Natural Light Alarm

The Seasonal Affective Disorder And Tanning Salons

With the arrival of the cold season, besides cold-driven nuisance, some persons experience drawbacks regarding the general state, lack of energy and depression of unknown origin. It was scientifically ascertained that the lack of light favors the production of melatonin by the pineal gland, a hormone inducing sleep. That is why, during the cold seasons when days are shorter and the sunlight is scarce, we often feel sleepy or drowsy. Also, even during spring and summer, if the tendency is to keep most of the time indoors at home or at the office, the effect may be similar, though not as severe.

Well, if drowsiness were the only impact generated by season changes, things would be simpler to solve (with a small coffee maybe!). The problem is that melatonin secretion is synchronized with the production of a neurotransmitter, serotonin, which is involved in several physiological processes such as temperature, blood-pressure regulation and in neuropsychological functions such as appetite, memory and mood. The two do not work together at the same time. When melatonin is secreted, serotonin production is inhibited. Lack of serotonin causes disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome and reflects its effects on mood also, triggering depression in some persons.

Melatonin is active at night and serotonin is active in the daytime. Also, there is the age factor that contributes to the balance of the two chemicals: the secretion of melatonin decreases with age. There has been established that the link between serotonin and melatonin along with their dependence on the body clock may clarify the depression experienced by the people suffering from the disorder called Seasonal Affective Disorder – SAD. Depression, sleep problems, weight gain, anxiety, joint pain, irritability, stress, headaches are some of the symptoms that may appear when we suffer from SAD.

The problem is primarily caused by the lack of sunlight. It has been scientifically proven that sunlight favors increase in serotonin levels and favors vitamin D accumulation. Besides having anti-osteoporotic, immunomodulatory, anticarcinogenic, antipsoriatic, antioxidant properties, vitamin D is also a mood-modulator.

UV rays exposure favors vitamin D synthesis in the skin. That is why persons who go to tanning salons have noticed mood improvement and keep the habit in order to maintain the state of well-being. But, it is common knowledge that the effects of the UV exposure are not always the most desirable ones. If going to tanning salons becomes a habit, then recurrent, prolonged UV exposure may result in consequences such as premature skin aging and eventually skin cancer.

Light therapy represents a way to treat SAD. Light operates on the body in two ways: through skin impact or by entering your eyes. Only UV light has effects on the skin, while the light that has effects by entering your eyes needs not be UV, it just has to be bright.  Its energizing effect comes from the fact that it stimulates the production of serotonin. The simplest way to get enough bright light is to spend an hour a day or more outdoors, where the light levels range from 1,000 to 50,000 lux or more, compared to room lighting, which is about 50-200 lux.

If your schedule or the weather does not permit it, an alternative is to buy a light therapy device. For optimum effects, the light source either has to be very bright – 5,000 lux or more – or it has to be in a particular spectrum – around 460 nanometers, which is in the blue range. According to new research, blue range light will provide benefits even if at a dimmer level. Most companies producing light bulbs make full spectrum lights that may successfully replace sunlight.

Yet, there are side effects that bright artificial light may induce, namely it may interfere with sleep (especially when exposure is made in the evening hours) or even trigger in some people a mania – condition called bipolar disorder (known as manic depression).

The safest remains the natural outdoor light, on condition that UV protection is used.

What Is Seasonal Affective Disorder?

While Seasonal Affective Disorder mildly impacts twenty-five percent of the population, it seriously impacts another five percent of the population. This is a form of natural depression, which normally starts in Sept but peaks in Jan and Feb. It’s easily brushed aside and overlooked. It’s also hard to diagnose, and may in reality be as hard to diagnose as fibromyalgia and ADD (attention deficit disorder) both are. This is because while some folks might buy the wintertime blues, and some folks feel sluggish, people with SAD in reality have a debilitating disorder.

While some people who suffer from this only have a modest, temporary feeling of helplessness, which is a very modest form of natural depression, other people may have an extremely severe case. Numerous studies have demonstrated that 1 out of every ten people really have some type of SAD. As is right with clinical depression, occasionally people who have been diagnosed with SAD really commit suicide. SAD may even advance into other types of depressive disorder. A few of these other forms include manic depression and schizophrenia.

