Do you feel hot – sweaty and miserable and like your air conditioner never stops running? Do you feel restless – like you want to go outside but you’re totally over the pool and the sun (and the aforementioned heat)? Do you have some vague sense of ennui – like you’re ready for fall and all the fun it brings, but what the hell are you doing with your life now, today, in stupid August?
You, my friend, probably have the August blues, and they are a 100-percent real thing — but they also are nothing to freak out about.
The “Science of Us” feature for New York magazine recently broke down the August blues, asking if what hits a lot of people this time of year is a type of seasonal affective disorder (SAD).*
According to Stephen Ferrando, director of psychiatry at Westchester Medical Center, the answer is no, the August blues aren’t a type of SAD. Some variation in mood and mental wellbeing from season to season is common, but to be diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder — or any sort of mood disorder — one must meet some very specific criteria.
“In order to be diagnosed with a mood disorder, you have to have at least two weeks of pretty persistent symptoms that don’t really get better,” Ferrando told New York magazine.
SAD is considered a subset of major depressive disorder. And while 10 to 20 percent of the population experiences depression, considerably fewer experience SAD: less than 5 percent, according to New York. Further, seasonal changes in mood that fail to meet the criteria for SAD are considered “subclinical,” or insufficiently severe and/or consistent to merit diagnosis, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real with a very real impact.
The August blues are “sort of like the Sunday night blues for a month,” Ferrando explained. This comparison makes a lot of sense. Like the weekends, there’s pressure to make the most of your time during the summer, resulting in some sort of anxiety when that time is coming to a close.
Now, for cam models, the idea of a conventional weekend is just about as irrelevant as the idea of a vanilla day job, but the point stands. Feeling like you’ve not lived life to its fullest can get to anyone. August brings that feeling for 31 successive days.
Prior to reading the New York piece, I thought the August feeling was just me. Turns out, it’s not. When you consider the very real shifts occurring this time of year — from weather to work and school scheduling to the bananas amount of fall holidays that are creeping up — it makes sense that your subconscious is triggered.
If you’re experiencing the August blues, take comfort in the knowledge you’re not alone and your cranky feelings will pass. You might even try to speed their passage along. Buy yourself a fall shade of lip gloss and line up some horror movies in your Netflix queue (here’s a fun list of some streaming right now). Kick those August blues to the curb before the month is even over!
*According to the Mayo Clinic, seasonal affective disorder (yes, its acronym spells SAD) is a type of depression related to changes in seasons, generally beginning and ending at about the same times each year. If you’re like most people with SAD, your symptoms start in the fall and continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody. Treatment for SAD may include light therapy (phototherapy), psychotherapy and medications.
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