Bright Light Therapy For Winter Seasonal Affective Disorder
Your brain cares about how much total light your eyeballs see and the time of day they see it.
So. When it’s 8am, still barely dawn, and modern society doesn’t allow you to hibernate, you might need to supplement.
How to use light therapy for seasonal depression?
The Best Option
Sit in front of a 10,000 lux box, the kind that’d designed to give you that much light at a reasonable distance and at multiple angles. There’s a link for where to find those at the end. Do that for 30 minutes in the morning. Sit there and drink your coffee in front of it.
The Supplemental Options
A sunrise alarm clock. Findable at online retailers.
The cheaper version is to get a timer and plug your bedside light into it. Just so it’s not pitch black when your alarm goes off.
Look at your light bulbs. This gets tricky, because you don’t want to give yourself super bright light in the evening. But if you have a non-evening only area and have control of your bulbs, get something brighter. I’m a big fan of the Philips LED EyeComfort bulbs. The more lumens the better.
Plan your breaks! The sun often comes out in the afternoon, even in the PNW. I used to stumble out to the street corner if it was sunny and turn my pale groggy face to the sun like a plant. Bonus if you walk around the block.
You can’t enjoy the sun if you’re afraid of getting rained on. Get your PNW uniform of a good raincoat and wellies.
What time of day to use SAD light?
If you have the true 10,000 lux version, 30 minutes before 8am. Or before your equivalent of 8am-ish.
Desk workers can for once rejoice - it’s not the end of the world if you can’t get a giant box and sit under it for 30 minutes. You might have to leave a less technical light on for hours but you’re sitting there anyway. It’s the cumulative light exposure that matters. Leave it on your desk as close to right up to your face as possible until noon or 1pm-ish.
If you don’t have a desk job, and you can invest in one of the big strong lights then that will work better.
But what should I buy, specifically?
This link to Yale’s article is so detailed you’ll cheer and weep. It has recommendations for specific light boxes.
