SAD

Within the eye, are a class of retinal cells that respond to light intensity by sending signals directly to the limbic system, home to much of our emotional content in the brain. Without these signals, the emotional content of the limbic system is allowed to run amok.

This is greatly aggravated by stress, which makes us more sensitive to feelings of fear and anxiety, decreases our energy levels, inhibits our cognitive function and produces masses of steroid hormones which inhibit the functionality of serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline.

The ‘fight or flight’ branch of our nervous system also filters our thoughts through the lens of despair and on all levels our ability to engage normally becomes compromised.

If we can increase our resistance to stress in the run-up to winter, and then through it, we will go a long way to limiting SAD.

Beeja meditation offsets the aggravating effects of stress by not only calming down the amygdala, the cause of our stress response, but by also bringing balance to the nervous system and activating the vagus nerve.

The result is a more natural level of parasympathetic tone in our central nervous system that prevents our thoughts from becoming irrationally negative.

We also avoid the rush of steroid hormones that otherwise disrupt our hormonal balance. 

Meditation awakens the memory of our natural production of hormones and neurotransmitters, and works deeply to reset every system in the mind and body, so that every element is operating at its best.

We increase the amount of melatonin which can fall during SAD and is why we tend to feel very tired. 

When we meditate, our optic nerve becomes much stronger, and our retinal cells become much more sensitive, meaning we are likely to squeeze more neurochemical juice out of the available light signals.

Best of all, we create our own internal sunshine, so have less need for external input.