FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30,2007
PHILANTHROPY
Café gets charity from campus concert
ROC-THE-MIC
BY COURTNEY CONDRON cccondron@kansan.com
A concert benefiting Jubilee Café tonight will feature three local bands, and 100 percent of the profit will go toward the cafe.
Andrew Wacker/KANSAN
ABOVE, Cameron Casady, Lawrence freshman, looks on as bandmate Nick Garret, Burlington freshman, raps some of his lyrics during the Battle of the Halls last night. Both are members of a four-piece band called Seven South, named after the Floor and wing they live on in McColum Hall. The band took second place and the biggest fan support and a Nintendo Wii for their residence hall.
LEFT, Megan Pasley, Olathe freshman, performs an original song at the Battle of the Halls music competition. The audience voted Pasley the winner of the six-sact battle, which got her the $100 first prize.
11. 29.07 JAYPLAY
BLUE CHRISTMAS
notice
Some people think cabin fever is to blame for a change in mood during the cold months, but those weary winter blues you feel may be symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder By Chris Horn
By Chris Horn
Seasonal affective disorder feels like an extreme case of the winter blues. Symptoms usually pop up in November and fade away by late February.
Whitney Bashaw sits at a table in the Underground, flipping through the pages of her geology book. Studying has become a difficult task for Bashaw. She says her energy level is decreasing and she feels like she is in a rut.
"Things are kind of slow right now and I feel like my mood has done a roundabout since school started," says Bashaw, Shawnee junior., "Even fun things like movies or shopping seem kind of boring to me."
Bashaw says the mood swings she goes through have occurred the past few years and typically come after Halloween and last until late February.
PHOTO BY SARAH LEONARC
The wintry woes Bashaw and millions of other Americans experience may be symptoms of a mild form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms of seasonal affective disorder include depression, hopelessness, social withdrawal, weight gain, difficulty concentrating and loss of energy, among others. SAD is a cyclic condition, which means symptoms begin to appear around the same time each year. The Mayo Clinic says that seasonal affective disorder generally begins in young adulthood and that studies show women are diagnosed more often than men, but men have more severe symptoms. You may identify the side effects of the semester's end as an all-too-common low point of the year, but your holiday ho-mums could easily be the onset, or progression, of seasonal affective disorder.
Norman Rosenthal, professor in the psychiatry department at Georgetown University and a practicing psychiatrist who works with patients with SAD, says the time to seek assistance is when everything seems to be
go wrong in your life. His book, Winter Blues, discusses the common misconceptions of seasonal affective disorder and how to turn your abominable winter into a joyful season.
The National Organization for SAD says Rosenthal was the first researcher to look into the condition. He also named it. Rosenthal says in his studies most people don't acknowledge the condition and take action
to treat it. What people believe is an emotional, mental and physical funk is actually more severe than they think. Rosenthal says various environments and family history may be the culprits for most cases of SAD. Living thousands of miles north of the equator or having a SAD-diagnosed relative may not be the only indicator in your depressive mood. There is also evidence that a physiological
THE BEST WAYS TO COPE WITH SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER
Although it's impossible to prevent seasonal affective disorder, you can alter some aspects of your lifestyle to easily cope with the effects of the condition:
Maintain your treatment plan.
Take all your medicine and attend
all of your therapy sessions.
take in as much nature as you can.
Start an exercise regimen.
Exercising helps relieve stress and fights anxiety. Having an all-around workout of cardio and fitness training can also increase energy and lighten your mood.
Make your living space brighter with more windows and less sun blockage.
Enjoy the outdoors. If the weather is nice, go outside and
phenomenon might also play a role in SAD diagnosis.
Socialize. A good way to boost energy and mood is to stay in contact with your friends and relatives. They offer you support when you don't feel well or they can act as comic relief.
organized and budget your time.
Be healthy. Take enough time to sleep and relax and eat well balanced meals. Don't resort to alcohol or drugs as a means to relax.
Jay C. Dunlap, professor and chair of genetics at Dartmouth College, researches and studies the circadian rhythm, which is essentially the biological clock found in all organisms. The 24-hour cycle influences seasonal affective disorder diagnosis, Dunlap says.
Take a trip. If you can, go on a winter adventure to somewhere sunny and warm and let all your cares float away with the tide!
"It's going to be kind of hard," Bashaw says, "but this is something that I think a lot of people overcome, and hopefully I can, too."
hopes of coping with the effects of her altered mood, although she says sticking to her new regimen is difficult, especially with lurking finals.
Manage your stress. Be
The earth's light-darkcycleand a specific region's temperature spectrum can affect the normal circadian rhythm of any person. Dunlap adds that a change in the circadian rhythm does not entirely affect a person's routine and cause seasonal affective disorder, but he does acknowledge a common bond.
"The connection isn't clear, but the two are definitely related." he says.
Source:www.mayoclinic.com
The Mayo Clinic lists multiple ways to treat the condition. In order to fight the changes in your circadian rhythm, you could take sleep aids and antidepressants such as Ambien or Paxil, respectively. Even changing your diet and managing your stress levels can reduce the
effects of seasonal affective disorder. If your condition is extremely severe, light therapy and psychotherapy can be the answer. Light therapy is a procedure that uses synthetic light to reproduce natural light that isn't as abundant during the winter as it is in the summer.
Bashaw recently began a health diet and sleep routine in
VARIATIONS ON SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER
SAD isn't the only condition that the weather affects. Here are some variations of the disorder:
Reverse SAD
Spring and summer SAD There are many similarities in the symptoms of regular SAD, although there are striking differences in eating habits and sexual behavior. Symptoms include:
Anxiety
Insomnia
Irritability
Agitation
Weight loss
Poor appetite
increased sex dri
Reverse SAD is a condition of mania, a mental condition that includes an elevated mood, increased energy and unusual thought patterns, and is completely opposite of the depression-like symptoms of SAD. Reverse SAD is a rare condition and typically occurs during the summer. Symptoms include:
Increased sex drive
Elevated mood
Increased social activity
Hyperactivity
Increased enthusiasm
Over exaggeration
Source: www.mayoclinic.com
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