But even though the frosty season is just arriving, it will soon enough begin to annoy us, and even make some of us feel a bit depressed. The medical profession still calls it Seasonal Affective Disorder. Dr. John Booker is a public health researcher at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. He says a quarter of all Alaskans experience some symptoms associated with the seasonal disorder. They also tend to report that they're more irritable, that they have a hard time getting along with people, oftentimes are less interested in social activities or social interaction.
People often report weight gain during the wintertime.
Although the process is not well understood, researchers say Alaska's long, dark winters disrupt the production of the hormones melatonin and ceratonin. Together the hormones control our sleep-wake cycle. So it tends to increase in the early mid-evening period of time and then goes down in the morning. And ceratonin is the chemical which produces awakedness. And that is supposed to come on in the early morning and last through the day with some ups and downs.