Doctor explains how to tackle seasonal affective disorder

Doctor explains how to tackle seasonal affective disorder Source: ITV1

Transcript

00:00in that first hour of the day trying to get outside and get some sunlight if you

00:03get very early when it's still dark at the first opportunity thinking about

00:06walking to work for example which nobody wants to do in the winter but could be

00:09really important and the last hour as well having a really structured last 20

00:14minutes before bed a bedtime routine so that's reading a book using a pillow

00:18spray having a stretch if your brain starts to recognize these cues this

00:22routine before bed you're much more likely to sleep well and get off well

00:26to sleep at night so those are really important now thinking about treatments

00:30we should mention vitamin D we've been talking about this already this week but

00:36all of us should be taking a vitamin D supplement in the winter months and for

00:40many of us especially people dark skin all year round vitamin D deficiency is

00:46there's a lot of overlap when it comes to seasonal defective disorder and while

00:51there's some debate amongst the scientific community you don't want to be deficient

00:55of vitamin D anyway but if you've got seasonal defective disorder you

00:58especially don't