Seasonal Affective Disorder

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JEFF GLOR: Had enough of this? With spring right around the corner, it's time to say goodbye to the bitter temperatures, the blowing snow. Time to slough off those bundled layers. And for millions of us, time to get back to normal after a season of SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder.

STEPHEN RAVENSCRAFT: There were times when I couldn't hardly get out of bed.

JEFF GLOR: Stephen Ravenscraft says it's like living life in a fog.

STEPHEN RAVENSCRAFT: I ended up feeling very isolated. I felt uninterested in most anything that interested me prior to severe depression.

LYNNE SPEVACK: feel sluggish mentally also, kind of like there were cobwebs or cotton in my brain.

JEFF GLOR: Lynne Spevack has grappled with it for years.

LYNNE SPEVACK: And feeling that life is kind of bleak. You know the saying about rose-colored glasses? When you have SAD, it feels like you're wearing gray glasses, and just everything feels kind of gray.

JEFF GLOR: What distinguishes SAD from other kinds of depressions is its uncanny link to the calendar.

Does this come on like clockwork, same time every year?

LYNNE SPEVACK: Every fall. Probably around, I'd say, November for me, the slump would start, and it would lift in the spring. And that was like clockwork.

JEFF GLOR: Spevack and Ravenscraft are among an estimated 10 million Americans who grapple with full-blown SAD. Millions more suffer with less severe symptoms. And if you're one of those skeptics who think SAD is a made-for-TV ailment, Dr. Michael Terman begs to differ.

DR. MICHAEL TERMAN: It's as severe as any depression.

JEFF GLOR: Terman specializes in SAD research at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

To the people who say this is not real, your response is what?

DR. MICHAEL TERMAN: There's nothing to joke about a depression. It's a miserable experience for these people for up to five months each year.

JEFF GLOR: And what makes SAD unique is not only when it strikes, but where. Doctors find that SAD is about two and a half times more common in Pennsylvania and north than it is in, say, Texas or Florida. That might not be surprising. After all, here in Miami, winter feels an awful lot like summer. But researchers say it's not really the temperature that keeps SAD at bay. It's the light. Winter days in the South are longer than in the North.

LYNNE SPEVACK: I feel better the minute I step outdoors.

JEFF GLOR: Right away?

LYNNE SPEVACK: It really is that fast for me. It's different for different people.

JEFF GLOR: Since SAD seems to be linked to our exposure to light, doctors urge patients to get outside during the day.

LYNNE SPEVACK: If you're in a pretty place like this, that could be—

JEFF GLOR: Which is why Lynne Spevack calls the winter walking tour she gives at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden "chasing away the winter blues." And then there are contraptions like these.

How much of a difference has the light box made in your life?

LYNNE SPEVACK: It's a tremendous difference. It maintains my good mood each day.

JEFF GLOR: Doctors believe that's because bright light inhibits the brain's production of the hormone melatonin, which makes us sleepy. Dr. Norman Rosenthal, a pioneer in SAD research, was one of the first scientists to understand this linkage between SAD and light.

DR. NORMAN ROSENTHAL: It stimulates the retinas of the eyes to send signals back to the brain.

DR. MICHAEL TERMAN: You flip on the light.

JEFF GLOR: No surprise, then, that light therapy has become the most common treatment for symptoms of SAD. Dr. Terman says its effects are almost immediate.

If I come to you with a severe case of SAD, how quickly can you turn that around?

DR. MICHAEL TERMAN: Best-case scenario?

JEFF GLOR: Yeah.

DR. MICHAEL TERMAN: Three days.

JEFF GLOR: Dr. Rosenthal says there's reason to believe other brain chemicals are light-sensitive as well.

DR. MICHAEL TERMAN: One is serotonin, and others are norepinephrine and dopamine, all three of which, incidentally, are also affected by antidepressants.

JEFF GLOR: What about antidepressants? Doctors believe they can work as well. Stephen Ravenscraft says that for him a combination of antidepressant drugs works best of all.

STEPHEN RAVENSCRAFT: —that I was saying to my wife, this is really different. You know, this year, I'm not even bucking up and struggling through or pushing through, determined. I'm just living life.

JEFF GLOR: Still more treatments are on the horizon, including a variation of light therapy dubbed "simulated dawn." A computer slowly turns on a bedroom light in early morning as you sleep.

And maybe polar bears are on to something. No, not these polar bears, these polar bears. Those fans of frigid waters may not be so crazy after all. Because crashing waves, thunderstorms, and waterfalls all create negative ions as air molecules are torn apart. And while scientists don't understand why, they do know that negative ions seem to have a positive effect.

DR. MICHAEL TERMAN: So this is an electronic ionizer. This is a new kid on the block.

JEFF GLOR: Dr. Terman is now experimenting using the ions as a cutting-edge treatment for SAD.

DR. MICHAEL TERMAN: [INAUDIBLE] active [? in ?] antidepressant.