The SAD Episode

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

0:15Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, and it's a Stuff You Should Know hoedown to start the new year. Chuck's still wearing his novelty 2026 glasses that he got, sponsored by Nivea, that I believe what you were saying was Ryan Seacrest himself handed them to you while you were at Times Square, right? No, not handed. He put them on my face. Whoa. Is it because you guys are co-workers? Yeah, he's with iHeart, isn't he? Yeah, but I think like half of the U.S. is a co-worker because he's got so many jobs. Yeah, you're probably right. Well, if you haven't guessed, listening audience, this is our first recording of the new year.

1:00Yes. I'm probably going to be a little rusty.

1:06And can I just give a quick shout out to a couple of things? Yeah, please do. Great. Well, Josh knows all this stuff because we communicate outside of work, believe it or not, because we're friends. But I went to, you know, New York City. Emily and I do our little Broadway weekend in New York over Christmas every year. And this year, I just want to say thanks to a couple of people, most notably Natasha Hodgson of Operation Mincemeat fame. Because she is in the show and put together the show and Stuff You Should Know. and she's been in magazines. People alerted us as giving Stuff You Should Know credit as our episode inspiring that show and was kind enough to give us a couple of tickets to go see it.

1:52And it was fantastic. I highly recommend it. I know. I was loathe to miss it. That sucked. I wish you could have been there, but it's still playing, so maybe you can check it out. Yeah. I was especially upset when you said that she gave you, she came out into the audience in the middle of the show and gave you like a bouquet of roses. No, no, no. And the audience lifted you up on their shoulders. No, that didn't happen. Also, went to Bar Centrali, as I like to do before Broadway. What is that? Bar Centrali is where I go before Broadway shows. Well, what is it? It's a bar, but it's sort of a, I mean, you can just make reservations a week out.

2:32I think I've mentioned this before. It's sort of a secret place in that it doesn't have a sign or it's not widely publicized. But, you know, seven days out from when you want to go, you can call them up. They specialize in getting people in and out of their pre and post Broadway. And, you know, sometimes you can see Broadway performers there on the down low. I would have no idea that one could be sitting next to me and I wouldn't even know. Well, you might if it's if it's a famous, you know, like Bryan Cranston was sitting there. He was? No, but he could be. I saw years ago, I saw Dexter in there.

3:09What's his name? Dexter's good enough. Yeah. This year I saw the lady from Lost, although I don't think she's on Broadway. She was in there. But all this to say, big thanks to Jason, who helps take care of Barsentrale, and Joe's on Broadway. He came over on his night off just to say hi and was just a total sweetheart of a guy. What a trip. And then finally, I want to thank Santa. Santa Claus in the Radio City Music Hall show. I surprised Emily by going to the Christmas show this year for the first time. Oh, cool. Yeah, I remember Santa wrote in. Santa wrote in, and although he was not in the performance we went to, Santa, Adam, was very kind to send a Christmas video to Ruby.

3:52Have you been to the show? No. I'm just some bumpkin who stays at home all the time, apparently. Dude, you and you have to go to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular It is one of the delights of my life. The Rockettes was one of the most impressive, most amazing live shows of any kind I've ever seen. They were incredible. Wow. Okay, I'll go. Yeah, and it's, you know, you guys love your Christmas cheer, and it really, you can't, even the biggest grinchy curmudgeon wouldn't help but get in the mood, even at the 10 a.m. show. But the Rockettes were amazing, and Santa said that he turned them on to our listener mail and the Rockettes episode, and some of the now current Rockettes are listening.

4:37Oh, cool. So a shout out to you, Rockettes. Keep on kicking. Hello, Rockettes. We did a whole show on the Rockettes, didn't we? We did. Yeah. All right. That was amazing, Chuck. You were sick over the holidays, and it felt terrible. It really stunk. I got this cold that apparently there's like a two-week cold going around. Oh, no. That long? And it was just like every day I would add a new symptom. And I could do stuff during the day, but I was just sick the whole time. Oh, dude. I'm so sorry. It was rough, yeah. So thanks for that. I appreciate it. But we still had a great Christmas. Momo knows how to open presents.

