COVID-19 stress could worsen seasonal depression
With cold temperatures and quickly darkening skies, the winter months are seen as prime time for seasonal affective disorder.
It’s a type of depression millions of Americans endure, but this year, those afflicted by the condition — often referred to as SAD — might also be suffering from stress, anxiety and other emotional problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic and social and political unrest, health experts say.
“I think it’s going to be hard to tease apart that it’s necessarily SAD because rates of depression are higher in general” now, said Melissa Whitson, a professor of psychology at the University of New Haven and a licensed clinical psychologist.
Those who do have the condition could face a particularly grueling winter, given how much there was to be depressed or anxious about even before the season hit, Whitson said. “Any time there are multiple stressors, there’s increased risk,” she said.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, SAD symptoms typically start in the late fall or early winter and subside during the spring and summer. In some cases, people experience SAD in the spring and summer months.
“It’s more common during the winter months, in particular, due to the shorter days,” Whitson said. “And I think, after the holiday break, there’s sometimes a letdown.”
Symptoms of SAD include feeling depressed, losing interest in activities you once enjoyed, having problems with sleep and experiencing changes in appetite or weight.
SAD is “the perfect example” of an external stressor becoming “a stressor from within,” said Dr. Jeffrey Deitz, a psychiatrist who is an assistant professor at the Frank H. Netter M.D. School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University.
Stressors that come from inside include dietary changes, different sleep patterns, or having recently suffered an injury or illness such as COVID-19, Dietz said.
Those from the outside include worries about events going on in the world, from the pandemic to financial insecurity to the recent riots in Washington, D.C.
“Worry in the world around someone can trigger worry within,” Dietz said.
With SAD, he said, the problem begins with an external factor that people have little control over — the changing of the seasons. However, Dietz said, this external factor can lead to internal stresses, such as changes in body temperature regulation and different sleeping and waking patterns.
When SAD is added to the stress people might already be feeling about the pandemic and other issues, “you have the summation of external stressors,” Dietz said.
In other words, people can feel overwhelmed.
Whitson said there’s another unfortunate intersection of COVID and SAD. One way in which people can offset the impact of SAD is by spending more time outside. With the quarantines and social distancing that have become part of life under COVID, that’s harder to do, she said.
But there is good news. Whitson said there are safe ways people can lessen seasonal depression, and help their mood overall.
“Try to get some sunlight,” she said. “Even if it’s cold out. People will feel better the more they do this.”
Whitson also encouraged people to find the time and energy for basic self care. — “Eating those are .“well, even sleeping more imwell portant now,” she said.