Chronotherapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) symptoms are very similar to the symptoms of depression, except that you experience them during critical periods of the year. In fall and winter, you may start feeling sluggish, unmotivated, sad, or hopeless, which can directly affect your mood. Over time, these symptoms can negatively impact your overall health, but various treatment options outside of medication and traditional therapy could help.
What is Chronotherapy?
Chronotherapy is a clinical tool used to treat depression and other affective disorders. In short, it is a strategy to establish appropriate circadian patterns through external stimuli control, proper sleep, and light exposure tools. When used in combination with medication and other treatments, chronotherapy is highly effective for alleviating symptoms related to SAD.
Several methods for this kind of treatment include chronotherapy light therapy, sleep deprivation or wake therapy, and sleep phase advance. You delay your bedtime by three hours each day and establish 27-hour days until you reach your desired bedtime. This process allows you to set a functional circadian rhythm with profound health benefits.
Further, you can practice chronotherapy at home, making it an easily accessible and highly useful tool for managing symptoms of SAD. Of course, you should consult a physician or therapist before proceeding with this treatment method to ensure it is the right choice for your specific situation.
What is Seasonal Affective Disorder?
Seasonal Affective Disorder is commonly known as seasonal depression, and symptoms usually begin and end at roughly the same time throughout the year. Typically, SAD symptoms start in the fall or winter months and extend until warmer weather. According to research, January and February are the months that people usually experience symptoms of SAD.
Symptoms could include loss of energy, a lack of motivation, sadness or melancholy, and suicidal thoughts in severe cases. We are all at risk of experiencing SAD; however, distance from the equator, family history, gender, and younger age are directly correlated to the onset of SAD. When you experience depression or SAD, it can directly impact your sleep schedule. Seasonal depression and anxiety can also affect the quality of sleep you get, leaving you tired and less equipped to manage stress.
When you lose sleep, various biological processes and neurotransmitter functions do not function properly within your body. For example, a lack of sleep leads to inadequate serotonin and melatonin production, directly linked to negative moods, low energy, and dissatisfaction. These biological processes are essential to living a healthy life, and getting high-quality sleep is the key to ensuring these processes are functioning appropriately.
Seasonal Affective Disorder functions similarly to depression and is a medical diagnosis for which you can see a physician and receive medication. Other treatments include various forms of therapy, including Seasonal Affective Disorder chronotherapy. If shifts have impacted your mental, physical, or spiritual wellbeing in your mood during the Fall and Winter months, consider exploring how chronotherapy can alleviate these symptoms.
How does chronotherapy relieve symptoms of SAD?
Chronotherapy functions to control exposure to stimuli or conditions that impact your biological rhythm. Focused on sleep health, chronotherapy can support various biological processes that result in improved emotional regulation and sleep cycles. Circadian rhythms control several physiological processes and biochemical functions; thus, synchronizing your circadian rhythm through chronotherapy works to restore the balance of these processes and neurotransmitter systems.
Chronotherapy can directly improve how well your serotonin and melatonin receptors work by establishing healthy circadian rhythms. Serotonin and melatonin levels can influence mood, emotional regulation, sexual desire, memory, and appetite. Thus, you improve your body's natural internal processes when you get proper sleep and experience healthy circadian cycles. Research has shown this strategy to be effective for the treatment of SAD.
What role does light therapy play in chronotherapy?
Sunlight is essential to our survival and health, and a lack of sunlight can lead to depression, anxiety disorders, insomnia, or SAD. Bright light therapy (BLT) is cited as an effective additional treatment method in conjunction with chronotherapy to treat depression symptoms.
Through controlled light exposure at crucial time points throughout the day, BLT can improve symptoms of SAD during 30–120-minute sessions of white light exposure. These lights expose the body to high-powered therapy lights that mimic the benefits of sunlight.
In turn, the light helps jumpstart vital biological processes in the body. For example, light therapy increases serotonin levels directly related to emotional regulation, energy, metabolism, digestive health, and more. Serotonin becomes melatonin when it gets dark out, which helps regulate your body's sleep and wake cycles. Through regular exposure to this kind of therapy, you can restore a healthy circadian rhythm, improve your biological function, and treat any symptoms of SAD.
It is essential to get high-quality sleep so that your body can effectively regulate and perform vital biological processes. Sunlight is one factor that can ensure you have a healthy wake-sleep cycle. When you get proper sleep, the biological response can function to improve symptoms of depression. In this way, chronotherapy light therapy is a highly effective tool for treating SAD while improving your overall health and wellbeing.
Conclusion
Seasonal Affective Disorder chronotherapy can be a helpful strategy for alleviating depressive symptoms by establishing healthy sleep patterns. Chronotherapy light therapy is a particularly effective strategy, as it functions to increase your exposure to sunlight and restore vital biological processes that prevent the onset or worsening of SAD symptoms.
Symptoms of SAD can significantly impact your life, and it is essential to understand the various treatment and support options available to you. While medication and traditional therapy can be incredibly effective, chronotherapy is an additional tool for improving your health and combatting SAD symptoms.
Additional SAD & Light Therapy Resources
About the Author
Brandon Landgraf is the Digital Marketing Manager for Carex Health Brands. He finds passion and fulfillment in creating content that enhances, improves, and enlivens others' quality of life. All of his written work is formulated to not only offer essential advice and tips but back it with proven studies and experts. His mission is to connect with readers and provide steps to make their lives better.
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About Carex Health Brands
Carex is your one-stop shop for home medical equipment and for products that assist caregivers with providing the best possible support and care for their loved ones. Carex Health Brands has been the branded leader in in-home, self-care medical products for over 35 years. Our goal is to improve the lives of our customers by bring them quality products that bring dignity back to their lives. With our three nationally distributed brands, Carex Health Brands serves national, regional and independent food, drug and mass retailers along with wholesalers, distributors and medical dealers.