[Jocelyn]

I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, too. After trying medicines and therapy and having both fail, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I did quite a bit of research… it turns out that the original though of treating the seratonin imbalance in seasonally affected patients doesn’t work very well b/c the underlying cause is that you body’s ‘biological clock’ malfunctions. As daylight decreases, the body releases a chemical (melatonin, I think) that lowers the body temperature and prepares the body and mind for sleep. As daylight increases, the chemical is taken up or is dissolved, or in some other way is reduced (it’s been a while since I looked this stuff up, so I’m a bit rusty), thus producing ‘wakefulness’. I reduce the lighting around me about an hour and a half before bedtime, which gets my body to release melatonin. For the mornings, I bought an artificial dawn simulator; it hooks into the lamp by my bedside and will gradually increase the light emitted by the lamp until it reaches ‘sunrise’. I also stay away from any mood altering substances like alcohol, tobacco products, caffeine, and pseudo-ephedrine (in cold medicines). Most of my symptoms completely disappeared after only a week or so; the rest are mild enough to be tolerated without interfering in my life (like menstrual cramps, I suppose). I struggled for every winter through my adolescence and into adulthood, but the last three winters (the ones I’ve used the light therapy and made those minor alterations to my diet) have been very easy to deal with. You may want to talk you your physician about trying this while reducing your meds to see if you can treat the SAD without them or with only one of them.

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Name : Jocelyn, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Taoist, Age : 26, City : Roanoke, State : VA, Country : United States, Occupation : artist, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

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