How do you navigate Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Live in West Norway. 60 degrees north. Atrocious climate. 245 rainy days each year, and on average 8.5 feet (yes) of rainfall. Average time of direct sunlight per month November-February inclusive is 45 hours. Per month.

Starting in mid-October and ending early March, I make sure to stand in direct sunlight, with the light hitting my face, for at least 10 minutes on all the days when weather permits. This entails unscheduled breaks from work, as such periods might only last a few minutes. Often combined with a walk outside. (There will often be weeks when the sun is not visible at all).

In fact, I took such a break while writing this comment, as it's the only sunlight I'm likely to see today. It was attenuated by clouds, but was very pleasant during the ~4 minutes it lasted. Had to stand up from my office chair, as otherwise neighboring houses would occlude it. I swear I'm not making this up, or even overstating the regularity with which it happens. I consider myself prone to seasonal depression, but maybe it's just the climate.

On days when I don't get my dose of sunlight, I use a daylight lamp that I sit in front of for at least 20 minutes. Often as much as an hour.

This alleviates the worst winter depression. When I feel it coming on, I feel markedly more awake after getting some more light. Also make sure to take care of myself and listen to my needs, more so than usual. Enough sleep, enough relaxation, enough socialization, enough solidude. Have been doing this routine for about a decade, and it works well.

It wasn't on purpose, but strangely enough I've found working from home has helped with the winter blues that I got every year in London.

The part of winter that crushed me the most was the excruciating commute in the cold in the morning, and the dark + cold in the afternoon when going home. When working from home, I no longer have to do that commute so I find it a lot easier to get through the winter.

This answer isn't particularly helpful for a lot of people, but I live in ski towns for the winters.

It's fairly frequent that I'll be skiing in full sun above the clouds, which is an excellent source of Vitimin D. When coupled with endorphine release from exercise it's basically impossible to be anything but ecstatic on that day.

That said, the principal to combat SAD, in my experience, has been vitamin D and exercise. Try to maximize your exposure/intake of those (in whatever way is possible to you) and you'll feel good :)

I'm in northern UK and find the dark really hellish when it kicks in every November. My solution this year is to go and spend three months in Australia, baking in the sun instead of shivering in the rain. Realise this isn't the solution you're looking for but this year I just need an actual break from the SAD-induced pallor and desire to hibernate, and the chance to take a break has come up so I'm taking it. I feel like it'll benefit my health no end, having lived in Aus in the past.

I cannot suggest enough that everyone should get a high lux light. I'm in the north midwest of the US, where there's little sun, it's cold which makes being outside much more difficult, and even when I am it's cloudy.

Last year was another fall when I could feel myself getting more and more tired and lack of energy and I couldn't figure out why. Christmas came around and my mom got our family high lux lights and literally the first time I tried it I could feel a difference. The tiredness was zapped away instantly. You can feel your body's reaction to the lux.

Pretty much whenever I'm sitting at a desk I have it on. The one I have has the ability to change the intensity, so sometimes I move it down from the max if I can feel overly bright. I plan on getting another one soon to have on the other side of my desk.

I don't have a brand to suggest, but doing test searches shows there are many different kinds. Thinking about price, they're so beneficial that from the benefits I get from it, I'd legit pay over $1k for one. Life in the dark cold winter is so much better. I hope everyone reading this gives one a try at least.

I grabbed some high temperature, high-CRI LEDs from http://waveformlighting.com 2 years ago and they have helped a lot. I love them because the CRI make the colors in my house look fantastic.

I put some strips around the window in my office, and plugged a bunch of A19 bulbs into a string patio lightbulb strip in my living room. Many of the bulb lights burned out quickly though, I think because they have cheap power supplies and were interfering with each other? Kinda stinks.

At the end of the day though I wish I had lights that met 3 conditions:

• Give off high CRI, full spectrum, high temperature light

• Contain simple electronics controlled by a dimmer rather than wifi-enabled

• Gradually turn on and off with the sunrise/sunset

Is there anything in the market right now for that?

I moved from Michigan to Texas and my SAD nearly disappeared, through I still have some circadian issues when the sun rises too late for me to automatically wake up at an appropriate time for work/life. Or if it’s overcast for >3 days straight.

When I lived in Michigan the best help was:

- Getting an insanely bright halogen lamp in the center of my room. Bright enough to mimic the sun. This was not a normal “available in stores” 70-100W halogen, probably closer to 200-400W. Sometimes I would stand right under it, about 12” from the bulb, staring into it with my eyelids closed for 2-5 minutes.