Some of the symptoms of include feeling sluggish, catching some Z’s for more than ten hours a day and yet still feeling fatigued, and migraines which may get rather severe and normally peak once there are drops in barometrical pressure.

There have been studies done to demonstrate that those folks who are depressed are really more prone to extreme alterations in temperature. Some researchers have pronounced that this was because of a lower level of electrolytes, salts, and other all-vital minerals in the body and brain. Among these minerals is potassium. It has been shown that having a depleted level of potassium will produce a severe headache. Two additional significant elements are Vitamin D and exposure to the sun, or at the very least, to ultraviolet lighting. A lot of doctors really reckon that as there’s minor sun exposure during the wintertime, which means that an individual has a lower level of Vitamin D, they can really get SAD.

It does not matter what age you are, you could still get it. But, it’s fascinating to observe that SAD is uncommon in childhood and that it commonly impacts more women than men. As a matter of fact, it normally happens in women who are 35-years-ancient or older.

If you have evidence that you or a loved one has symptoms, then it’s strongly recommended for you to get medical care. It could merely comprise a chemical instability, which an simple alteration in your diet could easily fix. This condition can also be offset by skin treatments, skin peels, and trips to the health spa. Yet, this condition might also be more severe. This is why you ought to never let this condition go. There’s zero sense in suffering through it. There have been many modern medical advancements that enable those who suffer from SAD to be treated effectively, thus greatly bettering their quality of life.

For those who are diagnosed with SAD, light therapy is frequently suggested. Normally an individual requires to be in the light for thirty to sixty minutes every day with their eyes open, only not directly focusing on the light. It has been recommended that the best time for this therapy is in the morning. It will take a few weeks for the full effect of the treatment to happen. But, some betterment ought to be noticed inside one week. There are also a few medications available. These are selective serotonin reputake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Golite Rechargeable battery

Golite Rechargeable battery

Lumie Desklamp – light therapy lamp for SAD

Lumie lights provide summer levels of bright light all year round, to lift your mood, boost concentration and restore your natural energy. When sunny days are few and far between, regular top-ups with a light box is the next best thing and is proven to place you in a better mood, boost alertness and help you to feel more awake, so it’s a fantastic way of improving your work environment. It can also be an effective treatment for SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and the winter blues.
Use Desklamp at wo

• 10,000lux at 19cm
• Typically 90 minutes at 50cm to treat SAD
• Flexible neck and dimmer control
• 55W daylight bulb
• Height 45cm, Head 45 x 18 cm

Lumie Desklamp – light therapy lamp for SAD

SAD in the coldest months of the year. Treating Depression Naturally!

SAD in the coldest months of the year

For many North Americans, winter’s shorter days bring with them a different kind of darkness: seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, which is a type of depression that strikes mostly during the colder months of the year.

While the disorder affects many types of people, medical experts say it can be treated and the seriousness of the illness reduced by watching for symptoms and taking early action. Those affected by SAD start to see symptoms in late fall to early winter, said Dr. Peter Swanljung at Friends Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital, in Philadelphia. “To distinguish someone from seasonal affective disorder and a major depressive disorder (like clinical depression), it usually depends on timing,” he said.

The causes of SAD are not fully known, but there appears to be a relationship between depression and sunlight, Swanljung said. Northerners are more susceptible to the disorder, he said, because of the darker and shorter days – a person living in Florida is less likely to suffer from SAD than one in Maine, for example.

There are a few theories about why this connection exists, Swanljung clarified. One is that the change in light exposure during the winter months effects levels of serotonin, which affects energy and mood, in the brain. Another is that SAD is related to levels of melatonin, a naturally-occurring hormone involved in regulating our sleep cycles. And a third, he said, is that the changes in the amount of daylight somehow affect our circadian rhythm, our body’s 24-hour clock.

A recent study from researchers at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto learned that there are greater levels of serotonin transporters in the brain in the winter than in the summer, the first time such a difference has been found. When there was less light, more serotonin transporters were found. Serotonin transporters remove serotonin, so the finding suggests that there is more serotonin removal in the brain in the winter.

“This offers an explanation for why some healthy people experience low mood and energy in the winter, and why there is a regular reoccurrence of depressive episodes in fall and winter in some vulnerable individuals,” Dr. Jeffrey Meyer, a researcher on the study, said in a statement. “The next steps will be to know what causes this change and how to interfere with it.”

