The low-down on Light Therapy and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

“What is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)? What is light therapy?"

A simple, layman’s definition of Seasonal Affective Disorder is the experience of symptoms of depression within the context of a specific season of the year – usually winter.

The medical & psychiatric communities began to take notice in the 1980’s that people were expressing these depressive symptoms seasonally, and that this condition seemed to be particularly widespread during winter months in Scandinavian countries and other locations where sunlight is minimal.

As researchers started to explore the connection between lack of exposure to sunlight and these stress-related symptoms they began to develop methods of treating patients using light therapy for what came to be called Seasonal Affective Disorder.

There are now a myriad of light-based therapies that you can try: everything from tanning beds to a specially designed “light box” that you walk into, full-spectrum light bulbs and lamps, etc.

But from the HARDCORE Stress Management™ perspective we only really care about one thing – do they work?

Sunlight does have a profound effect on your health and on stress management, not only within the context of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but the key is in understanding how.

Exposing your bare skin to sunlight is the catalyst for the production of an important hormone in the body, Vitamin D.

Vitamin D is crucially important in a number of bodily processes, particularly in the maintenance of organ systems and the immune system. A lack of sufficient Vitamin D is the cause of several common bone diseases, and has been linked to various cancers and autoimmune diseases, and even schizophrenia.

In particular, lack of sufficient Vitamin D in the body has been directly linked to the stress-related illnesses of depression, anxiety, and of course ... Seasonal Affective Disorder.

There are very few natural dietary sources of Vitamin D, most of them fish-based (cod liver oil is a particularly good one). And there is disagreement over whether it is possible to take in sufficient amounts of the hormone through diet alone.

For all practical purposes exposing your bare skin to sunlight is the only way to ensure that your body is supplied with sufficient amounts of Vitamin D to protect you from the various illnesses that a deficiency can cause.

I highlighted sunlight because not just any light will do the trick. There is a very specific wavelength of light that causes production of Vitamin D within the skin – ultraviolet light.

Ultraviolet light has gotten a lot of bad press in recent years as the leading cause of skin cancer. But like anything else, it is “the dose that determines the poison”. Too much of any good thing can be a bad thing.

The fact of that matter is that without regular exposure of your bare skin to ultraviolet light, a normal and healthy component of natural sunlight, you will become Vitamin D deficient and begin to suffer from conditions like Seasonal Affective Disorder.

And unless you’ve installed special “full spectrum” bulbs in your home or office, you are not getting any ultraviolet light while you’re inside. Conventional glass window panes also block the majority of the ultraviolent spectrum, rendering that light stale and useless for the purposes of Vitamin D production.

What does this mean for you? It means you need to get as much exposure to natural sunlight as you can within the confines of what is healthy for your skin. In other words, get as much sun as you can without getting sunburned.

If you’re very fair-skinned like I am, and sunburn easily, this can seem like a tedious process. I live in southern California where we are blessed with a lot of good sunshine all year long, but I have to be very careful not to over-do it.

What about tanning beds or light boxes? Frankly I don’t believe that kind of concentrated exposure to ultraviolet light is healthy. People with darker skin than I might be able to handle it better, but I still believe that it is damaging in the long run.

What should you do? If you work long hours inside an office building like I do, take your lunch outside or go outside during one of your breaks and bask in the sun. Studies suggest about 15 minutes of exposure to real sunlight every day is the bare minimum … I think an hour spread over the course of your entire day is much better to shoot for if you’re interested in HARDCORE Stress Management™.

If you’re looking for full spectrum lighting for your home or office there are a number of vendors that can take care of you. I have used OTT Lite™ products in the past, and noticed an immediate pick-me-up effect when I installed their bulbs at home and in my office.

When you are ready to attack the root of your Seasonal Affective Disorder directly you'll want a copy of my HARDCORE Stress Management™ Program.