In the summer can you take on the world and work all day, with buckets of energy? But in autumn and winter do you feel lethargic and eat more, especially carbs, and feel irritable or overly anxious? It could be that you are just lacking in light. These are some of the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. Worse still, if your office has no windows or has tinted glass then you may be suffering all year round, as you are not getting the light that your body craves.
The answer is simple – put a lightbox on your desk and then get on with your day. As you sit doing your tasks, your eye will automatically pick up the light. Within 7-10 days you will start to feel the benefits of using a lightbox, feeling more alert and having more energy.
So how does it work? The light goes into the eye, through the retinohypothalamic tract and into the brain. That’s the detail – what you need to know is that the light has a double effect. It ‘cuts off’ the body’s production of melatonin, the hormone which makes you sleepy and triggers hibernation in animals. It also increases levels of serotonin, ‘the feel good’ hormone.
So why are we seeing this problem now? When you think about it, it is only a little over a century ago that we got electric light. Before that about 75% of the population worked the land and kept to the rhythms of the seasons, getting up with the light and going to bed when it got dark – they weren’t trying to stretch the day the way we do now. So this is a man-made problem with a man-made solution – the lightbox.
Lightboxes are even VAT exempt, in recognition that SAD is a significant, debilitating condition. So if you feel tired all the time and can’t seem to pinpoint why, try using a lightbox to bring some light into your life.
Written by Carol Barksfield at the SAD Lightbox Co.
The post Are you SAD or just Grumpy? appeared first on bodykind.