5:16So she opened presents on Christmas morning. She was so happy. Paws or teeth? Quite a—both. Okay. Yeah, she's a pro. She knows what she's doing. She got some new rabbit treats, so she laid on her back and rolled on those. Oh, I love it. And she had a great Christmas morning. That's wonderful. It was a good Christmas after all. We hung out with friends on Christmas Eve. Oh, that's great. Our friends Laurel and Brayden and their kids, Elliot and Bear. I know those guys, right? Yeah, you do. You've met them plenty of times. So we got to hang out with little kids on Christmas Eve. And man, that will put you in the Christmas spirit when you don't have kids of your own.

5:50Yeah. How old are those kids? They're like eight and six, I think. Oh, yeah. That's fun. So like prime age. Yeah, right in the zone. Yeah. So thank you, though, for your sympathy over my sicknesses. Yeah, I felt bad. One thing I don't have, Chuck, which I am really happy I don't have because it's awful, is sad. No sads for you? I don't have sad. Do you have sad? No, I don't have sad. You know, we're talking about seasonal affective disorder. And just right off the bat, we should point out, because I was about to say, occasionally I get the winter blues. This is not that. This is a real, it's legitimate depression and comorbid with stuff like bipolar disorder.

6:32And we're going to talk all about it. But it's not just, you know, oh, I get a little blue in the winter sometimes when it's, you know, gloomy. No, but it's tied to that. Yes. It seems to be an extreme version of that. But you're right. It's nothing light. It's classified, I believe, in the DSM as a major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern. I think that's the clinical name for seasonal affective disorder. And there are people out there, I think something like 5 % of people, I believe that's an American statistic. Yeah, that's America. get the like real deal seasonal affective disorder where they have major depressive symptoms during the winter months.

7:18But something like 10 % or maybe even higher than that in the United States, people get what's called subsyndromal seasonal affective disorder. So where you don't have it where it can be considered major depression, but it's definitely worse than the holiday blues. And the weird thing about this, although it's not so weird once we explain it, It is seasonal. It's tied to winter. And it seems that they figure— Or summer. Which that one's just mind-blowing to me. Yeah, we'll get into that. Yeah. It seems like they have it figured out. They have it explained. So this is one of my fave episodes where it's like, here's how the human body works.

8:01Here's what's messed up with this when we're talking about this. Ta-da. I love episodes like that. Yeah, not a lot of mystery. Big thanks to Livia for getting the new year off to a great start with another banger. Yeah, hear, hear. Yeah, we should say that this is something that hasn't been officially, I mean, it's obviously been around since, you know, time began. Because, as we'll see, it's tied to seasons and especially light and how much light you're getting. So that's always been a thing. But it hasn't been officially diagnosed as a thing for that long. It was in 1984 when there was a paper by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, a particular guy named Norman Rosenthal, got together and they discussed these almost 30.

8:46I have a feeling one dropped out because there were 29 patients. Most of them had bipolar disorder and they all had what we now know is as sad. Yeah. That 30th one when they like one week in, they're like, how do you feel? And they were like, fine. And they're like, you're cut. You can get out of here. So yeah, bipolar disorders, we'll see, like, really kind of ties into this. It seems to be, like, also seasonal in some weird way, too. But pretty quickly after that 1984 paper, the DSM went all in. Three years later, the DSM-3R, as we all know, R stands for revised or rockin'. That came out in 1987, and it was, like, now it was a diagnosis.

9:32but it was used as a modifier as we saw a major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern. So it wasn't its own thing. It was just a subtype essentially of an existing depressive disorder. That's kind of how they first had it. Yeah. And, you know, because it's seasonal, the most common kind of SAD that we think about, like we mentioned, it is a very serious thing and it starts off in the fall, maybe early winter, and it kind of depends on where you are, as we'll see, although not always intuitively. There's a third act reveal that might surprise some people. It generally subsides in the spring, but I did mention that odd spring and summer variety.

