Twenty questions, four domains, and one specific pattern the whole check-in is built around: does your mood actually reverse with the seasons? Here's the reasoning behind the design, not just the questions themselves.
The Four Domains, and Why Each One's There
- Mood and energy shift — the baseline low-mood-and-fatigue signal, tracked specifically against the calendar
- Sleep changes — hypersomnia (sleeping more, waking unrested), the atypical pattern distinct from insomnia
- Appetite and carb craving — the specific starch/sugar pull documented in the research, not general overeating
- Seasonal reversal — the differentiator: does it lift again every spring, reliably, year after year
Why the Reversal Question Carries the Most Weight
Worse in fall and winter, reliably better by spring or summer, repeating across years — that's the specific test clinicians and researchers use to separate a genuine seasonal pattern from low mood that happens to occur during a hard winter for unrelated reasons.
A single rough winter isn't a seasonal pattern. A pattern is what comes back, and then lifts, on schedule.
Built Fresh, Inspired by Established Research
The construct traces back to Norman Rosenthal and colleagues' original 1984 description of seasonal affective disorder, and to instruments clinicians have used since, like the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). Every question in this check-in was written fresh for it, not reproduced from any published instrument.
What It Can't Tell You
This is a free, self-reflection tool — not a diagnostic instrument. An actual diagnosis takes a clinical interview with a licensed professional, typically confirming the same seasonal pattern across at least two years and ruling out other explanations. What this check-in can do is help you notice whether your own year-to-year experience matches that shape, and give you specific language to bring to a doctor if it does.