“I should have been born a bear. After all, bears, unlike humans, have the right to hibernate.” With these words, printed in the October 24, 1991, Washington Post, a patient of Dr. Norman Rosenthal made the scientific world acknowledge that many of us stop being ourselves when the days get noticeably shorter in the fall.
The history of this discovery is fascinating. Who does not feel some nostalgia with the arrival of autumn? Autumn means a return to routine, the loss of freedom, the end of meetings – new and easy. Falling leaves seem to remind of a departed love. Raincoats and coats announce that rain and cold are ahead. Is it any wonder that in autumn the mood is unstable? This is probably why we psychiatrists have for decades refused to listen to patients when they talk about this feeling of “hibernation” from autumn to spring. We considered these complaints as manifestations of an underlying psychological problem or ordinary depression.
Meanwhile, the symptoms were different, similar to the hibernation of animals: the patients were increasingly seized with a kind of lethargy, they slept longer than usual, it was increasingly difficult for them to get up in the morning. Finally getting up, they preferred to be left alone, avoiding any contact, even by telephone. Their plans and desires, which inspired them so much a couple of months ago, now seemed to them a heavy duty, which they should rather “push” in order to “live in peace”. Their libido was gone, and they were craving sweets and starchy foods as if they were trying to replenish their supplies. And if we listened to them – instead of forcing them with pre-prepared theories – we would also hear that dimly lit rooms began to frighten them and that they dream of the south and light in order to feel alive again.
But all of us at the Faculty of Medicine studied in the course of biology the effect of the change of seasons on animals. What’s more, we knew that the awakening from hibernation, the burst of energy, the frantic search for a mate, or hyperactivity (in building a nest or doing some other “project”) is caused by one single thing – an increase in the amount of light, which stimulates a small gland in the back of the brain and reduces production of melatonin. We all know that with the advent of spring we feel a surge of energy and desire.
Those symptoms of depression that are directly related to the amount of daylight can be alleviated.
But we could not imagine that we humans, at the deepest level of our nature, can depend on the amount of light in the same way as animals. It was Norman Rosenthal, a psychiatrist who came to the United States from South Africa, with colleagues from the National Institute of Mental Health (USA), who forced the scientific community to recognize this obvious fact *. Noticing how much a change in the amount of light affects him, he carried out an experiment that showed that it was possible to alleviate the symptoms of “hibernation” with the help of lamps that mimic the main components of daylight. The results were so convincing that even the most skeptical colleagues began to ask to lend them lamps in order to test them for themselves …
Studies show that about 30% of us feel a significant drop in energy between October and March, and for 10% the symptoms are so significant that we can talk about depression. However, these discoveries have not been widely used in medical practice: luminotherapy (light therapy) is still underused. Meanwhile, new research shows that even ordinary – not related to the season – depression can be significantly weakened if the patient spends half an hour in the morning (during breakfast or reading a newspaper) near such a lamp **. The neglect of such a simple method of treatment is probably due to the fact that there is no patent in the world, so there is no profit in urging doctors to “prescribe” it to patients more widely.
* N. Rosenthal, G. Pons. “Thirst for light. Light therapy: remedy for seasonal depression. Editions Jouvence, 2006.** D. Kripke. «Light Treatment for Nonseasonal Depression: Speed, Efficacy and Combined Treatment». Journal of Affective Disorders, vol. 9 (2), 1998.