SUNLITE Lamp (Brown)

Bright Light Therapy

Humankind evolved under the outdoor day-night cycle, and it is essential to maintaining normal, healthy physiology. Exposure to sunrise is key to synchronizing our internal body cycles to the external world (so we sleep when it’s dark and are alert during the day). Modern industrial society began to tamper with this system, though. The loss of daylight – in dark apartments, in the workplace, on shift work, etc. – creates a state of daylight deprivation, making us vulnerable to depressed mood, sleep problems, fatigue, ability to concentrate, and more. Nature, too, posed a new problem when humans began to migrate north, where winter nights are long and dark.
The importance of light – beyond vision – has been known in all cultures for millennia. Think of the Sun Gods, Christmas Lights. . . . The scientific research effort, though, is recent. It was inspired by findings that light exposure directly affects hormone levels and can reset the body clock either forward or backward. Then, one smart patient – a chemical engineer named Herb Kern – connected his annual mood disorder to the reduced light exposure of winter. He came to the US National Institute of Mental Health and said, Study me! He actually co-authored the first journal report on light therapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which inspired a set of monumental clinical trials worldwide.

Scientists think that light therapy works at several different levels, producing a combined beneficial effect. It is directly energizing for most people, thus combating mood-associated fatigue. When used at an appropriate morning hour (or in rare cases, evening hour), it corrects the misalignment of the internal body clock with external night and day. Finally, it stimulates the brain’s production of neurochemicals that are thought to be antidepressant (and in that sense, it mimics drug effects in a more natural way, without the need for drugs).
Light therapy has been proven through research to be beneficial for the treatment of both seasonal and non seasonal conditions such as:

– SAD and the Winter Blues
– PMS and Antepartum Blues
– Jet Lag / Shift Work Adjustment
– Circadian Sleep Disorders

Size: 13.25 x 16 x 3 inches

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