Light Therapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder
The following is an excerpt from an interview with Piedmont Lifestyle magazine about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also commonly referred to as the Winter Blues:
Q: Do you recommend light therapy for any of your patients? What is the result?
A: I often recommend light therapy for patients who have depression and who notice that the winters are particularly difficult. Quite a few of my patients have found it helpful.
Q: Do you believe light therapy can mitigate symptoms of the milder “winter blues” as well as the more severe SAD? Where do you place the distinction between the two?
A: In major depression, the impairment often prevents the person from getting out of bed or functioning. It can produce feelings of hopelessness, despondency, and suicidality. In the “winter blues,” the person is often able to function adequately but feels chronically down, with low energy and fatigue being the predominant symptoms. Other problems can include:
Excessive sleepiness
Overeating
Craving for carbohydrates
Weight gain
Social withdrawal
Q: Once light therapy has been prescribed by your doctor, where should you buy a light box? What are things to look for?
A: I recommend Northern Light Technologies or Alaska Northern Lights for quality light boxes. Light boxes need to be 8,000 to 10,000 lux (lux being a unit of light intensity), to be used for 20 minutes in the AM, and it can be placed indirectly in the line of sight. FYI - a typical fluorescent bulb is around 500 lux!
Find out more about SAD (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004726/) along with other treatment options such as melatonin (https://oxfordmedicine.com/view/10.1093/med/9780199544288.001.0001/med-9780199544288-chapter-010).
