How Therapy Light Can Help Banish the Winter Blues

by Rosemary Fotheringham Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner

Light therapy boxes are designed to bring spring and summer light levels into your house on depressing winter days. When there’s less natural light, many people gain weight, feel fatigued, lethargic, and moody, and struggle to get out of bed in the morning. When levels of light are higher, people feel more energetic, active, and alert, like they would in spring and summer.

If you struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder, or just the winter blues, a therapy lamp can help reduce the negative effects of these short, dark winter days and get you feeling better in as little as three to five days. Look for one that has at least 10,000 lux (the measure of brightness). A fluorescent lamp with a light diffuser is preferable to an LED lamp, as bare LED rays can damage your retinas. It’s recommended that you start with 20-30 minutes of use in the morning. For it to be most effective, you should sit within two feet of the light source and look directly at it. I use the Alaska Northern Lights “Northstar 10,000,” available at: AlaskaNorthernLights.com It’s big, bulky, and expensive at $299, but I always have a marked improvement in my energy and mood after I use it.

For those who struggle to get out of bed in the morning, a “dawn simulator” alarm clock that mimics the light of sunrise can help regulate your body’s internal clock, ease the transition to wakefulness, and help you feel more energetic and refreshed throughout your day.

If you are using or thinking of using light therapy boxes or dawn simulator alarm clocks, I highly recommend that you read the book Winter Blues, by Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal, which explains what Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is, and the various strategies that can help you cope with it including light therapy.

Salt Lamps

There are claims that salt lamps provide your home with environmental and physiological benefits such as improving air quality, boosting your mood, and helping you sleep better at night; but there is not enough evidence to confirm this is true. While beneficial light therapy does exist in the form of infrared light sourcing (see our feature on light therapy), we wouldn’t suggest that you leave your health up to that salt lamp on your dresser.

We can’t recommend salt lamps as a restorative treatment, but we do love salt lamps for their aesthetic appearance. And yes, just in case you’re wondering, we can confirm that they (do) taste salty after we heard of an inquisitive child who decided to lick one.

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