Abolish daylight saving?

pblakeney

elbowloh said:

I first heard about SAD in Northern Exposure, so it must be true.

Such a surreal series that. 🤣

rjsterry

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

A quick Google threw up an incidence of 8% in Sweden compared with 3% in the UK. I don't think worldwide data is that robust as it is so dependent on self-reported, so who knows, but NICE seem to be convinced and I would imagine they've researched more thoroughly than both of us.

We had homeopathy on the NHS didn't we?

Could have put money on you bringing that up. 😁

If I've understood the article properly, when looking at a related data set as a proxy for reporting of SAD they couldn't find a correlation with seasonal or daily variation in daylight. That could indicate that SAD is really misdiagnosed depression or it could mean that depression screening questions are not an accurate indicator of SAD. I would also point out that hours of daylight are not the only factor which varies seasonally.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

A quick Google threw up an incidence of 8% in Sweden compared with 3% in the UK. I don't think worldwide data is that robust as it is so dependent on self-reported, so who knows, but NICE seem to be convinced and I would imagine they've researched more thoroughly than both of us.

We had homeopathy on the NHS didn't we?

Could have put money on you bringing that up. 😁

If I've understood the article properly, when looking at a related data set as a proxy for reporting of SAD they couldn't find a correlation with seasonal or daily variation in daylight. That could indicate that SAD is really misdiagnosed depression or it could mean that depression screening questions are not an accurate indicator of SAD. I would also point out that hours of daylight are not the only factor which varies seasonally.

Personally I would prefer to be treated for a condition I actually had.

It is a bit like fibromyalgia. Most likely a mental disorder, but it is treated as a physical disorder, so will never be cured.

Similarly, whatever underlying cause of the depression that is worse in winter like everyone else's mood, wafting the patient in the general direction of a daylight bulb is ducking the issue a bit, isn't it?

shirley_basso

It sounds like you don't understand it, to be honest.

While some people do need to be gripped by the side burns and given a boot up the backside, others need to be understood and helped.

First.Aspect

shirley_basso said:

It sounds like you don't understand it, to be honest.

While some people do need to be gripped by the side burns and given a boot up the backside, others need to be understood and helped.

Oh? 15 years of clinical depression not enough insight for you?

If someone had given me a lolly, I might well have felt better for 5 mins, bit I'd still have depression. Kinda the same thing.

laurentian

elbowloh said:

I first heard about SAD in Northern Exposure, so it must be true.

I used to love that programme! Your post has just prompted me to look where it can be seen again and it is apparently on Netflix - I'm gonna give it a look to see if it's as good as I remember it being . . .

Charlie_Croker

briantrumpet said:

I think this is just all proxy for people hating short days, and they'll never be happy, whatever the clock says. Personally I find it more depressing having to go to work in the dark than coming home in the dark. They did double BST in the late 1960s, but it didn't last.

I don't remember that but I do remember when they tried not moving the clocks for a while (Wikipedia mentions)

...the government of Harold Wilson to introduce the 
British Standard Time experiment, 
with Britain remaining on GMT+1 throughout the year. This took place 
between 27 October 1968 and 31 October 1971, 
when there was a reversion to the previous arrangement.

Analysis of accident data for the first two years of the experiment, 
published by HMSO in October 1970, indicated that while there had been 
an increase in casualties in the morning, there had been a substantially 
greater decrease in casualties in the evening, with a total of around 
2,700 fewer people killed and seriously injured during the first two 
winters of the experiment.  
At a time when about 1,000 people a day were killed or injured on the roads.
However, the period coincided with the introduction of 
drink/drive legislation; the estimates were later modified downwards in 1989.

The trial was the subject of a House of Commons debate on 2 December 1970 
when, on a free vote, the House of Commons voted by 366 to 81 votes 
to end the experiment

SAD: I believe I have this (not severe), in hindsight I think I've always had it, I just wasn’t aware I had it previously, something you work out over many years. So yes it does exist, but not everybody is aware of it.

I can see it’s easy to mix up the effects of the clocks jumping an hour (or two) with short days and long nights that the winter time brings. People in my experience don’t like the dark in winter but in the summer, night time can be fun.

shirley_basso

First.Aspect said:

shirley_basso said:

It sounds like you don't understand it, to be honest.

While some people do need to be gripped by the side burns and given a boot up the backside, others need to be understood and helped.

Oh? 15 years of clinical depression not enough insight for you?

If someone had given me a lolly, I might well have felt better for 5 mins, bit I'd still have depression. Kinda the same thing.

Apologies in that case.

Perhaps its a useful supressor of the symptoms in the short term while a longer term cure is found? SAD lights also light up for longer than 5 mins at a time (as far as I am aware).

What seems odd is your flippance about it's existence when you say you have struggled with mental illness, unles I've misunderstood what you are saying.

rjsterry

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

A quick Google threw up an incidence of 8% in Sweden compared with 3% in the UK. I don't think worldwide data is that robust as it is so dependent on self-reported, so who knows, but NICE seem to be convinced and I would imagine they've researched more thoroughly than both of us.

We had homeopathy on the NHS didn't we?

Could have put money on you bringing that up. 😁

If I've understood the article properly, when looking at a related data set as a proxy for reporting of SAD they couldn't find a correlation with seasonal or daily variation in daylight. That could indicate that SAD is really misdiagnosed depression or it could mean that depression screening questions are not an accurate indicator of SAD. I would also point out that hours of daylight are not the only factor which varies seasonally.