- Embracing the cold and enjoying it. This meant not wearing a jacket sometimes and just going out in a t-shirt for 5-30 minutes, even if it was 20 degrees F outside. Finding outdoor activities which I truly enjoy and developing them into my life. Focusing on thriving rather than surviving.

- Where I lived was overcast most days, especially in the winter. We could go a whole week without the sun being visible. I made a rule to drop anything I was doing and go out and stare into the sun (with eyelids closed) anytime the sun was shining. No emergency was too important to skip this.

- Moving to even snowier areas. Being forced to shovel your driveway 1-2x every day is a great way to get the outdoor exercise needed to love the winter.

I lived in the Yukon (60 deg north) for 4 years and learned a few tricks from the locals.

- Go outside every day at lunchtime and get sun on your face. Even if it's cold, raining or whatever, it's very important to get sunlight on your face.

- Get a grow lamp if you feel really bad

- Take Vitamin D suppliments

(If feasible) Wake up earlier to avoid sleeping through the morning sunlight.

In New York this means waking up around 6 or 6:30am (sunrise: 6:36am)

If you’re waking up after sunrise, shift your sleep schedule if possible so you’re awake during as many daylight hours as possible.

Sun lamp, Vitamin D etc. all help. As you mentioned, hanging out in brightly lit areas where there are people around also help.

For me one component of SAD is isolation. When I was living in big northern cities where there were people out on the streets all the time and stuff to do, I was never affected by SAD. Deep winter? No problem.

Now that I live in a suburb in a region of introverts, I feel SAD in spades. I’m an introvert but that’s a bit different from being a loner — I need people around me even if I don’t interact with them. So I go into the office instead of WFH. No many people there so I chat with the janitors and admin staff. Even this little bit of human interaction makes a difference for me.

Your emotional well being apart from the weather matters and will either compound SAD or attenuate it.

This isn't for everyone, but if you attain sufficiently severe depression due to work/relationships/existential issues during the summer months, you will not notice the effects of varying seasonal illumination. Do have to be careful for obvious reasons though. If you are new to this, you probably should try micro-dosing on depression inducing activities during the summer to see if this is a good fit.

I moved to a hotter place in the southern hemisphere, where even in winter the sunshine blazes almost every day.

Before that in the UK, as another poster suggests, I made sure to get out for a walk in the sunshine every day in the early afternoon. Get some sun on my face every single day.

After moving from New York to Berlin, the impact of SAD hit me hard.

So, my short answer is: I am absolutely in love with my Luminette 3[^1]. I use it every day in the morning.

In my opinion, even though it's "just a piece of plastic with a few LEDs" (it is), I believe it's actually underpriced at 230€ because of its supreme UX compared to all other effective options.[^2]

[^1]: https://www.myluminette.com/

[^2]: https://publish.obsidian.md/alexisrondeau/%E2%AD%90%EF%B8%8F...

Infrared!!!! (scientifically proven)

Everyone know about UV, vitamin D and blue light to help your circadian rhythm.

But very few people know that we need infrared to keep inflammation in check. Our mitochondria use infrared light to create melatonin that remove oxidative stress from normal metabolic respiration. The melatonin we know from the brain is merely the backup plan for the night.

We have create an environment completely void of infrared (IR blocking windows, living inside, led light) and we get a lot of inflammation that trigger autoimmune disease, depression, etc.

I think that one reason why it feel so good to snuggle up to a fireplace in the winter (way better than just the heat)

This research has been done on human and mice, replicated, etc. I think there is no money to be made by the pharma (in fact a lot of money to be lost) if this was widespread knowledge.

I bought a cheap infrared heat dish at costco and healed a terrible eczema i have every winter for 20 years in a few days.

I implore everyone who has an autoimmune disease or depression to try it out. For sure the sun is better, but this can help in the middle of winter.

https://www.google.com/search?q=medcram+infrared

My wife and I both get depressive around winter. I'm not sure that it is bad enough to qualify as SAD per se, but it sucks, and I always approach winter with a little bit of apprehension.

If I had my druthers I would have 2 weeks of heavy snow around Christmas and then back to spring, alas, the universe has not yet conformed to my will.

Anyway, I read this article a while back about stringing up a bunch of extra lights and how the extra light seems to ease the winter blues. I may try it out this year. Maybe worth a shot?

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hC2NFsuf5anuGadFm/how-to-bui...

I'm unsurprised that so many comments so far relate to the UK - I became acutely aware of how bad this was for me in 2019, but have definitely suffered the effects since before that.

Vitamin D and bright lights give a bit of short-term placebo benefit, but I haven't been able to detect any longer term uplift.

