Monday, January 07, 2008



Blah, you think it's dark where you are, check out these afternoon photos from Ontario taken by Ruth of Body and Soul on the first day of winter. These Canadian bloggers take winter dark very seriously.

If the dark's got you down, check out The Center for Environmental Therapeutics. You can take some little quizzes about the states of your psyche and circadian rhythms. Find out your morningness-eveningness type (I'm 'moderate morning,' but really needed no fancy automated questionnaire to tell me that), whether your gloomy mood is SAD, sub-SAD, or just ordinary sad, and whether or not a light box would light up your world. And if light therapy is recommended, you can not only order a big old unit to blast out the blues, they'll even tell you the best time of day to use it.

5 comments:

Cilicious said...

I am a "definite morning."
No surprise there.
But I've noticed that I can stay up a bit later, and sleep in a bit later, since my work hours are the opposite of what they used to be.
Also, over the years, I've noticed that I always sleep better in winter and summer than I do in fall and spring. Maybe it's some weird equinox thing?

JeanMac said...

Those are great pics - we have daylight til 4:20pm now - happy, happy.

Ruth said...

This time of year I am ready to run out and pay $200 for a SAD light. We have had no sun for 7 days, just grey, foggy scenery and no real concept of dawn and dusk. It really does get people down. I am running to take the quiz and also share it with my daughter who works 12 hour nursing shifts...2 days, 2 nights, 4 days off.

Anonymous said...

This is your brother speaking. Wow, that AutoPIDS-SA was boring, repetitive, and depressing--made me want to go right to bed.

Mauigirl said...

I am a "moderate evening" - not surprisingly since I know I've never been a morning person. I used to be a "night person" but find I can't really stay up later than 1:30 or 2:00 these days because I can't sleep past about 10:30 anymore. (When I was a kid I could sleep till noon or later!).

I have "mild SAD" and am currently "moderately depressed" according to the surveys (but just barely into the moderate level). It is January which is the worst month for me - I can make it through though! I would love to invest in one of those lights. A friend told me she has one of the Dawn Simulating lights which helps her with SAD. I might try that first; I think they're cheaper.