BEATING the winter blues could be a matter of good timing. If you suffer from seasonal affective disorder, shifting your circadian rhythm to keep track with the later winter dawns could ease your depression.
Most SAD sufferers become depressed because the later rising of the sun delays their circadian rhythms relative to clock time. This skews the timing of the release of melatonin, a body-clock hormone triggered by darkness. Administering melatonin can help, but getting the timing right has proved tricky.
Now Alfred Lewy of Oregon Health and Science University in Portland and colleagues have found that measuring the difference…
