My name is Gordon McInnis. I work here at Carolina Beach Counseling here in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, and we're going to talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder or Seasonal Depression. Well, it's officially called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, and it happens when, generally in the Winter months, when there's less sunlight. People, you see kind of a general decrease in their mood going more towards the depression. Again, kind of seeing more of the classic depression symptoms of maybe loss of appetite, loss of interest, being more sad, more tearful, low self-esteem. Generally, you don't necessarily see people become suicidal in this period of time but they generally are more depressed, more stressed out, things bother them more. They don't have the energy, that kind of thing. It's different than what you may see as a cycle in like a Bipolar kind of thing because they're not coming off a manic or a hypomanic kind of state. They're coming from you know, generally doing okay to okay, now we're getting into Fall, the days are getting shorter and I'm depressed and I'm bummed out, and then what you find is if they don't do anything, as Spring starts to come around, you know, the flowers start to come out, we get longer days and they start to feel better and then they kind of go down on this. I think we all, to a certain degree, feel a little bit you know bummed out as the days get shorter and Winter starts to come upon us especially in the northern latitudes where it gets a little cold and snowy and gray and those kind of things. But, these people, it really starts to effect their functioning and I think that's what you look at is just a normal kind of, you know, cycle and you're down for a couple of weeks or is it really, it's really starting to effect your functioning at work or at school or at home or within relationships. And so, if it is, then just figure out okay, well how do we want to treat it. That's some basic information. Make sure that you go and get some advice from a health care professional.
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