For most of us, springtime is a season of hope and renewal, and the “fever” that accompanies it has positive connotations—distractedness seems like a small price to pay for being able to thrive on less sleep, lose a little weight, and spend more time outside. But for an unfortunate minority, this condition is anything but happy. Numerous studies have shown that the rates of both psychological deterioration and suicide from year to year are highest in the spring; psychologists theorize that depressed individuals hold out hope that the transition out of winter will ease their mental strain, and when it doesn’t, their disappointment is so acute that they break down.

Even people who aren’t clinically depressed or suicidal aren’t immune to the dark underbelly of spring fever: for some headache sufferers, April showers bring not May flowers but a higher risk of migraines, and for people who are especially susceptible to seasonal shifts (particularly SAD patients), springtime encourages the onset of hypomania, a sudden and uncomfortable brain-chemistry shift marked by frenetic activity, an unrealistic sense of grandiosity, and lack of sleep.