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The minds and bodies of many are responding like the climate – poor of body and of spirit – and, literally, changing with the weather. “I constantly have a fluctuating blood pressure, terrible headaches, I feel very bad because of it, as if I’ve got no energy to do anything, I constantly feel the need to go to sleep,” says Lyudmila Gevorgyan, a 52-year-old housewife, who gives assurances that her close neighbors are also in the same condition.

Liana Danielyan, on the contrary, argues that instead of driving her to sleep, the rainy weather has an opposite effect on her.

“I generally become more active, the freshness in the air that the rains bring makes me wake up earlier in the morning,” says Danielyan, 28, who now wakes up at 7.00 am, while the usual wakeup time for her is about 9 o’clock in the morning, and even that, she says, with the use of an alarm clock.

Precipitation across Armenia has exceeded the norm this spring, says Zara Petrosyan, an Armenian State Hydro-Met Service official (showing up to 120 percent increase in certain locations). While the precipitation norm in capital Yerevan for March-April is about 45 mm, the amount of precipitation so far during the two months of 2010 spring has been 75 mm (or about 67 percent more). A 50-percent increase in the level of precipitation has been observed in Vayots Dzor and Syunik (a southern Armenian province which saw a 10-centimeter snow Thursday).

Henrik Kocharyan, 80, says: “I don’t know what is happening exactly, but I have some unpleasant feeling, and the rains are affecting my mood.”

Doctors and psychologists say dependence on weather changes, or meteo dependence, is observed mainly among people suffering from chronic diseases as their diseases become more acute in the course of weather changes.

However, meteo dependence, or more commonly known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), is also observed among otherwise physically healthy people when, without any clear [physical] reason for that, a person begins to feel depressed, sleeps too much and has little energy.

Psychologist Marina Tozalakyan says that the influence of weather changes on a person mainly depends on what type of temper a person has.

“If a person is a melancholic, the likelihood that gloomy weather will affect him is higher. In general, there is a tendency among people that problems become more acute in spring and autumn,” says Tozalakyan, adding that even the climate has an influence on the formation of a person’s character.

“For example Nordic countries like Sweden, which have a severe climate and where in winter the sun appears for a very short time, have the highest suicide rates in the world,” says the psychologist.

In Western medicine SAD is not a unique mood disorder, but is “a specifier of major depression”. There are many different treatments for seasonal affective disorder, including light therapy, medication, ionized-air administration, cognitive-behavioral therapy and carefully timed supplementation of the hormone melatonin.

Local doctors say that Armenians do not consult doctors or seek professional aid when they feel depression caused by weather.

So just get used to it, Armenians. Sleep more. Or less. Mind your mood. Or don’t. Because meteorologists say droopy skies can be expected for at least another week.