BRIGHTEN up your community
It's the middle of winter. 21 December is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Around 500,000 people in the UK suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (also known as SAD), which is the most common winter depression.
Many of us find the winter months bring us down, even if we are not as badly affected as sufferers of SAD. Our surroundings never look as good under grey skies as they do in the summer sunshine.
But maybe this is the time to take a fresh look at the community we live in - when it is at its worst. What can be done to improve it? Remove the graffiti? Paint a mural? Hang up banners in the streets? Encourage window boxes? Plant trees? Tidy up the road signs, pedestrian barriers and other street furniture? Banish the motor car? Build sitting-out areas? Encourage live music? Provide more sunlight? Whatever it is, if you want it done by the end of the summer, you had better get started now.
...with a ray of sunshine
What is SAD?
Seasonal Affective Disorder (also known as SAD) is the most common winter depression. It is caused by a biochemical imbalance in the hypothalamus (the gland responsible for regulating body temperature and food intake) caused by the shortening of daylight hours and the lack of sunlight in winter. The symptoms include a general lassitude and depression.
Are you suffering from SAD? If so, then find a way of bringing a little more sunshine into your life!
Information on SAD can be found on: www.sada.org.uk
Take Action
Spend an afternoon walking around your neighbourhood.
Make a note of all the things you don't like and all the things you would like to have but which are not there.
Then categorise your suggested improvements:
- Things that can be done easily and with very little or no money.
- Two or three things that are really important and which would bring maximum community gain.
- Everything else.
Talk to your neighbours and try to get a consensus for your community improvement plan.
Talk to your councillor to see what your local council could do.
Talk to your neighbourhood association to see how they might help.
Try to get at least one thing on your list done within the next three months.
Find Out More
Designing a happy community... here are three resources:
The Community Planning Website: www.communityplanning.net
Planning for Real: http://www.nifonline.org.uk
Christopher Alexander's famed Pattern Language: www.patternlanguage.com
From SAD to happy
On one side of a valley is the Austrian village of Rattenberg, with a population of 455. This sits in the shadow of a high mountain, which deprives the village of sunlight for four months of each year. On the other side of the valley is Kramsach, which basks in the winter sun.
An array of computer-guided solar reflectors known as 'Heliostats', each 6.5 m2 and computer programmed to adjust their direction according to the sun's position, bounces the sun's rays from above Kramsach to a rocky outcrop close to Rattenberg, where a second bank of mirrors directs the light to the village.
There is not enough reflected sunlight to brighten the whole village. But selected streets, building facades and public spaces are lit up, and the villagers now feel much less sad during the long winter.
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It's the middle of winter. 21 December is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Around 500,000 people in the UK suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (also known as SAD), which is a common winter depression. If you are suffering from SAD or just feeling gloomy, then find a way of bringing a little more sunshine into your life!
Information on SAD can be found at: www.sada.org.uk
