{"id":890,"date":"2008-01-29T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-29T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html"},"modified":"2008-01-29T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-29T09:30:00","slug":"dark-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html","title":{"rendered":"The Dark Ages: January and February"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last January I caught Eric underneath our dry, sagging Christmas tree with a bottle of wine in his hand.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Are you feeding the tree wine?&#8221; I asked him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If it&#8217;s as depressed as I am, it could use some,&#8221; he replied and showed me the two ounces of water left in the bottle.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a pretty accurate reflection of how most Americans (minus the ones in California and Florida) feel about January and February. A professor friend at the Naval Academy told me his students refer to the eight-week period before spring break as the &#8220;Dark Ages.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For those prone to depression, and especially the platinum-level members of Club D (like me), this time of the year can be terrifying. I circle the forty days BEFORE the forty days of Lent in my planner to alert myself about the high risk of relapse during this time.<\/p>\n<p>Less daily sunlight and changes in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Circadian_rhythm\">circadian rhythm<\/a> (our internal biological clocks that regulate eating and sleeping patterns, brain wave activity, hormone production, and cell regeneration) can trigger a case of the blues, which in some brains turns to pure black, or black and blue (neither of which is good). People suffering from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sada.org.uk\/\">Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)<\/a> aren&#8217;t a bunch of wackos making it up to earn a vacation in Florida. Research indicates that the lack of sunlight in January and February may alter brain levels of certain mood-controlling substances, like the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Melatonin\">melatonin<\/a> hormone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last January I caught Eric underneath our dry, sagging Christmas tree with a bottle of wine in his hand. &#8220;Are you feeding the tree wine?&#8221; I asked him. &#8220;If it&#8217;s as depressed as I am, it could use some,&#8221; he replied and showed me the two ounces of water left in the bottle. That&#8217;s a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Dark Ages: January and February - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Dark Ages: January and February - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last January I caught Eric underneath our dry, sagging Christmas tree with a bottle of wine in his hand. &#8220;Are you feeding the tree wine?&#8221; I asked him. &#8220;If it&#8217;s as depressed as I am, it could use some,&#8221; he replied and showed me the two ounces of water left in the bottle. That&#8217;s a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-29T09:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Dark Ages: January and February - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Dark Ages: January and February - Beyond Blue","og_description":"Last January I caught Eric underneath our dry, sagging Christmas tree with a bottle of wine in his hand. &#8220;Are you feeding the tree wine?&#8221; I asked him. &#8220;If it&#8217;s as depressed as I am, it could use some,&#8221; he replied and showed me the two ounces of water left in the bottle. That&#8217;s a&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2008-01-29T09:30:00+00:00","author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html","name":"The Dark Ages: January and February - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-01-29T09:30:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-01-29T09:30:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/9a07cb215ebbbdc185d2b2a55131e7a2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/dark-ages.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Dark Ages: January and February"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. 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