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Seasonal Affective Disorder is a depression that is caused by some seasons of the year. Most people know the winter-onset SAD where people get depressed when winter come and they tend to have less energy when this time of year come. There is also a summer-onset SAD, a very rare case of SAD where people get depressed when summer come instead of winter.

Winter-onset SAD is said to affect 5% of the population or 5 people in every 100. Summer-onset SAD is much more rarer than winter-onset SAD where they only affect 1% of the population or 1 people in every 100.  Those percentage only represent those who have the bad symptom of SAD. It is speculated that there are higher number of the population that have mild SAD.

Women are four times more likely to have SAD than men and people who have SAD averagely are between age 23.

The symptom for winter-onset SAD are food craving, weight gain, drop in energy, oversleep, fatigue, hard to concentrate, avoiding social interaction, irritability, and anxiety. Its like suddenly you have a bear syndrome where you need to hibernate in the winter.

The symptom for summer-onset SAD are the opposite from winter-onset SAD, which are: loss of appetite, weight loss, insomnia, and agitation.

Both of them are followed with depression and feeling of guilt, which can lead to suicide.

People with summer-onset SAD is more likely to have suicide than the winter-onset SAD as people that are depress and agitated is more likely to do suicide than those who depress and drowsy.

The cause and Treatment.

For winter-onset SAD it is obvious that the lack of sunlight is making this disease. So in order to treat the winter-onset SAD, you need to get more sunlight. Using lamps for seasonal affective disorder is one way to do it, or you could go to other place where it is warmer and brighter throughout the year.

For Summer-onset SAD it is the overdose of sunlight that’s making this disease. It is much more harder to cure the summer-onset SAD as for the winter all you need is light therapy, but for summer there are no light therapy. Cold shower, air conditioning, swimming in cold lakes or heading North could relieve the symptoms.

posted: 11 July 2
under: Medical information