Why we get seasonal affective disorder in the PNW
 

Mods can you correct my bad spelling. Its affective not affecrive. See its already started. Thanks

What are you talking about? Sunday sounds like a beautiful day? "Mostly cloudy, with a high near 55." What more could you ask for? That'll be the best weather in the whole month of November.

So wait... 20 straight days without sunlight is bad for me? :lol:


One of the amenities at my apartment complex' clubhouse is a tanning bed. I initially thought it was a silly idea, but now I go for 5 minutes, 2 - 3 times/week during the winter. I don't actually lay down in it; I sit in the room with the bed open and the lamps on, just to get some "sun" exposure. It really does help.

I bought a "happy light" from Ott,10,000 lux of full spectrum light without the UV rays. I'll let you knoow in February if its working. If I don't feel like slashing my wrists then its working. Just think Daylight Savings time ends this weekend so it will be dark at around 4:00 Oh that's so nice. :(

They work. Trust me.
I have an Ott tube as one of the bulbs in each of my 4' shop lamps, and we have another one in my fiancee's reading lamp. They bust the winter blues, and as a bonus you can keep your summer plants alive with them. :) I started tomatos from seed under them last year around March, and had full plants ready to go outside by late May.

Mine is a desktop model. In the evening when I'm doing anything on the computer I just turn it on. I'm told it takes a while to start working so I've been using it since the first week of September along with vitamin D supplements

Yeah, please keep us posted on their effectiveness. I'm interested in getting a couple, but they're rather expensive.

Just out of curiosity, are you guys northwest natives or transplants?

Transplant. Moved to eastern washington in 1983, moved to seattle in 1986. Love it here.

I for one don't mind the weather here nine months out of the year. Late Nov/Early Feb sucks, but mainly because of the darkness. The gray and drizzle does not bother me. Of course summers are AWESOME.

Clifton - Ott tubes? They go into standard light fixtures? Where do you buy them? My wife gets a little SAD in the wintertime and something like this may be good for her.

I work in what used to be a large textile mill. My office has no windows. The two 100 watt grow lights pointed at the cinder block wall to my left keep my coworkers alive.

I'm originally from northern Idaho- not as extreme rainfall as true PNW, but certainly a lack of sunlight during fall and winter. Boise, where I live now, is much further south and more or less in the desert. I think I have almost a reverse SAD- it stay too bright here and never rains! I remember it starting to get dark on my way home from school up north, down here it's light til 10pm in the summer- freaks me out!

I thought I was tough cycling to work in (light) rain yesterday morning. Then I passed a woman jogging in the park, pushing her baby in a jogging stroller. There was a plastic ran cover over the top of the stroller, protecting the baby, who seemed to be having a good time.

I felt humiliated for a minute -- then I stopped and told the baby to HTFU and lose the rain shield.

Are we in the same Boise? Sky looks pretty gray and rainy to me lately. :)

It's rainy and gloomy here in Chicago, and has been that way for a while. I don't see how you folks can live like this for long periods of time.

I'm kicking myself for not riding in today (dry, warm so far) but it just didn't work out with a bunch of mid-day trips I need to make. I'll be on the road Sunday though...

No motor, we adapt. I moved here from Chicago in '97 and I'll take our winter over yours. I still have painful memories of huddling in the stairwell to stay out of the wind and snow at our Metra stop near Clyborn. That, and having to put neoprene mittens on my dogs' feet so his pads wouldn't fuse together on after-work walks.

Yeah you're right- it's been fairly wet and dreary here lately. I'm hoping this whole global warming thing positively affects our weather... at least as far as I'm concerned. ;)

I'm another Chicago transplant (2001).

We have a whole closet of super-heavy "Chicago winter wear" that we never use in Seattle. But we now have an entire new wardrobe of "wet weather wear" -- light, medium, heavy.

My wife liked cold and snowy. I like gray and rainy better. My Springer Spaniel, who was known to climb over the ice to jump in Lake Michigan in January, will swim in any kind of weather, so he's indifferent.

I grew up near Chicago. I'll take this over that any day.

A daily dose of 400mg Vitamin D helps too.
I noticed that after doing this for a couple years I don't want to crawl into a hole mid-November and not come out until March. Cycling helps, but when one is commuting to/from work in the dark and work in a building during the "daylight" hours so no "light" hits the skin it becomes a little difficult to function socially.:twitchy:

One of my buddies has those in his house. Of course, it's what's under them that gets him through the winter...

I moved out here from Maryland in '95. I still miss the idea of having four seasons, but I'm definitely willing to accept the rain in exchange for the temperature extremes and humidity. A little snow once in a while would be nice, but I guess I can always drive up Mt. Hood to get that.

Forecasts like the above and the clocks "falling" back on Sunday make me happy for this recent purchase:

http://media.rei.com/media/ii/2e5fbc...ec6aff0bd7.jpg

I've been here since 1978 so I'm not a recent transplant. It seems to have gotten worse in the last 5 years. I got the Happy light last Feb. so by the time I had been using it a while we were into spring so I didn't need it. Now I'm sitting in front of it every day for at least a half an hour. The lack of vitamin D is one of the contributing factors of S.A.D. so the light gives that and the vitamin supplement should help this year. I'm really going to try to stay ahead of this stuff this winter. I was ready to slash my wrists last year. I'm pretty good till after the holidays then BAM I want to crawl into a hole. I love it here in the summer there is no better place. When I retire we are going to spend at least 3 weeks in a sunnier place come mid January

Yeah, I used to live in the UP of Michigan. In the place where I lived, it wasn't uncommon to not see the sun for 2 or 3 months at a time, and we had days as short as they get in the US outside of Alaska.

Once I realized what the problem was, I just started spending time outside (cross country skiing) and I was fine.