Cabin Fever

We are now in the depths of winter.  The first two weeks of January are typically the coldest part of the season and this year has been no exception and my primary concern has been keeping the pipes from freezing.  The Catskills in New York State, where I live, provides one with the full gambit of the seasons.  People travel from far and wide to see our fall foliage and spring is a welcome contrast to the ice block of time that is winter.  Summer is a moist cauldron of deer flies, ticks and mosquitoes and even when winter is demonstrating its most brutal tendencies I never long for summer.  I guess three out of four isn't bad.

The days are beginning to lengthen a few minutes at a time, but the sun skims low across the horizon as February approaches. This is the time of year when life becomes a bit gray.  I shave and bathe only when I must,  I start to resemble Jack Torrence in the Shining (the twin girls still terrify me) and Vitamin D is in short supply.   The Mohonk Mountain House, just a few miles from my house, where Steven King has vacationed for decades, is rumored to be the inspiration for the Over Look Hotel. The significance of this bit of trivia serves no purpose for this blog other than to make the reader say, "Oh, that's neat."

The reality of living in the great northeast in the winter is that we don't get enough sunlight which has been shown to effect people's moods, diets, sleeping patterns and overall health.  It is impossible to receive an adequate amount of vitamin D (D) from the sun this time of the year due to the angle of the rays cast by the burning orb of death on this portion of the earth.

D is not a vitamin.  It is a fat soluble cholesterol known as a secosteroid.  Sunlight provides dermal synthesis of D so it can then be utilized in the kidneys, liver and small intestines for, among other things, the firing of neurons and the absorption of calcium by your bones.

The necessity of this process cannot be overstated.  Without D your bones become friable leading to osteomalacia (bone thinning), osteoporosis in adults and rickets in children.  You ingest D with certain foods like eggs, fish and (God help us) "fortified foods."  The problem with sunlight is that it is also associated with (notice the hole in my nose) skin cancer, so the medical profession is reluctant to encourage folks to sunbathe and there is speculation that the use of sunscreen has led to a D deficiency in the northern hemisphere.

A lack of D contributes to heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure and cancer, and it is believed that not enough of it may be a factor in both Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease.  In terms of mood, sunlight and D are significant factors in Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).  Ten million North Americans suffer from seasonal depression.  Two hundred I.U.s of D, a low number, are recommended for young adults and older adults should take two to three times that amount. But there are many people who have trouble absorbing adequate D through their intestines, so light is their primary source of synthesis.

This begs the question: "What-do-I-do?!"

I recently purchased a SAD light on line.  Evidence shows that exposing yourself to 30 minutes of light from a 10,000-lux lamp significantly helps with depression and is as beneficial for your mood as taking anti-depressants.

My light is somewhere in the mid-west.  I am tracking its progress - maybe stalking its advance is a more accurate description.  When Al, the always upbeat UPS guy, shows up at the house I will no doubt throw open the door and greet him with a maniacal smile:  "Here's Johnny!"  Once I have used the device for  a period of time I will post my findings.  Until then I will do my best to be outside as often as I can during daylight hours if only to prevent myself from becoming a mole.