Winter is also a stressful time of year for many North Americans, because of the holidays and the increased spending, travel time and busy social schedules that often go along with them. But the symptoms of SAD go beyond simple winter blues or holiday stress, Swanljung said. They are similar to those of clinical depression and include tiredness, increased appetite and weight gain, loss of interest in usual activities and low energy. Symptoms like those shouldn’t be written off, he said, and if they include self-harm and suicidal feelings or attempts, they should be brought to the attention of a health professional as soon as possible.

SAD may not be as profound as other forms of depression, experts say, but it still warrants attention and treatment. “People need to know that seasonal affective disorder is a real condition,” Robin Monson-Dupuis of Aurora Behavioral Health in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said in an email response. People in northern climates, where winters are particularly harsh, may reckon that negative feelings during that time of year are just a consequence of their location, Monson-Dupuis said, but if they affect your day-to-day functioning then they require investigation.

Fortunately, there are treatment options available for SAD. Light therapy, where patients sit in front of a very bright lamp or light box, is an option that many people have found helpful, Swanljung said. Though a prescription is not required to buy the equipment, it’s worthwhile to talk to your health professional about it, he advised. Talk therapy can also be beneficial, as can simply keeping up with your contacts and avoiding social isolation. Exercise has been shown to help relieve depression, he said. Medication may be prescribed for more serious cases.

Paying attention to your mood and watching for patterns is a way to prevent seasonal depression from negatively affecting your life, Swanljung said. If it has been a problem for you in the past, beginning light therapy or medication ahead of time can help stave it off or reduce its severity.

For sufferers of depression, visit www.depressionfighters.com and learn ways to treat depression safely and naturally with no side effects.

Nutrasense. Ease Your Mind. Ease Your Mood.

Why You Should Use Sad Lamps?

Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD is a kind of mood disorder where people feel it hard to lead normal mental health and one experiences depressive symptom during winters or some other seasons as well year after year. If you feel some kind of mood swing, depressions, feeling unlikely to work, socialize, and don’t feel to get up in the morning; you may be suffering from SAD. There are different types of treatments available for SAD but SAD Lamps prove to be the most effective kind of treatment for it. SAD light therapy proves better than antidepressant medications, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and carefully timed supplementation of the hormone melatonin.

Take help of SAD lamps to get rid of this disorder and bring back the happiness to your life. Excellent quality SAD lights emit the similar wavelengths, UV radiation and heat of sunlight using LED items, lasers, fluorescent lamps, dichroic lamps and other such bright lamps. The SAD lights are also called light box. The light is administered in your room or office for a specific period of time. Such exposures to SAD lamps allow your body to produce those things which are essential to beat the winter blues. You feel refreshing and don’t hesitate to jump out of bed at right time.

Thus for all these reasons you must use SAD lamps. It sounds a perfect therapy for such winter seasonal disorder. You can get rid of all symptoms and sufferings in few days if you use Seasonal Affective Disorder. Some people have reported to get over the symptoms in 2-5 days using such luminous sources.

Light Therapy- An Effective Remedy For Seasonal Affective Disorder (Sad)

Light, like every other thing in this world, is meant for a purpose; not only is it the indirect source of providing essential nutrients to our body but has also been researched to be a major factor affecting our mental well-being. Human moods are said to be very well influenced by the impact of sunlight. The glee on every other person’s face on a bright sunny day after prolonged cold days is no surprise. It comes in naturally and has been the subject of study by many medical practitioners since ages.

Light deprivation is usually experienced by people living in areas where the nights are longer and colder than the days. Statistics show that as much as 10% of the population in the north show symptoms of lethargy or lassitude due to the lack of exposure to sunlight. Moreover it has also been found out that women as compared to men are more likely to get affected by nearly a 3:1 ratio1. When at a milder stage, light deprivation can be termed as ”Winter Blues”; a condition that results in restrained energy levels, depression and slower reflex actions. Not that the list ends over here, but the incremented cravings for sweet and carbohydrate rich foods makes the patient place on weight, hence adding up to the complexities. A more pronounced form of the just mentioned condition is what we term as Seasonal Affective Disorder aka SAD. With double the level of depression, it is usually accompanied by lack of concentration and even memory loss!