Personally I would prefer to be treated for a condition I actually had.

It is a bit like fibromyalgia. Most likely a mental disorder, but it is treated as a physical disorder, so will never be cured.

Similarly, whatever underlying cause of the depression that is worse in winter like everyone else's mood, wafting the patient in the general direction of a daylight bulb is ducking the issue a bit, isn't it?

Don't think there's a neat division between mental and physical disorders. There are plenty of other examples of physical treatments mental health issues.

First.Aspect

shirley_basso said:

First.Aspect said:

shirley_basso said:

It sounds like you don't understand it, to be honest.

While some people do need to be gripped by the side burns and given a boot up the backside, others need to be understood and helped.

Oh? 15 years of clinical depression not enough insight for you?

If someone had given me a lolly, I might well have felt better for 5 mins, bit I'd still have depression. Kinda the same thing.

Apologies in that case.

Perhaps its a useful supressor of the symptoms in the short term while a longer term cure is found? SAD lights also light up for longer than 5 mins at a time (as far as I am aware).

What seems odd is your flippance about it's existence when you say you have struggled with mental illness, unles I've misunderstood what you are saying.

In my experience, people have a propensity to wear medical diagnoses like a badge. SAD is one of these.

Using a UV or bright blue lamp will make you feel more awake. This is known. Going outside and doing something nice improves mood. This is known. Exercise improves mood. This is known. But if you geuinely have underlying depression it is likely to be a sticking plaster.

So treating people with depression by telling them it is actually something else is damaging, I think. Particularly if they are bundled in together with a bunch of people who have nothing wrong with them but have pestered their GP into telling them they have something wrong with them to make them feel better.

DeVlaeminck

First.Aspect said:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-finds-seasonal-affective-disorder-doesn-t-exist/

Sorry but you can't use facts to deny someone's lived experience.

rjsterry

DeVlaeminck said:

First.Aspect said:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-finds-seasonal-affective-disorder-doesn-t-exist/

Sorry but you can't use facts to deny someone's lived experience.

In a nice symmetry with the reporting of the Sewell Report, the article actually says that that particular re-analysis of data from a different study couldn't detect any seasonal patterns in that data. Which is quite some way from the headline that 'SAD doesn't exist'.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

DeVlaeminck said:

First.Aspect said:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-finds-seasonal-affective-disorder-doesn-t-exist/

Sorry but you can't use facts to deny someone's lived experience.

In a nice symmetry with the reporting of the Sewell Report, the article actually says that that particular re-analysis of data from a different study couldn't detect any seasonal patterns in that data. Which is quite some way from the headline that 'SAD doesn't exist'.

No, you guys are working back from the premise that it does exist and questioning the data.

Reminds me of when I was a scientist. I couldn't see a signal from a sample, and therefore concluded that the signal wasn't there. A theoretician told me I was wrong because his calculation told him to expect the signal.

rjsterry

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

DeVlaeminck said:

First.Aspect said:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-finds-seasonal-affective-disorder-doesn-t-exist/

Sorry but you can't use facts to deny someone's lived experience.

In a nice symmetry with the reporting of the Sewell Report, the article actually says that that particular re-analysis of data from a different study couldn't detect any seasonal patterns in that data. Which is quite some way from the headline that 'SAD doesn't exist'.

No, you guys are working back from the premise that it does exist and questioning the data.

Reminds me of when I was a scientist. I couldn't see a signal from a sample, and therefore concluded that the signal wasn't there. A theoretician told me I was wrong because his calculation told him to expect the signal.

No, I'm saying it doesn't support either argument. The headline writer added that bit.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

DeVlaeminck said:

First.Aspect said:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-finds-seasonal-affective-disorder-doesn-t-exist/

Sorry but you can't use facts to deny someone's lived experience.

In a nice symmetry with the reporting of the Sewell Report, the article actually says that that particular re-analysis of data from a different study couldn't detect any seasonal patterns in that data. Which is quite some way from the headline that 'SAD doesn't exist'.

No, you guys are working back from the premise that it does exist and questioning the data.

Reminds me of when I was a scientist. I couldn't see a signal from a sample, and therefore concluded that the signal wasn't there. A theoretician told me I was wrong because his calculation told him to expect the signal.

No, I'm saying it doesn't support either argument. The headline writer added that bit.

It supports one argument and concedes you can't completely rule the other one out. To be fair to the SA journalist, the abstract of the paper is pretty unequivocal as well.

rjsterry

You'd best get over to Cern and tell them they're wasting their time 😉.

More generally, I take your point about people wanting to put a label on things partly for the comfort that brings. Equally I think there's also a tendency to dismiss anything that is more difficult to observe and quantify for similar reasons. I suspect its just two different reactions to not knowing.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

You'd best get over to Cern and tell them they're wasting their time 😉.

More generally, I take your point about people wanting to put a label on things partly for the comfort that brings. Equally I think there's also a tendency to dismiss anything that is more difficult to observe and quantify for similar reasons. I suspect its just two different reactions to not knowing.

Fair.

fwiw there are physicists who consider a lot of what goes on at CERN to be the physics equivalent of making mud pies. And a lot of theoretical physics to be the physics equivalent of Harry Potter.