Sometimes people find themselves becoming depressed during certain seasons. Commonly referred to as the “winter blues”, seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a real diagnosis of depression during the late fall to spring months. The depression from SAD depletes people of energy, makes people tired and lethargic, and causes moodiness and irritability. In order to keep your energy and happiness levels up all year long, it is important to recognize seasonal affective disorder’s symptoms so you can help yourself during that time of year.
Symptoms of SAD
Feeling sadness and having very low energy is very common in typical depression, which is what SAD is a part of. During seasonal affective disorder these depressive symptoms become a little more stronger and they come with more symptoms, such as sleep problems, changes is weight, changes in diet, moodiness, irritability, concentration issues, feeling sluggish and unmotivated, crying for no apparent reason, and poor socialization skills.
How Acupuncture Can Help
Seasonal Affective Disorder can be treated with acupuncture. The acupuncturist will meet with you and discuss your symptoms and the severity of the symptoms as well. Your treatment will be unique to you, and will have no harmful side effects or addiction to any medication, as many anti-depressants have.
In treating depression, the acupuncturist will channel the positive flow of energy by placing the feather-like needles on different parts of the body. The acupuncturist is trained and knows which pressure points represent each area of your healing. With depression, acupuncture will need to restore your positive life energy, or “qi”, and reset your body. While doing so, hormones will be naturally released to help your periods of sadness and irritability. This may need to be done over several sessions, and each session may take anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. It all will depend on your severity of seasonal affective disorder.
Seasonal affective disorder can be debilitating, and you may not feel you have anywhere to turn. Choosing to visit an acupuncturist is a wise decision, and you will begin to feel better in no time as your positivity will begin to shine through.