing, I mean.

These boxes run about 200 bucks, so if you have a cafeteria account for medical expenses, if your health care provider agrees that you have SAD, a prescription makes it a deductible medical expense. And that makes us HAPPY.

PS: 30 minutes of outdoor light, even dim light, like on a cloudy day, can provide adequate light for improving your mood. But for those of us who get up in the dark and come home in the dark, that’s tough to get. Hence the light boxes. There are ultra-super power LED boxes out there, but you can get eye irritation, so the typical kind are probably best. There are some slightly kooky visors, too, but I don’t want to wear that around people — that intense downlighting on an aging face … eeesh. But hey, whatever you like.

Oh, and one more thing. Did any of you see that episode of "Northern Exposure" about Leonard’s SAD? Well, Dr. Joel got him a visor and he wore it all the time and came unglued! Too much light can be, well … too much. There have been instances of manic behavior from overuse of the light box, so, as I like to say, “Moderation in all things,” unless you want the neighbors to find you naked in a tree in the back yard or something equally out-of-character. It is out-of-character, right? I thought so.

Some helpful links:

• http://www.thebodyblues.com/index.html A wonderful book by a nurse about how to improve your mood and energy, including the use of light.

• The TLC program at the University of Kansas, which incorporates light therapy. Contact 785-218-6336

• The Mayo Clinic.