Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as SAD, is something I have written a lot about in the past – you can still read those articles by clicking here (opens in a new window) Some people in the UK suffer from SAD and find the darker months incredibly difficult.  Many more individuals exhibit symptoms, in autumn/winter, such as tiredness, lethargy and sleep problems without the depression and anxiety felt by SAD sufferers. There is evidence that some kind of seasonal changes in mood impact much of the general population (1,2) SADA Seasonal Affective Disorder Association is the UKs only support organisation that is dedicated to SAD. SADA say that(1) “ SAD is a type of winter depression that affects an estimated 7% of the UK population every winter between September and April, in particular during December, January and February. It is caused by a biochemical imbalance in the hypothalamus [part of the brain] due to the shortening of daylight hours and the lack of sunlight in winter. For many people SAD is a seriously disabling illness, preventing them from functioning normally without continuous medical treatment. For others, it is a mild but debilitating condition causing discomfort but not severe suffering. We call this subsyndromal SAD or ‘winter blues.’ It is estimated that a further 17% of the UK population have this milder form of condition”. The symptoms of SAD include the following (taken from the SADA website) but it is important to note that for some people without diagnosed SAD (known as….

The clocks will go back an hour this weekend and although I enjoy the extra hour in bed there was a report (1) last year which argues the health benefits of not putting the clocks back in winter but still putting them forward in the spring. The report, published in the British Medical Journal says this would be a simple and effective way to vastly improve our health and well-being.   Putting the clocks back means it is lighter by the time most people get up to start their day, however it also means that we are deprived of an hour of daylight in the afternoon and this may impact health by limiting our time for outdoor activities. It is thought that leaving clocks alone as winter approaches would allow an extra hour of daylight in the afternoon and could boost levels of vitamin D as well as encouraging people to exercise more. Many people in the UK have lower than optimal levels of vitamin D and deficiency has been linked to many health problems (please read my previous blog posts for more information about vitamin D).   The author of the report (1), Mayer Hillman, found that switching to Central European Time, which is Greenwich Mean Time plus one hour (GMT+1) in the winter and GMT+2 in the summer, would give most adults around 300 extra hours of daylight a year. Hillman writes that research shows people feel happier, more energetic and have lower sickness rates in the longer,….