Are you about to lose it with winter? The snow is beautiful, of course, but for one out of every 10 of us, we’d trade an arm or leg for a ticket down to the tropics. For that 10%, the moodiness isn’t a temporary bane, it’s a seasonal chemical imbalance.

One study found that only 2% of all people who live in Florida had the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in the winter. This climbed to 5% in Maryland and then 10% of everyone in New Hampshire. The symptoms include mainly depression, craving of sweets and starches and a general sookiness that keeps you from wanting to go to parties, among other things. Apparently, three-quarters of those who have Seasonal Affective Disorder are women.

Because of the statistics that implicate what latitude you live at, experts conclude that some people are just way more sensitive to the dim light in winter. If you live north of the 40th parallel (Philadelphia,) the sun isn’t strong enough to generate Vitamin D in your skin in the winter time. (1) Is there a connection between Vitamin D and seasonal Affective Disorder? One study suggests that there is. Vitamin D isn’t strictly a Vitamin like the other vitamins, it’s more like a hormone that’s created by your skin, and many Americans don’t get enough of it. You can learn more about it here.

For pale skinned Scandinavians, they traditionally compensated for less sunshine in winter by eating Mackerel and Cod liver oil in the winter, two of the very few natural food-sources of Vitamin D. Now, the average Swede or Finn is more likely to visit a cafe and have LOTS of strong coffee while sitting in front of a full spectrum light box! The Scandinavian countries crowd each other out at the top of the list of worldwide coffee consumers.

So could it all come down to Vitamin D, full-spectrum lighting and a visit to Zoot? I love statistics and hard evidence, but “the” answer is probably a more holistic and personal collection of strategies for each person.

In modern America, we are fairly isolated from natural rhythms. For example, do you know whether the moon is waxing or waning right now? I don’t. How many of us eat what our region produces in the season it comes to harvest? We’re really enjoying our clementines right now! It’s a wonderful (sometimes guilty) luxury to not be restricted by some of the limits our ancestors felt. (like no coffee, bananas, coconut or avocados, ever.)
At the same time, humanity evolved according to those limits for millenia, and our elbowing past those limits can sometimes shock our systems. Take transfats. Great Idea! (soooo NOT) Another natural pattern we fight is winter. It’s a time to slow down, hibernate a bit, eat heavy moistening foods like nuts and meat, warming soups and the root vegetables and squashes that are left over from the autumn harvest.

What do we actually do as winter sets in? Starting in October, we get manically busy, usually. We eat gobs of extreme, balance-slaying Halloween candy and then try to recover our equilibrium before Thanksgiving hits. Thanksgiving is travel, family and food. We overdue it. Family drives us a little nutty so we have too much wine and then try all five desserts. Sleeping and body rhythms are disrupted for a little while, but we try to get caught up at work while trying to get our Christmas shopping done and just hope our equilibrium isn’t too far gone. As deep winter sets in, we are often frantic. The holidays are crazy! We all ask each other how they were afterwards and the most common response is; “They were great! So fun. But I’m so glad it’s all over.” Then we eat salads (summer food!) for weeks to drop some of the poundage we packed on with our partying.

This is a natural rhythm gone bad. What happened to the idea of hibernating?! I LIKE that idea. Curling up next to the fire every night with a book, after a satisfying whole-foods meal full of good fats and protein that kill my sugar cravings, keep me warm and give me sustained energy. THAT’S my idea of winter.

By late January, no wonder the sensitive ones among us are depressed and too sooky to go to another party! That’s our body’s wisdom imploring us to finally hibernate. It was trying to tell us nicely, trying to get a word in edgewise, but now it’s giving us an ultimatum.

Personally I don’t see “dysfunction” when I see Seasonal Affective Disorder. I see imbalance. I see cod liver oil, vitamin D and maybe even coffee as strategies to regain balance. But to learn from it, there are larger patterns that, if shifted, could prevent SAD from afflicting us next year, and maybe forever thereafter.

I like eating my oranges in winter and I like my electricity so I can read those book next to the fire, but I think every one has a different tolerance to our human tendency to break the limits of our evolutionary design.

Respect your body enough to listen when it’s “talking,” and especially take note of the mental comparisons and “should-be-able-to-s” that can derail your equilibrium. Everyone is unique. Take naps and take heart. Eat lots of chlorophyll. Veer towards what makes you joyful. Next year you might have the sunshine be coming from the inside out.

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