Day-Lights for treatment of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

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Day-Lights
Bright Light Therapy

for Seasonal Affective Disorder

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Day-lights are specially designed bright light therapy systems recommended by experts as the first line treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

They are also used widely to ease the Winter Blues, a more common and less severe form of seasonal doldrums.

For your health and safety, choose only products that have been clinically tested and meet all Design Standards set out by research experts - such as Day-Lights™, which are recommended by the non-profit Center for Environmental Therapeutics (CET), and used exclusively in a new light therapy clinical program at Columbia University's Presbyterian Hospital. Beware of Industry Hype. Other than electrical safety standards, manufacturers are not subject to any safety restrictions regarding the type of light or the design of the delivery mechanism to use.

Daylight Supports Well-Being

Humankind evolved under the outdoor day-night cycle, and it is essential to maintaining normal, healthy physiology. Exposure to sunrise is key to synchronizing our internal body cycles to the external world (so we sleep when it's dark and are alert during the day).

Modern industrial society began to tamper with this system, though. The loss of daylight - in dark apartments, in the workplace, on shift work, etc. - creates a state of daylight deprivation, making us vulnerable to depressed mood, sleep problems, fatigue, ability to concentrate, and more. Nature, too, posed a new problem when humans began to migrate north, where winter nights are long and dark.

Bright Light Therapy

The importance of light - beyond vision - has been known in all cultures for millennia. Think of the Sun Gods, Christmas Lights. . . . The scientific research effort, though, is recent. It was inspired by findings that light exposure directly affects hormone levels and can reset the body clock either forward or backward.

Then, one smart patient - a chemical engineer named Herb Kern - connected his annual mood disorder to the reduced light exposure of winter. He came to the US National Institute of Mental Health and said, "Study me!" He actually co-authored the first journal report on light therapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which inspired a set of monumental clinical trials worldwide.

A Rainbow of Colors

Sunlight outdoors is white, but when you look at a rainbow you can see that it can split apart into the whole range of visible colors detectable by the eye. Similarly, electric lamps combine colors in a myriad of ways to produce white (or any desired hue). When we see red, the retina in our eyes is responding to long wavelengths of light; when we see green, to medium wavelengths; and when we see blue, to short wavelengths. When we see white, these are also mixed together. When an artificial white light source has a high “color temperature” (say, 6500 Kelvin), it is balanced toward short wavelengths and appears “harsh” or “cold.” When it has a lower color temperature (say, 4000 Kelvin), is appears “soft” or “warm.”

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

SAD – or Seasonal Affective Disorder is a full-blown, debilitating, mood disorder, but it is predictable for half the year, at the same time of the year.

If you start feeling lethargic during the fall, have trouble waking up and getting out of bed, start wanting heavy or carb-rich foods, it’s a sign that winter doldrums may be setting in. The mood disorder itself usually sets in weeks later – with chronic low mood, inability to do work, loss of pleasure in usual activities, etc. – and is worst in January and February. Usually, everything is fine again by early May.

Winter Blues

The millions of people suffering from full-blown, clinical SAD are just the tip of the iceberg. Somewhere toward the bottom are people who are just dragging, not getting their work done, and generally feeling unhappy. These people may be more inclined to say that the wintertime fatigue is more prominent than a change in mood. Carbohydrate cravings are also common.

The time course is the same, though, usually starting in mid- to late fall and resolving by early May. Importantly, people may experience the blues some years, and full Seasonal Affective Disorder other years. This may be due to differences in the weather pattern, but also to current life stresses. If you’re having trouble with employment or family, it’s more likely you’ll develop a major mood disorder that year.

Non-Seasonal Mood Disorders

There are many varieties of clinical mood disorders. Even with SAD, some people experience a “unipolar” pattern (winters low, summers normal) while others experience a “bipolar pattern” (winters low, summers high). The same is true for nonseasonal mood disorders, except the low periods are less predictable and can occur at any time of year. In another form, the depressed mood can last continuously, literally for years at a time without let-up. Regardless of the pattern, all mood disorders should be evaluated and treated by a mental health professional – although, if you’re lucky, your primary care physician can also be helpful.

The good news is that patients with nonseasonal mood disorders, of all variations, are showing good response to light therapy. Often it is combined with antidepressant drugs, but not necessarily. Those with the bipolar pattern are only given lights after establishing a mood-stabilizing medication (such as lithium) to avoid manic swings.

You can evaluate whether your blue mood is seasonal or nonseasonal, and whether it is clinically severe or not, using the Personalized Inventory SAD at www.cet.org . If the problem looks serious, print out the results and show them to your doctor: it’s a great way to get a discussion going and move toward supervised treatment.

Circadian Sleep Disorders

Can’t fall asleep till very, very late – then can’t wake up in time for a normal workday? Possibly, you are suffering from Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS), which tends to be a lifetime problem and often occurs in family lines. Other people can fall into a DSPS trap for several years (teenage and college years are prime examples), but then come out of it. Often DSPS is accompanied by daytime fatigue and a blue mood, but not necessarily. Sleep itself is normal – it just occurs much too late. A major factor in DSPS – like for SAD – is a deficiency in morning light exposure. And, like for SAD, morning light therapy can be corrective.

Weight Loss - Carbohydrate Cravings

Everyone knows there are no magic formulas for weight loss, yet it is major burden for so many people. Weight gain often accompanies mood disorders, and it is often a winter problem even without the blue mood. Even binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa, psychiatric conditions that can be distinguished from mood disorders, often become worse in winter. Often, winter appetite turns to carb-rich foods, which combined with lower activity levels constitutes a formula for weight gain.

People with SAD, who are gaining anywhere from 5 to 30 pounds each winter (and losing all or most of it each summer), find that light therapy reduces their carb-cravings and help. Even patients with winter worsening of bulimia have been able to cut their binge eating by as much as half, using light therapy. In SAD, the turnaround in food cravings and weight gain is slower than the turnaround in mood – it may take several weeks so see a difference – but it works.

We don’t know yet whether light therapy can assist with nonseasonal weight loss, but for someone living under conditions of daylight deprivation, it seems to us worth a try!

How Seasonal are You

The millions of people suffering from full-blown, clinical SAD are just the tip of the iceberg. Somewhere toward the bottom are people who are just dragging, not getting their work done, and generally feeling unhappy during the winter months.

If you are among these millions of people, bright light therapy could help energize and cheer you up during the dark or cloudy seasons. A large study of patients undergoing light therapy, published in the prestigious Archives of General Psychiatry, found major clinical improvement in about 80% of cases when the light was scheduled at an optimum early hour. If the light was scheduled later, the response rate dropped to about 40%.