10:15That hasn't been studied much. It's very, very limited. About 0.5 % of the population has this opposite pattern, but it is a diagnosable mood disruption. It just happens in the spring and summer, and it's tied more to sort of like oppressive heat and maybe unsurprisingly some of the things they recommend for that, which, again, we're going to cover a little more later is stuff like maybe stay inside, dim the lights, that kind of thing. Yeah. And the thing that gets me about the summer version, that much rarer one, is that the symptoms are almost in some cases opposite the symptoms of winter. So usually when you first start getting sad, it's around young adulthood, ages 18 to 30, I think.

11:02And most people who get it get it most years, but you don't necessarily have it every year. Women are four times likelier than men to have it. And if you have an existing mood disorder, you're much likelier to suffer from seasonal affective disorder. because it's almost like it takes your existing mood disorder, say bipolar 2, and just builds on it. There's an extra environmental punch to it that really kind of kicks it into high gear. Yeah, and that four times more common in women, that's really substantial. And we'll get into that. It seems to be tied to estrogen, but we'll dig into that a little bit more in a bit.

11:42But having family members, they think there's some genetic component to it. If you have relatives that have depression or any kind of mental health disorder, it's, you know, obviously it doesn't mean you will, but that could mean you might. I guess that's the way doctors say it. Yeah, you might. And not surprisingly, you're more likely to develop sad if you live in places in the far, you know, away from the equator, far north or south where there's going to be less sunlight or maybe, you know, in places like Seattle where there's just more gray days than others. Yeah, I was surprised. I couldn't find the other eight, the first eight, but Seattle was the ninth most affected city with seasonal affective disorder.

12:27I would have thought it'd be higher than that. I could not find the first eight. So I'm like, does this list really exist? Or was this just like a post-intelligence or made-up article? And do they list things like Tacoma? Like neighboring towns? Does that count as a different place, I wonder? That's a great question. What about Tacoma? Well, I just wondered. Tacoma's very lovely, but maybe Seattle might be a little more lively. Yeah, no, I can see that. No, no, everybody knows about Tacoma. Okay. Okay. It's been a long time since we picked down a particular city. Oh, I don't want to put Tacoma in our sights.

13:06Okay, we won't. Because, you know, you can't spell SeaTac without TAC. That's right. Right. So what happens when you experience SAD, seasonal affective disorder? I mean, most people can kind of come up with this idea of like what depression symptoms seem like, but there's specific ones that emerge with seasonal affective disorder. Yeah, I think, you know, generally what you'll see, like with most depression, listlessness, obviously sadness, interest in activities that you might normally like, You don't like as much. You may have a hard time concentrating, suicidal thoughts if it gets really bad, hopelessness, maybe guilt sometimes.

13:49And then some physical symptoms like just a weight like in your limbs sometimes. Yeah, like a lethargy, a fatigue. And those, yeah, that's kind of common among depression in general. But winter sad has some extra symptoms like oversleeping or just sleeping too much or more than you normally would. Craving carbs, overeating, weight gain, and then that fatigue, the low energy and tiredness. And all of those things, too, create like a feedback loop where, you know, if you're depressed and you start gaining weight and that kind of thing bothers you, you're going to be even more depressed because you just started gaining weight.

14:31In which case, if you're an emotional eater, you might go eat more carbs and gain more weight. And, you know, it just kind of goes on. So that's one of the difficult things about it is it's not just like I'm depressed. It's I'm depressed and now everything is set up because of this winter season for me to just keep getting more and more depressed while winter is going on. Yeah. And if you're sitting there thinking like, oh, man, like in the wintertime, I tend to sleep later and I tend to eat and maybe drink a little more and gain some weight. and I'm a little more tired. Those are also, that's why sad is such a sort of a unique thing because that also just describes a lot of people in the winter.

15:15But there is a difference, and we're going to be pointing out those differences. You mentioned summer was unusual because the summer sads because it's very much opposite, and that goes for the symptoms as well because instead of sleeping in, you might have trouble sleeping. Instead of eating too much, you might have a low appetite. You might lose weight. you might be anxious and agitated and irritable. Headaches is another one for summer sad. Yeah, it's like winter sad, you go inward and are kind of closed off. And with summer sad, you go outward. But it's not in any, like, that doesn't mean you're just more sociable.

