saving ink

As I wrote last month, I am conducting an experiment on myself to determine whether a simple lack of vitamin D due to insufficient exposure to sunlight in this miserable Polish winter is causing the Seasonal Affective Disorder that has been a pain in my ass since I moved here.

I began the experiment over two weeks ago, on the 4th of January. I have been taking one dose of HASCO Vitaminium A-2000+D3-400, which was the only vitamin D supplement I could find in the local pharmacy. However, the box of this vitamin A and D cocktail reads that it’s “for people lacking sufficient exposure to sunlight”, so it actually seems to be perfect for my purposes.

So far, I have not noticed an actual improvement in my mood, but there has been a pleasant lack of depression as well, with one exception: this past weekend, I went out of town for 24 hours and forgot to take the vitamins with me, so on Saturday and Sunday I went without the supplements. Upon returning on Sunday afternoon, I felt a feeling of uselessness and lack of desire to be productive, which stretched into Monday. Now, it’s still unclear whether this is a result of lack of vitamins or a result of wanting to enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon after a good weekend and the usual Monday blues at the start of the workweek - for that I’ll just have to continue the experiment for at least another month.

The good news is, I’ve had no side affects and am perfectly healthy, so at the very least, we know that taking vitamin A+D supplements has not turned me purple or made my head explode. Yet.