Light Therapy for SAD

November 16, 2005 4:11 PM

I need practical advice about light therapy for SAD.

I'm married to a Californian who is used to the sun. But we live in Scotland where the next few months are pretty dark. Whilst she has not been diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder she thinks that light therapy might help her mood and wellbeing. I have checked out Go Ask Alice and followed some of the links she mentions - but could really do with some practical advice on what sort of lamp to try.

The web seems to be full of vendors who will offer either quite expensive lights, or cheaper knock offs. Some of them look... er.. "shady". Could we just go out and buy an ordinary light with a bright bulb in it? Is the colour spectrum of the light or its degree of diffision important? Thanks.

posted by rongorongo to health & fitness (7 comments total)

I just ordered a 70W BlueMax lamp, which has the benefit of looking like an ordinary desk lamp instead of an ugly box. Someone recommended it, but I haven't tried it yet.

In general, an "ordinary light" is not nearly bright enough, at least not an incandescent. You want 50-100W of fluorescent light, preferably full-spectrum. The spectrum (particularly the blue portion) is supposedly important, but I've found nothing beats sheer brightness.

If you want the cheapest possible alternative, get a couple of four-foot fluorescent shoplights at Home Depot and put full-spectrum ("daylight") bulbs in them, then mount them so they can shine into your eyes (preferably indirectly, from one side) from a few feet away. That gives you 80W (one shoplight) or 160W (two) for $50 or so, even less if you skimp on the bulbs.

Incandescent bulbs (and halogen) are not as bright as fluorescent at the same wattage. Buy fluorescents, and watch out for the cheap ones that list "equivalent wattage," such as a 13W fluorescent that's "equivalent" to a 60W bulb. You want real fluorescent wattage.

On the other end of the spectrum (sorry), I also have an Apollo GoLite, which aims 66 hi-intensity blue LEDs at your face. It works surprisingly well for something so tiny, and is great for travel, but it doesn't compare to a real fluorescent light (or real sunlight).
posted by mmoncur at 4:43 PM on November 16, 2005

Oh, a bit more: You want 10,000 Lux or higher to reach your eyes. The good light therapy devices will list "10,000 lux at 25 inches" or similar to tell you how bright it is, and how close you need to be for good exposure to the light.

The Bluemax 70W provides 10,000 lux at 13", for example. Brighter lights can be positioned further away from your face.
posted by mmoncur at 4:49 PM on November 16, 2005

Previous thread
posted by hortense at 5:34 PM on November 16, 2005

I also have to say, purely anecdotally, that I get mildly down during the winter times and just waking up to a bright light in my face, even if it's just the overhead lights in my room [250 watts or so] makes a real difference in my life, so think about intermediate options if you don't go all lightbox all at once.
posted by jessamyn at 6:43 PM on November 16, 2005

An added note: As someone who grew up in Los Angeles and then has spent most of his adult life living in the Northeast US, SAD got me bad until I hit on one thing: an outdoor running routine.

I don't know if it was the being outdoors or the cardio or what, but winters became a lot more bearable even when I was running in the dark and in the snow.
posted by Mercaptan at 7:07 PM on November 16, 2005

Mercaptan, it's way dark and dreary in a Scottish winter. Glasgow's about half way up Hudson Bay. Far north, and flat grey skies four months of the year. You can tell I miss it ...

Anyway, we had a lightbox in Scotland; a big honking thing with 240W of daylight fluorescents in it. It could illuminate most of Kirkintilloch. You really needed 30 minutes of reading beside this thing to get going in the morning, but we found it useful.

My only caveat is not to use it too late in the day. Using it in the evening destroyed your ability to sleep.
posted by scruss at 8:08 PM on November 16, 2005

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like its worth investing in some decent hardware. scruss is right - our latitude is 56 degrees which means we only get about 6 hours of watery daylight in mid winter.
posted by rongorongo at 2:01 AM on November 17, 2005