Even in the good weather months (... OK, weeks) we have, I spend time wishing I was elsewhere for the usual political/social/economic reasons, but in the winter I double down on trawling emigration blogs looking for a way out.

I recently took off the big velvet curtains we had put over all the windows in the summer. What a huge change in my mood! We had created ourselves a cave we were living in as we pursued energy efficiency. Now I’m seeing the importance of natural light and windows in a house. To be honest our energy usage was exactly the same as last year for this month, when we didn’t have the curtains. I suspect a lot of free and nice heat comes in through the windows in the daytime. What spurred the change was a google photo memory from a year ago and I saw how different the house was with the beautiful old windows shining light through.

There is light during the day in winter it just doesn’t last as long, so important to get what you can. I may explore building some led lights for when the sun goes down. UFO lights on Amazon are quite inexpensive now and very efficient. Heat they generate indoors in winter works to heat the house as well and depending on your gas prices might not be that bad compared to your gas furnace or could even be cheaper so it is like free strong lighting.

https://www.pickhvac.com/calculator/heating-annual-cost/

A good calculator here. A reminder that LED lighting is ~100% efficient just like an electric space heater, as all heat generated is trapped in and heats your house. Of course things like heat pumps can reach over 100% efficiency (up to 300%!).

I moved to sunny California because of this having started out in Seattle which is known for being cloudy and rainy a lot. My mood has been way better overall and I find that spending a bit of time in the sun each day makes me feel as right as rain. I would go so far as to say my life is a lot better because of this as it prevented some self loathing behavior or unnecessarily prolonged melancholy sans medication.

Probably accurate to say I'm solar powered.

If your SAD is severe enough that you need to move, I'd recommend looking at the mean hours of sunshine for places you're considering moving. Wikipedia has this for many cities under "Climate".

If you're in the US, many of the "middle western" states have significant sunshine. Oklahoma, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Texas are surprisingly sunny.

I moved to London from Auckland, NZ and really struggled for the first winter with the stark dearth of light. Tried all sorts of things: sad lamp, mindfulness, exercise, but mostly just felt miserable until March. The next year I had started taking vitamin d and mostly felt fine through the winter. I was shocked at the difference, but there’s lots of evidence around.

Well, this is a good reminder that it is time for me to dig out my light-therapy panel that I bathe in over breakfast during the dark months. Also go for walks over lunch break on sunny days. My SAD is mild, you may need more aggressive therapy. BTW - consider having your thyroid function checked. Some family members have that issue, and symptoms can be similar.

I live in Seattle, having moved from California. The thing that helped me more than anything was playing soccer outdoors year round. Rain or snow. Several times a week. The exercise more than anything helped me get over the dark and the grey. The fact that it’s a team sport and 10+ other people are counting on me to show up helps keep me accountable.

Reminds me about the DIY Perks "Artificial sun". Is something like that for sale as a product? I think it definitely can help.

https://youtu.be/6bqBsHSwPgw

SAD is one of those things where I've read articles and research from what I think are at least semi trustworthy sources both swearing that it is a real thing and that it is not a real thing.

Anecdotally it seems like a scam to try and sell you overpriced LED lights, but the more you google the more you find some people swear it affects them, even though I've never felt the difference. This together with the fact that I was born and grew up in a place with ~3050 average annual sunlight hours per year, as well as lived in places with ~1500 for the past 5 years without any perceived difference in mood.

My routine has been: * Vitamin D * Philips Wake Up Lamp for the mornings * Home-assistant controlling Trådfri lights with Flux so that the color temp changes throughout the day. Ie daylight style light in the mid day and then getting more orange in the evening * Old but still functional Philips Day Light therapy lamp next to me when working so that I get the 30-120 minutes of that as well during the work hours * Oh and getting out and do some walking/biking/whatever. It's still super important even though you don't get to see the sun

Sometimes I drift from typical wake patterns. Unfortunately, my sleep only seems to move clockwise, otherwise I get headaches and malaise if I try to adjust back. As an extreme but oddly satisfying antidote, I sometimes take a home-based "circadian journey" along the lines of xkcd's comic about Taipei and Honolulu timezone-based housemates, scheduling or dodging meetings accordingly, advancing 1.25 hrs each day or so for a while.

The "journey" allows me to arrange to wake at dawn for a while when daylight is scarce.

