Jared Sousa                                     1/20/96

Descriptive Research

  Thesis:  The amount of sun people receive affects their   		 mood.

 A young woman lies asleep on a cold, overcast winter morning.  At 4 A.M., a faint
 incandescence radiates from a light bulb placed near her bed.  The light gradually gains
 intensity and covers until 6 A.M., when the woman awakes.  She had just experienced a
 simulated dawn of a new day.  After being treated with this for several days, the woman's
 annual winter depression slowly goes away.  Does this mean that  the less sun you get the
 worse you feel, or perhaps the more you get the better your mood?  It is very possible that
 you may feel this way as millions of people worldwide have experienced it first-hand.  This
 phenomena is still sort of a mystery as many researchers don't completely understand why
 this happens.  "It may be that certain individuals have inherited vulnerability that causes
 them to develop depression in the absence of exposure to sufficient environmental light"1. 
 Frederick A. Cook, the arctic explorer, provided a vivid description of the effects of
 prolonged darkness on the human psyche:  "The curtain of blackness which has overfallen the
 outer world has also descended upon the inner world of our souls," Cook wrote in his
 journal on May 16,  1898, "Around our tables . . . . men are sitting about sad and dejected
 lost in dreams of melancholy.  For brief moments some try to break the spell by jokes, told
 perhaps for the 50th time.  Others grind out a cheerful philosophy; but all efforts to
 infuse bright hopes fail."2  Some believe that light affects the body's ability to make
 serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps induce feelings of calm and well being.  The eye's
 sensitivity may also play a part in sun/mood relations.  A study was done to a group of
 people in the winter and summer.  In the winter the many individuals experienced much more
 difficulty seeing dim light after sitting in the dark for a while.3  Another study done in
 Vancouver shows that electrical activity in the retinas when a bright light is shone, is
 significantly less in winter4.   

 As much as 5% of Americans suffer from Seasonal Affective 
disorder, also known as SAD5.  SAD is an illness in which the sufferers feel depressed, feel
lethargic, and they overeat .  There is no known cause for this widespread illness.  Many
researchers of SAD are speculating on the idea that SAD patients might have seasonal
variations in their melatonin secretions.  A study of melatonin patterns in SAD sufferers
was done to determine if melatonin was a factor in the disorder.  Since mostly women are
affected by SAD, researchers used healthy women as the control.  The researchers who found
that the significant difference in winter and summer pacemaking that occurred in SAD
patients also saw similar patterns in the healthy women.  Other studies show that a SAD
sufferer's eye usually does not take in as much sunlight in the winter as a normal person,
which may exaggerate the depression and other symptoms.6  Most SAD patients treated with
light therapy for a few weeks usually lose the depression.  SAD patients that tended to eat
more than one portion of sweet things (such as chocolate, cake, or ice cream) per day
usually found temporary relief from their illness.7  Swiss scientists believe that the sweet
foods seems to "trigger" the release of the same mood-altering substances that light
triggers.  

 Nevertheless, light  -- or lack thereof -- can really get under our skin.  For instance,
 "Rapid changes in the day length greatly modify the daily cycle of sleep and melatonin
 secretion," report researchers led by psychiatrist Thomas A. Wehr of the National Institute
 of Mental Health, ". . . brain mechanisms that detect and respond to seasonal changes in
 day length may have been conserved in the course of human evolution."8  The findings with
 the sun's affect on humans matched those already observed in rats.  Many of us have not yet
 realized what an important factor light is in our daily life.  "Light is a complex stimulus
 that has been inadequately specified, given the intense clinical experimentation of the
 last five years."9   Research with these results easily prove that the sun and light really
 do alter our mood, and have a great influence on our lives.