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What’s It Like To Be… is a fortnightly column where New Zealanders from all walks of life share first-hand experiences. Here, Dr Mia Jüllig talks about living with Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Warning: This story mentions suicide.
At the end of summer I always start to panic a little bit. My mood has always gone up and down but it’s always worse in June and December, coming into winter and summer.
Growing up in Sweden, I was the mopey kid who always hated winter. Until recently, I’ve never connected my dislike of winter and my low mood. I didn’t realise it could be Seasonal Affective Disorder (Sad), a type of depression that can happen when the seasons change, mainly in winter when there is less light.
When I’m down, I can get really weird and lie in bed and eat chocolate for weeks. It’s really bad - I can’t function, and I cannot snap out of it.
Last winter, I was sleeping a lot but not in a restful way. I’d look at my heart rate variability (HRV) readings recorded on my smart watch from the night before and see I’d been stressed out all night, lying in bed, probably with a movie on in the background. But, if I didn’t have the movie in the background, I couldn’t sleep at all.
Eventually, it got so bad that I had to take a week or two off work. I told my boss, “I can’t do this - I’ll have to catch up later because I can’t function with this intense brain fog.”
Mapping out time-sensitive work tasks that I couldn’t avoid in a detailed way, step by step, helped a bit. I would still get something wrong though, every time.
I watched movies to distract myself from the emotional pain I was feeling. But if I saw anything that reminded me how unproductive I was feeling, I felt so guilty. I was just lying there doing nothing, like a waste of space.
I tried to journal, but I’d overthink everything and just dig myself in a deeper hole.
I didn’t want to see anyone.
My two dogs were lifesavers - if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have left the house. I had to walk them twice a day because they need quite intense exercise. Sometimes I would take them to the beach and watch them run around while I was sitting down. I could barely hold myself up.
There would be the odd suicidal thought but not to the point where I would go through with it, because then I would seek help. I think if I had seen doctors and said, “I think I’m depressed”, they would probably have said, “Yes, you are. Here, have some pills.”
Heart rate variability unlocking the Sad mystery
As part of an experiment I was doing to measure my body’s response to supplements I was taking, I was seriously tracking my HRV.
HRV is a measure for what your nervous system is doing. Your heart rate is regulated by your autonomic nervous system, which is split into two parts - the parasympathetic system (rest and digest) and then fight/flight (sympathetic system). If your heart rate variability is low, it’s a marker that the sympathetic system may have taken over.
It just happened that I started this experiment at the beginning of May this year. I was taking some supplements that I thought would fix this other health problem, but my mood started crashing. I got really worried and then depressed. I started thinking about dying far too much.
That was really scary. Were the supplements causing this? What was going on?
Then, I thought I’d overlay my HRV data from last year to this year’s, to see if it had worsened. What I found were very similar readings. In both years, my HRV dropped in May and sat very low in June. It climbed slowly in July and then in August got back on track to higher (better) levels. That’s when I knew it wasn’t the supplements that were making me feel bad. It was a seasonal mood change.
This is the first year that I have come to the conclusion that I have Sad. I didn’t even think about it before. I started reading all about it. As a scientist, that’s what I do, “Here’s a problem, so let’s find out as much information as possible.”
Now, I’m making big efforts to eat the right food and get enough sleep, about eight hours a night, to get on top of the low mood.
Exercise is also a major component of me feeling better. I’m always telling my students that exercise is how you manage your stress. It pushes tryptophan through the blood/brain barrier into your brain where it can be converted to serotonin that will make you happy. If you don’t exercise, tryptophan will help make melatonin, that will make you fall asleep.
My research also showed me that Sad falls under the depression and bipolar spectrums, so I asked myself, “What supplements help people out of depression?”
Now, I’ve got a battery of things, including vitamin D and omega-3 pills. When I started these my HRV started lifting like some sort of jet plane. It’s crazy, in a good way.
I’m beating my HRV stats from last year. I’m now back at levels I had in early July last year. My yearly goal now is to “snap out” of the Sad sooner than every August, if I can.
Dr Mia Jüllig is the Deputy Director of the Bioscience Enterprise postgraduate programme at the University of Auckland.
Disclaimer: Always see your doctor to discuss any concerns you have about your mood, and before you embark on a supplements routine.
Where to get help:
If it’s an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
· Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor
· Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
· Lifeline – 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP)
· Youthline – 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat
· 0800 What’s Up - 0800 942 8787
· Samaritans – 0800 726 666
· Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 or free text 4202 to talk to a trained counsellor, or visit depression.org.nz
· Anxiety New Zealand - 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY)
· Healthline – 0800 611 116
· Additional specialist helpline links: https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/get-help/in-crisis/helplines/
