This Winter’s Double Whammy of Pandemic Blues and Seasonal Depression

COVID-19 is depressing enough, but mental health experts expect to see a rise in seasonal affective disorder (SAD), too. The article provides tips on how to cope. Ken Duckworth, CMO of NAMI, explains that seasonal affective disorder is now classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a subset of major depression, officially known as “major depression disorder with a seasonal pattern.” Moreover, the effects of SAD tend to go away once the seasons change. Duckworth says this is unusual, as most triggers for depression such as loss of a loved one or stress tend to be unpredictable and harder to control. “If you have noticed that you have a persistent pattern of struggling in November, December, or January, and you live in a northern climate that’s light on sunshine, that is a pattern that is likely to repeat,” Duckworth says. “There’s not that many psychiatric conditions that you know when the trigger is coming.” Duckworth notes one treatment that is uniquely suited to treating SAD is light therapy, where people use light boxes to replicate the impact that sunlight has on the human body.