But as the adage goes, ”Necessity is the mother of invention”; there arose the need of producing artificial light, as much effective as the full spectrum sunlight, to serve people being deprived of the natural blessing and useful light boxes came into being! What a light box or more specifically a light therapy box does is that it mimics outdoor sunlight in a way that it contains high output fluorescent bulbs, shielded by a filter that acts as a UV light protector. The light box is then positioned carefully so that it is tilted and placed a small above your eyes, minimizing any unpleasant glare. The patient is then exposed to this artificial light for a time duration that depends on the demand and lifestyle of the affected person. Usually for a beginner, a 15-20 minutes’ exposure is said to be enough, but the span may be extended when needed.

Light from a light box when hits the retina in the eye, gives the brain a stimulus to release certain ”active hormones” that bring about a biochemical change in the body lifting your mood and reducing the symptoms of SAD. Not only does light therapy aid in resolving core SAD issues, it improvises one’s wake-sleep cycle as well. This add-on benefit has its’ roots lying in the research made by scientists that SAD is related to an imbalance in the body’s natural circadian rhythms or the body’s inner clock. The latter term is responsible for governing the timing of our sleep. Hence when we repeatedly try to sleep out of sync with our circadian rhythm, depression occurs; a continued condition like this might even lead to SAD. Light therapy, but, alleviates every affected person of such prevailing conditions.

To sum up, Light therapy is a simple, effective and medically recognized way to beat these symptoms and live a normal, healthy life.

Reference

ezinearticles [dot] com/?Blue-Light-Therapy-For-Depression-Patients—How-a-Small-Lamp-Can-Help-You-Beat-the-Winter-Blues&id=2118386

How To Buy Sad Desk Lamp?

Are you suffering from the winter blues? Which is also called popularly SAD – Seasonal Affected Disorder. You feel lack of energy, some kind of tiredness, feel hungry and have the least inclination to come out of bed every morning. If these are the symptoms there is excellent chance that you are suffering from SAD. Wait, you don’t have to panic for that. It is nothing to worry about. You can get rid of all such winter blues using SAD desk lamp. Yes, the SAD lights have been designed to treat such disorders.

Get a SAD desk lamp to place in your office table or on a desk where you work. To get rid of all such symptoms of SAD it is recommended that you use seasonal affected disorder lamps. The source will emit light that is equivalent to sunlight and provide all the essential elements that your skin and body requires to beat the blues. The SAD symptoms will eliminate within shorter time frame by such a SAD desk lamp.

Use excellent quality SAD desk lamp

While shopping for a SAD desk light or lamp you must note to do some research. There are hundreds of companies which manufacture such light sources for winter season disorders but all are not excellent and don’t maintain effective standards. So, you must pick only those which are perfect and use all the standard recommendations. Use SAD desk lights of reputed brands like Zodra, Rio and others which maintains all standard of wavelength, UV and radiation of the light rays emitted from the SAD lapms.

Diamond 2 SAD Light

Why do we need light?

Our body clock is easily disrupted by lack of light causing us to feel tired,
lethargic and unable
to cope with what life throws at us. These are all symptoms of Seasonal
Affective Disorder
(S.A.D.) or the Winter Blues.
SAD has a lot in common with the hibernation cycle of animals and research has
shown that
this is triggered by a response to decreasing light levels. As the days grow
shorter and the
light becomes less intense, it make us just wa

• Size Lightbox – 61 x 33 x 10 cm
• Treatment time about 60 minutes with two lights
• A lightweight box fitted with a handle for ease of use
• Tilting base allows forward or backward movement of 6-12 degrees.
• Smooth opal diffuser gives a gorgeous even luminosity

Diamond 2 SAD Light

Lumie Arabica – light therapy for SAD

The symptoms of SAD are similar to those of ‘winter blues’ (e.g. tiredness, lack of energy, overeating, low moods and social withdrawal) but SAD is much more severe, often seriously affecting people’s performance at work, their home life and relationships. The cause of SAD is unclear but small, dark days are the trigger. They prolong the production of melatonin, normally only released at night to help us sleep. Another factor is thought to be low serotonin levels (a feature of depression) which

• 10,000lux at 20cm
• Typically 90 minutes at 50cm to treat SAD
• 2 x 24W bulbs
• 38 x 13 x 17 cm
• Certified under the Medical Devices Directive

Lumie Arabica – light therapy for SAD