Don’t be S.A.D.
BY ALEXA CHERRY
For the UAS Whalesong
Starting around this year, if you haven’t already, you may start hearing people talk about “getting sad.” This sounds perfectly normal, especially for the interim between midterms and leading up to finals. But as we descend into the winter months, and especially here in Alaska, the word “sad” might not actually mean what you think it does. The person speaking could actually be referring to the acronym S.A.D., which stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder.
“What the heck is that?” you might ask. Well, S.A.D. is a mood disorder and type of depression that occurs during the same season every year regularly. It tends to begin and end around the same times, making its occurrence fairly easy to predict, if you know that you have it, or are prone to it. In Alaska and the northern hemisphere in general, people are especially susceptible to S.A.D. because of the cold weather and the lack of daylight. Symptoms include depression, a lack of energy and needing/wanting more sleep than usual, irritability, and a change in appetite. Sometimes, you can have or get S.A.D. and not even know it – so, if you’ve been sad and grumpy and extra-sleepy recently, that might be the reason why. Continue reading “Don’t be S.A.D.”