Winter Depression in Sweden and the Nordics

look at all the Christmas decorations on the snow isn't this just lovely so of course I'm gonna spoil it all completely by talking about winter depression in Sweden and the nordics yeah winner is a magical time in Sweden the streets are covered in snow when everything gets a beautiful glow especially at night but for some people it's not all that magical see seasonal affective disorder is a highly contested mood disorder in which people who are normally quite stable suddenly start to display symptoms of depression during certain times of the year it's contested because some reports claim that it's hard to differentiate between seasonal affective disorder and normal depression but if you've ever lived in the nordics you know that winter depression is a real thing just like with normal depression symptoms include lack of energy sleeping too much anxiety and overeating come to think of it it sounds a little bit like Christmas in general doesn't it and of course the symptoms also include the ever-present feeling that nothing really matters anymore foreign is amazing in the summer it's warm and pleasant and the Sun never sets literally in the Northern parts of the country there's Midnight Sun during the summer months I love the Swedish Summers but on the flip side I'm not a big fan of the Swedish Winters around October you'll notice that the days are becoming quite short and by November it's pitch black when you get home from work by December it's completely dark when you leave for work in the morning as well many people never see sunlight at all during the weekdays in the winter months living in constant Darkness might sound interesting at first maybe even a little bit exciting but it quickly overstays its welcome you don't get enough vitamin D when there's not enough sun and that leads to physical symptoms that are similar to depression like fatigue not sleeping well and so on also everything becomes more difficult and boring when it's cold and dark outside wanna take a walk better wrap up in three layers of clothing wanna do something funny in the evening well you can go to a bar or the cinema and that's about it you'll slowly start to lose the interest in being social when everything requires so much preparation and the already introverted swedes start to spend more and more time indoors by themselves foreign [Music] seasonal affective disorder you probably already noticed that the initial syndic disorder is sad sad some researcher in a lab somewhere thought that they were being really funny seasonal affective disorder typically show up in countries that have a huge seasonal differences and cold and dark Winters the actual course is debated something that is related to a lack of Serotonin because of the cold and the lack of sunlight foreign s believe that it's because of an overproduction of melatonin and in that case it's also the lack of sunlight that's to blame I mentioned vitamin D before and that's actually closely connected with the production of Serotonin so my money is on the serotonin it all fits together [Music] the percentage of the population that's affected by seasonal affective disorder varies depending on the source I've read one source tested five percent of the adult population is affected but I don't trust that number at all at least not here in the nordics another source is that around 20 percent of Ireland's population is affected and between 9 and 25 percent of Alaska there's one country that stands out a little bit more than all the other countries though and that country is Iceland [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] 'd think that people living on a small cold Rocky island in the middle of nowhere would be more depressed than people living in other Nordic countries but they're actually not a report from the year 2000 shows that the levels of anxiety and depression in Iceland is actually lower compared to the other Nordic countries they've also noticed that Canadians of Icelandic descent have lower levels of seasonal depression compared to other Canadians so one hypothesis is that it's a genetic trait of the icelanders another hypothesis is that it's because icelanders eat a lot of fish fish has a lot of vitamin D and as we talked about before vitamin D is necessary to produce serotonin low levels of depression has also been noted in Japan another country that eats a lot of fish so I guess as poor meat eaters are doomed to always suffer depressions during the long Nordic winter first [Music] one common myth is that the Nordic countries are among the happiest in the world but that they ironically enough also have the highest suicide rates in the world that is a myth though mostly [Music] if you look at the latest statistics the Nordic countries are pretty average when it comes to suicide rates Denmark is well under the European average at position 107. Iceland is at position 60 and Norway is at position 55. the European average is at position 65 and the lower you are in the list the better there are many countries that are much worse off Belgium is at position 35 for example and the U.S at position 31 but the Nordic countries have a much higher suicide rate than for example Moldova Hungary and Romania and out of all the Nordic countries Sweden has the highest suicide rate Sweden has historically had high suicide rates in the 1960s Sweden had the highest suicide rate out of all the developed countries in the world but the government took steps to try to improve the social welfare and the mental Health situation and things did improve but we're still worse off than our Nordic neighbors and no one really knows why we have the same dark Winters as our neighbors and the same cold climate and similar welfare systems but for some reason people decide to voluntarily end it all much more often in Sweden Christmas is an especially sensitive time for people with Suicidal Thoughts the loneliness gets especially noticeable when everyone else is enjoying time with their loved ones and people often have many days off days filled with nothing but their own thoughts thoughts that can lead to Dark Places if you're having a happy Christmas with your family and loved ones spare a thought for the less fortunate people out there especially a surprisingly depressed and suicidal swedes I think it's about time to wrap up this video so I don't ruin your day completely but I hope you found it a bit interesting at least like And subscribe so you don't miss more uplifting videos like this one but most importantly have a great day and stay safe [Music]

Channel: Three Star Vagabond

Views: 7,387

Keywords: sweden, depression, nordic, winter depression, sweden depressing, winter depression sweden, winter depression nordics, three star vagabond, living in sweden, sweden travel, depression in sweden, depression in the nordics, seasonal depression, seasonal affective disorder, sweden suicide, sweden suicide rate, suicide rate in scandinavia, winter depression in scandinavia, sweden winter darkness, stockholm winter, winter in stockholm, sweden depression

Id: hRyCINcb1TA

Length: 8min 50sec (530 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 25 2022