Light Therapy

How light therapy helps seasonal depression

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What’s in the Bright Light series Light therapy is the best thing since sunshine. While learning to build houses, harness electricity and sow crops has allowed humans to survive in harsh and changeable climates, we’ve lost one key to survival in the process — access to enough sunshine. Most of us live most of our [...]

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Why you feel blue when the sun shines

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Many of us are sunflowers: We need lots of sunshine to thrive, grow tall and blossom. A few of us are more like the trillium you find on the forest floor, a shade-loving, spring-blooming perennial woodland wildflower. Most of are probably more like shamrocks, which are happiest in bright, but not direct sunlight. One chance [...]

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Happy Solstice | Welcome Summer SAD

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Summer relief? Many people breathed a silent sigh of relief yesterday with the official start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. “Finally. I made it through winter again.” Ironically, just when we feel it’s really, truly safe to go outside and we can bask in the warmth of the sun, the daily minutes of sunshine [...]

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Surprise of Spring Depression

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We Can’t Trust the Calendar Springtime is not an automatically light-filled and easy season for many people. The official start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere was March 20. But based on the Google searches that are finding this blog, lots of people are still struggling with seasonal depression and the whack to their body [...]

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Sunless Days Mean January Struggles

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In the Northern Hemisphere we’ve gained about 1 minute per day of sunlight since the winter solstice, the official start of winter, on Dec. 21. Have you noticed? I haven’t. Other than a couple of afternoons when it still seemed to be a bit lighter when I left work, January has been almost a continual [...]

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5 Best Books to Beat the Winter Blues

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I’m a firm believer that knowledge equals power. Here are my choices for books that will help you understand how to manage the winter blues and seasonal affective disorder.  I will add more relevant books as they come across my desk, so please feel free to email me suggestions. Winter Blues: Seasonal Affective Disorder, What [...]

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Winter Solstice|Winter Survival Light

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You may notice that today is the winter solstice, the official start of winter in the northern hemisphere. The winter solstice held ritual significance for ancient cultures, marking one of the turning points of the solar year – the shortest day and the longest night. From here, almost imperceptibly, the days get longer and the [...]

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6 tips for determining the light box you need

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This is the fifth article in the Bright Light series. If you’ve searched online for light therapy lamps or light boxes, you’re likely confused by the variety of products. Overwhelming. In this post I’ll walk you out of the maze with my criteria for selecting a light box. When you’re ready to select a light [...]

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Your Early Morning Energy Trigger

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This is the fourth article in the Bright Light series. There’s good news and there’s bad news. Our brains have a window of time in the morning during which they are particularly sensitive to bright light stimulus. The good news is that you can get your bright light early and be on your way. Most [...]

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Why You Need a Daily Hit of Bright Light

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This is the third article in the Bright Light series. So light therapy is sounding more and more like something you’d like to try. Of course, you have more questions. If light therapy is going to work for you, here’s the key and I can’t stress this point enough: You need your daily hit of [...]

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Most of Us Are Light Deprived

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This is the second article in the Bright Light series. Most of us live most of our lives indoors. That means most of us, even in sunnier climates, are “light deprived.” Since I learned I have seasonal affective disorder, I fantasize about living in a more temperate, sunny place like San Diego. Get this: Even [...]

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SAD Stories: When the Antidepressant Doesn’t Work

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Caught in a vicious energy cycle I know what it feels like to pull myself out of bed every morning, long after the alarm has gone off repeatedly, feeling like I’d drunk a half bottle of wine the night before when I hadn’t had any alcohol at all. I know what it’s like when winter [...]

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