Light therapy and SAD light boxes

A lot of people with Seasonal Affective Disorder can benefit from light therapy. Your daily light can be enhanced by going outside on a lovely winters day, adding extra lamps in your home or your office, or you could just add one light therapy lamp (also known as SAD light box), which is the way that is used more than others. There is also the luminette with which you don’t have to be sat down all the time to use.

To benefit from light therapy you need to:

- Choose the right light box for you
- Set up the light box in the right place either at work, at home or both
- Sit in front of the light box for at least 30 minutes every morning
- Make sure that you get the right amount of light on your eyes
- Do this everyday during the dull period of the year.

A light box is a metal fixture about 61cm long and 46cm high, with special tubes set behind a plastic diffusing screen, with a film that filters the UV rays. Some effective fixtures are made so as to position them towards the eye at an angle, allowing more light to enter the eyes. This decreases the glare for a more comfortable use.

The therapeutic light is between 2.500 lux and 10 000 lux (measurement of light intensity), 1 lux is the intensity of a candle (just to give you some idea of the brightness). A cloudless day in summer can bring around 100 000 lux. The filter in the plastic diffusing system is used as UV rays are harmful for the eyes and the skin.

The first feelings will be physical, you will start to feel an increase in energy, and one by one the symptoms will disappear. After a day or so chores and daily activities no longer fell like hard work, you eat less sugar and starchy foods, the want for solitude disappears, basically you feel like a human being again.

You should not stare at the light box, and as you don’t need to do this you can carry on with your work. The light acts on the brain via the retina. The distance for each light box changes with each model. Provided your eyes are open you can do anything. Some use it while working others use it while reading. The best time to receive light therapy is in the morning as this is when our system is waking up and needs to know that the day has begun. The amount of time needed in front of a light box depends on your needs but it is recommended 30 minutes in the morning at 10 000 lux or all day at 2 500 lux, it must be remembered that in spring when the days are brighter and longer light therapy is not needed. Taking breaks from light therapy would not decrease the benefit received from the latter.

Light therapy can be used while nursing a baby, but the childs face must be turned away from the lamp. A baby’s eyes are much more sensitive than our own. Toddlers can use these lamps at the same time as you, if the child has SAD it can help him as well. Pets are not affected by the bright lights emitted from the light boxes on the contrary they tend to approach the box and sit as close as possible to it.

There is a compliment to light therapy lamps and this is called the sunrise alarm clock or as it is also known light alarm, which recreates the sunset in your bedroom at night helping you to fall asleep naturally and in the morning recreates the sunrise helping you wake up without the stress of ordinary alarms (so no buzzers or radios).