Understanding the Toll Weather Takes on Our Mood

Samantha Hayes Reporting How many times today have you heard someone complain about the weather? Or maybe it was you doing the complaining! Cold temperatures and pollution are not only annoying, in some cases they're down-right depressing.

When a high pressure system sits over the state, the weather just doesn't change. It starts to feel like one day is just like the next--cold and depressing.

Perhaps the only good thing about January is, at this point, we are more than half way through the month.

Jennifer Eberhard: "I just hope it's one day closer to spring and the warm weather is coming, because I hate cold."

And Utah has had record breaking cold temperatures this winter. The cold, the smog, and shorter days make a depressing combination.

Sarah: "When it gets dark really early, or it's dark when I leave my house and then it's dark before I get home, sometimes I'm like, ‘I didn't have a day to do anything.'"

When the daylight hours shorten in the winter some people really do feel down.

Dr. Fred Reimherr, Psychiatrist, University Health Care: "You see instance of seasonal affective disorder and people with ongoing depression becoming more intense in the winter."

Last winter Dr. Fred Reimherr conducted a study of people with this disorder and found positive results with a blue light.

Dr. Fred Reimherr: "We are referring to that blue band light that had to be administered consistently early in the morning for a consistent period of time."

After seven to ten days patients in the study group showed an increase in energy and mood.

Dr. Fred Reimherr: "It's stimulating photoreceptors in the back of the eye that are related or connected to areas of the brain."

For everybody else just feeling a little down, Doctor Reimherr recommends a trip to the ski resorts. And another fellow we talked to says he knows another effective remedy.

Jake: "Hot chocolate in the morning. That's definitely what gets me through."

Another interesting result of Dr. Reimher's study was that the light therapy also helped patients with depression not thought to be related to the weather. It actually increased the effectiveness of the anti-depressant medication.

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