By Patsy Westcott in Saga Magazine.
When the clocks go back in October, three million of us will begin our annual battle with the winter misery known as SAD.
The darker mornings make getting up about as appealing as a cold bowl of porridge and an afternoon snooze certainly more alluring than a healthy walk in the open air. Stodgy foods and chocolate become irresistible and the pounds pile on until the clocks go forward again in spring.
The influence of the seasons on mood has been known for centuries. But it wasn’t until 1984 that US psychiatrist Dr Norman Rosenthal, himself a sufferer of seasonal depression, identified what he called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. According to Rosenthal this is a subspecies of depression caused by lack of sunlight for which the best treatment is light therapy.
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