15:54It means like you're more aggro potentially than you would be with like winter sad. So, yeah, it is. They're just kind of opposite. And yet they tie into, like you were saying, how people already are. Like you go out more in the summertime. You stay in more in the wintertime. So what seems to be the case with seasonal affective disorder is that it is a hyper or hypo version of a normal human biological imperative that we have learned as a society to try to ignore. And for some people, ignoring it is not really an option. because it's so pronounced. Yeah, and inescapable. Yeah. So there are basically four things.

16:40And like I said, if you feel like, oh man, I kind of feel those things in the winter too, listen to these four things because this is when you should see a medical professional as if one, if these feelings persist for days and days in a row, it's not like, oh, I just had a couple of rough days when it was like really rainy and cold. If your sleep and appetite patterns like really change is the second one. If you're coping with drugs and alcohol, that's a big red flag. And then the fourth one, if you feel hopeless or suicidal, for sure. And I think as far as diagnosis goes, you have to, I think it has to be for at least two years in a row, even though you did say you don't necessarily have it all years, you at least have to have it two years in a row at some point.

17:26Yeah. And because it is essentially, if you look at The winter sad and summer sad, they're basically two ends of a spectrum, mania and depression. Like people with bipolar 2 are definitely more susceptible to sad, and they might experience both types of seasonal. Although, again, just statistically speaking, they're much more likely to just experience the winter sad. Yeah, for sure. And if you do see a professional, they're probably going to ask you a lot of questions. You might even fill out an official questionnaire. There's no, like, blood test or brain scan or anything like, you know, other types of depression.

18:04That's the case as well. But you might get, they might rule things out. They might do, like, a thyroid screening or, you know, some other things just to make sure it's not something, like, physical going on. Right. So that's sad, everybody. And I think we should talk about where this whole thing comes from, they think, after a break, Chuck. our first break of 2026. Let's make it a big one. You still got it. You still got it. All right. Lately I've been learning some stuff About insomnia or alluminia How about the one on borderline disorder? Better yet, birth order Heard that one before But it was so nice I learned it twice Everybody listen up Oh, it's Charles and Joshua.

18:58It's stuff, it's stuff, it's stuff. It should now.

19:07This is S-Y-S-K.

19:18All right. So kind of like we were talking, it's kind of hard to diagnose this as far as when you should go to a doctor because a lot of people are just like this in the winter. And you're also sort of fighting, I think you kind of hinted at it, like a natural human intuition in a lot of ways. Because if you go back in time to the time where Tuk Tuk was roaming the earth, in the winter, they slowed down and they conserved energy because food wasn't around and it was cold. So they bunkered down. And there are some interesting theories around that, right? Yeah, they think it's possible that Neanderthals had like a real type of hibernation period in the winter.

20:03Not, you know, like a bear necessarily, but something more pronounced than humans. And that interbreeding with Neanderthals may have produced seasonal affective disorder in some people. Yeah. Which is pretty cool. When Homo sapiens started hugging and kissing Neanderthals? That's right. Like in, what was it? Quest for Fire. Oh, man. There was some real realizations in that movie. It was a, I mean, what an interesting movie, though, you know? Yeah. Ron Perlman. Yeah. He really, he's a good caveman. By the way, did a minute ago, did I say bunker down? Mm-hmm. I meant to say hunker down. Is bunker down even a thing?

20:47I feel like it should be more than hunkered down. It makes more sense. Okay. I didn't even know. I heard you and made, like, I grasped that you said bunker down. Right. But it's so natural that it didn't even seem wrong. Yeah. And our Georgia Bulldogs, what they say for them is hunker down, you hairy dogs. I'm going to start saying bunker down, and everyone's just going to think I'm like a CIA plant or something. Right. A narc. Yeah. Oh, I can't talk about the dogs right now. I know. Very disappointing. What a heartbreaker. Yeah. Okay, so you said something like that people back in Tuk Tuk's age definitely slow down in the wintertime, right?

