Sally has seasonal affective disorder. She dreads the winter months. Sally says, "I just can not shake off this sense of gloom. It takes all my energy just to get out of bed. All I want to do is sleep and eat."

As significantly as nine % of US adults endure from seasonal affective disorder (SAD). SAD symptoms, like Sally's, happen during winter months since there is significantly less sun light readily available. Vital body functions like the release of hormones stick to the rhythms of your sun's light.

Key among these rhythms would be the waxing and waning of sunlight through the sun-lit day plus the dark evening, and the earth's yearly rotation (including tilt of its axis) about the sun, causing our seasons.

Scientists call these rhythms, circadian rhythms. Disruption of circadian rhythms result in all sorts of havoc with wellness from sleep issues to jet lag to mood issues including seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Light box therapy (also named bright light therapy, phototherapy, and light therapy) aids right for these disruptions and may markedly help those suffering with SAD.

How Does Light Box Therapy Perform?

Scientists' theorize that light box therapy causes biochemical adjustments within the brain including the release of melatonin that aid lessen symptoms of seasonal affective disorder along with other circumstances. Melatonin is usually a hormone that regulates your body's sleep-wake cycle.

Through therapy a light box delivers intense light indirectly for your eyes at prescribed times and levels. Ultraviolet (UV) light is screened out because it may well harm eyes and skin. It works best using the correct combination of light intensity, duration, and timing.

Light Intensity. The intensity of light developed really should match that of your outdoors shortly soon after sunrise or ahead of sunset. Lights employed in light box therapy are five to 20 occasions larger in illumination than usual indoor lighting.

Indoor lighting can not provide the light needed for therapy.

Duration and Timing. The length of a session can differ from 15 minutes to 3 hours depending on person wants and also the sort of light box utilised, says Jim Phelps, MD, of PsychEducation.org

Most respond ideal to light box therapy on initial awakening though some do greater with evening light.

A newer sort of light therapy, dawn simulation, is at the moment beneath study. This treatment happens when a computerized timer turns on a lamp that simulates the light of an actual outside springtime dawn during the final period of sleep.

What Size of Light Box Must You Use?

Light boxes used to become as big as suite instances, now they come as smaller as your hand.

Phelps reports, "I'm happy that the tiny box is as fantastic because the big ones. They may be more affordable, less difficult to utilize, additional portable, much less vibrant around the eyes inside the morning, and various research recommend (but never completely confirm, yet) that they work as well because the old massive ones."

Usually do not try to make your very own light therapy box, as the light output requires certain calibration to have the therapeutic impact.