I made a little tool. Tell it your last wake time. CJ generates a fresh iCal calendar journey with a sampling of xkcd-esque national time zone flags along the way. You re-add the .ical as a new calendar and erase the calendar or events until it starts to match your real sleep. https://observablehq.com/@thadk/circadian

I've used a Philips lamp designed for SAD. Starting my day by waking before sunrise and spending ≈15 minutes with the lamp to one side, I found my energy, alertness, and mood improved.

Years before it seemed to bother me more than now. I find myself just using a lamp more often

Part of it's likely that I'm now in Texas, we have two seasons.

Summer being the main one, roughly 95% of the year. Rain or just cold enough to freeze for the other 5%

I grew up in Appalachia and there... it was more bothersome but I also kept busier, so it didn't impact me that much then either.

I guess the takeaway is, stay busy and be mindful of warmth -- both in temperature and light. People can help with the environment too

I leave task manager open while the computer is "idle" to see spikes in the Wi-Fi network throughput graph so I can rest assured that at least my lone machine activity is being automatically "seen" by the telemetry-harvesting crawler code lovingly hand-crafted&looped by fellow citizens across the globe who are polite and ambitious when they deliver a quarterly measurement of each other's usage metrics.

Get outside and move your body.

I've lived 10+ years in what most would call an "extreme environment" (arctic circle, often at or below -40 ambient air temp for weeks, very isolated) with few ill-effects.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate equipment (clothing).

Getting outside, if only for a 30 minute walk substantially increases my mood. We also supplement vit d, but in my personal experience, outdoor exercise is my main inhibitor.

Yoga, running or walking in the forrest for 2 hours daily, chooping wood, vitamine D, good sleep, good, healthy food.

Also reading books and some recreational programming.

The best thing you can do is get yourself a Seasonal Affective Disorder lamp and use it while you work on the computer, an hour or two daily in the mornings. If you dont wanna spend too much money on it, get yourself a few very powerful floodlights. The lights have to emit at least 10K lumens on 1 meter distance, the floodlights are way more powerful than the SAD lamps anyway.

Last fall my psychiatrist recommended staring at a full spectrum light for 20 minutes a day (the one I used is called HappyLight and is made by Verilux)

I was shocked at what a difference it made. Here in nyc we had a stretch of overcast days for about two weeks last month and I took it out and used it. Bam! I felt more energetic, lively, and enthusiastic all over again.

Having lived in places with annual hours of sunshine in the range of 1600-3000 my take is that it's the wind that gets you.

Coincidentally the least sunny place I lived in was also the most windy, making the apparent temperature so much lower and almost guaranteeing getting a cold in spring, when the high day temperature made people let their guard down.

I recently had a CoeLux artificial skylight installed, it’s awesome. No matter how ugly the weather feels outside, it’s always a bright beautiful day inside.

Definitely worth considering if you have high enough ceilings to accommodate it. https://www.coelux.com/

I am a software developer who works in his basement in WA state. Not a lot of natural light during the winters.

* Force myself to exercise. This is by far has the largest impact on my well being. (team sports makes that easier) * Take 10,000 IU of vitamin D a week * Try to get outside for walks in the late morning or early afternoon

well, i feel like shit for a few months ...

I moved to Maimi. Here even the rain is happy. Also, homes are affordable (compared to west coast prices).

I was diagnosed with Dysthymia and ADHD. One thing I've been noticing since last few years is that my situation gets a lot worse in winter season (India). Winters have always been depressing. Is that a thing? Or am I making things up?

I installed a couple of LED "corn lights", each supposedly equivalent to a 750 watt incandescent, I believe it was.

I just got them recently, so I haven't had time to really make an evaluation. We'll see at the end of the winter.

I focus on regular vigorous exercise, minimizing processed food consumption, and avoiding alcohol entirely. These are things I try to do year round, but extra emphasis helps me during the fall and winter.

Get daylight-spectrum bulbs and a sunrise alarm clock.

Vitamin D3. Get tested and take it. Has helped me for almost 20 years with blood results to support efficacy.

Go hike in the rain--with a head lamp. I survived my time in the PNW because of this one rule.

Use the weekends to be outdoors

Find excuses to travel to warmer climes at least a few times over the winter.

Has anyone seen research on how these bright lamps can hurt eyesight

I find that masturbating helps significantly with this.

If I haven't had my morning wank, it ruins my whole day. If I neglect to enjoy my evening wank, I can't sleep.

The calming effect of fucking one's own hand should not be underestimated.

Get into astrophotography or winter sports

Magnesium Byglycinate + Zinc

I watch ice hockey.

Go outside?

Bourbon.

I live in the south and if anything I'm glad that the fucking summer is finally over. I had SAD in spring because of my allergies and because I know that the heat is coming though.