21:27Yeah. Your body just changes. And that's still the case with humans. We have not evolved out of that. There's been studies, there was a 2015 study that found that the Cimane in Bolivia and the San people in Namibia, who are in no way, shape, or form related, one's in South America, one's in Africa, they both sleep longer in the winter and less in the summer. And you might say like, well, duh, we all do that. That's exactly the point. There's some sort of biological mechanism. There's some sort of, like I said, imperative where you, without conscious thought and kind of without a choice, you slow down in the wintertime and you speed up more in the summertime.

22:14That's just what our bodies do. And because of this natural thing, it can go haywire just like any other natural thing in humans. And when it does, that produces seasonal affective disorder. And they think they've got the mechanism to the whole thing down. Yeah, and that's kind of evidence in this German study from 2023. They did a study, and caveat all this was it was a study already of people that had sleeping issues with disturbed sleeping patterns. Right. So it was kind of, you know, it wasn't just the general population. And interestingly, they found that even if they were living in a place where it was mostly artificial light, even then, by season, their sleep cycles would vary.

22:57So it's not just like, yeah, if you live out away from all the, you know, out in the boonies, away from industrialization and your circadian rhythms are really dictated by natural light, that would make sense. But they found that that took place even when you were just living a regular, well-lit life. Yeah, even when you lived in a windowless, brutalist apartment in Munich. That's right. You wear a black turtleneck all year round. Oh, man. And then another kind of thing, like you said, that was a small study and it was of people who already had a sleep disorder. Yet it backs up what everybody kind of anecdotally already knows, right?

23:34You sleep more in the season or you're more tired in the winter season. Another thing that's anecdotal but is backed up by study is that your appetite changes, right? Some of it's cultural where like, you know, Christmas cookies are around. Sure. You're going to eat them. And Christmas cookies aren't around in March, say. Maybe some maniac makes like St. Patrick's Day cookies, but way more people make Christmas cookies than St. Patrick's Day cookies. So there are reasons that your appetite does increase just because there's more delicious stuff around. But we've also found that just by being in colder temperatures, being exposed to colder temperatures over periods of time, hormone levels change in our bodies.

24:19And we crave more calories because as we digest them, we produce more heat and that keeps us warm. We don't need bear skins anymore. Yeah, that's right. We need buckeye balls. And Emily's aunt comes to town every Christmas now, and her mom and her aunt and her sister and Ruby, they all have night-making Christmas cookies. Nice. Oh, dude. I did better this year than usual. I somehow managed to only put on five pounds. Hey, that's not bad for Christmas season. From Thanksgiving to January 4th? Yeah, that's great. That's not bad, because usually that number is more like 12. So, and I found that that temporary sort of gain goes off a little quicker, too.

25:06Yeah, it certainly can. Once you get back to reason, you know? Yeah, that's the key is getting back to reason faster than, you know, just not putting it off for the rest of the month of January. That's what I found. Yeah, and the buckeye balls are gone and those old fashions really slow down after Christmas. Man, those buckeye balls. Oh, God. I made my mom's Christmas cookies, my mom's recipe, the one that I grew up with as a kid that had confounded me for years because I couldn't get it quite right. It was always too flowery. Oh, okay. And in the last few years, I've learned enough about baking that I kind of figured it out on my own and I nailed it finally.

25:43Nice. Yeah. Man, I've got to have some of those. I'll make you some. Next Christmas, though. Yes, for sure. Not St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick's Day, maybe. Don't do it. But Yumi got me these cookie cutters that are all like kind of, they're like sentimental between us, like different shapes. Oh, that's nice. And one of them is broccoli. So I have broccoli shaped cookie cutters and I hate broccoli. Oh, I love that. That's fun. Yeah. I don't have any, oh yeah, we were talking about how appetite changes. That's right. Here's one thing though. You might think, you've probably heard that, like, you know, suicides spike around the holidays because it can be such a tough time of the year for people.