Summer SAD

Apologies that I haven’t blogged for a bit - it has been an amazing summer here in Edinburgh and SAD thoughts have been far from my mind.

Fantastic summer weather here though is anything between 24 and 30 C (up to about 84F!). Although the heat has been hard to cope with at times (we are just not used to it in Scotland and air-conditioned homes are a great rarity) it was not enough to bring on the kind of seasonal affective disorder found in summer.

I just read this article from the Edmond Sun which explains just how depressing and enervating heat can be for some folks. If you’re driven to stay indoors in air-conditioned rooms the lack of fresh air (and negative ions) and even ironically the lack of daylight can bring on a kind of summer depression which lifts when the weather grows cooler.

I heard to that excessive use of sunglasses can lead to SAD - the light is just not reaching your eyes even though it is bright.

If you have the kind of summer where you feel like you want to stay indoors make sure you still get some natural light - maybe by walking outdoors in the early morning when it’s cooler or even spending a little time in dappled shade - it will still be lighter than indoors.

The Edmond Sun, Edmond, OK - Is summer making you SAD?

technorati tags:SAD, Seasonal+Affective+Disorder, Summer, Heat, Negative+ions