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| SAD light box - will it truly make you happy? |
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SAD light box – will it truly make you happy?
Light therapy or phototherapy, to use its formal term is being widely recognised as a solution to Seasonal Affective Disorder.
But given that the majority of people suffering from SAD experience a lift in mood if they take a brisk walk on a sunny day or sit near a window with natural light penetrating through, is the SAD light box just a fad or does light therapy genuinely have a place in modern day health?
It's certainly a controversial topic. For all the seasonal affective disorder sufferers singing the praises of the SAD lamp, there are the cynics who claim seasonal affective disorder is only a half-year cycle, a less intense form of depression which only really begins when we turn the clocks back.
But are earlier, darker nights and colder climes really to blame or are there psychological complexities and chemical processes in the brain which actually prevent us from being truly happy and combating SAD even if we're plugged into our SAD light box?
In 1984, Rosenthal, an expert in the field of SAD, set out to investigate the link between light therapy and Seasonal Affective Disorder. Little had been documented about patients who experience SAD affective episodes in association with the changing seasons year after year.
A newspaper article was printed promoting the study suggesting that changes in light might be responsible for mood changes but this needed to be thoroughly investigated through individual use of phototherapy.
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29 SAD patients came forward with the associate symptoms and were offered experimental light therapy treatment.
89% of the seasonal affective disorder patients trialled were women with the majority showing signs of depression and/or bi-polar disorder (surges and dips of depression and mania which follow no predictable pattern).
SAD patients reported exact symptoms matching Seasonal Affective Disorder criteria including decreased libido, anxiety, carbohydrate cravings, irritability, sleeping longer, waking later and interpersonal relationship/work issues. The mean age at onset was 26.9 years.
Two separate kinds of light therapy were used: (1) bright, white full-spectrum fluorescent light therapy and (2) dim yellow fluorescent light therapy. Treatments were switched if they did not work for particular patients.
SAD patients also travelled north or south during the winter with 83% reporting a change in mood when arriving in sunnier climes (especially those who visitedFloridaor theCaribbean).
Several SAD patients related their seasonal affective disorder to change in day length of quality of environmental light otherwise known as 'light hunger'. One patient described Seasonal Affective Disorder as 'grey sky syndrome'.
Interestingly, physical symptoms also accompanied depression with patients reporting joint pain or stiffness, headaches and constipation.
Eleven patients suffering from SAD were treated with bright white light therapy and all experienced an antidepressant effect. After the bright lights were removed, relapse occurred to a significant degree.
Patient 10 suffering from SAD felt irritable and confined with white lights despite an improvement in mood rating. She was removed from the programme and responded well to medication.
Patient 2 suffering from SAD left forFloridaafter the study ended and switched out of her depression within a week of arriving there.
Patient 11 became suicidal on withdrawal of bright white light therapy.
The single outstanding clinical feature of patients with SAD is their apparent sensitivity to changes in season and latitude and the predictable annual occurrence of their affective episodes.
Circannual (approximately annual) rhythms in a wide variety of physiological functions have been found to occur in mammals and other vertebrates. Whilst there are clearly major differences between patients with SAD and hibernating animals, there are similarities: hypersomnia, hyperphagia, change in food preference and weight gain.
Although Seasonal Affective Disorder is accepted as a genuine condition with links to depression, mania and even suicides, there is a school of thought that believes medication and light therapy may be nothing more than a placebo.
In the report 'SAD or Fad', Pichot and Jensen question the reliability of Rosenthal's trial. They argue that the early studies did not differentiate the specific seasonal diagnoses and also that patients used were almost all psychiatric inpatients.
On the flip side, the SAD lamp or SAD light box has grown in popularity over the years. With the arrival of more innovative SAD products such as the SAD Dawn Simulator, standalone SAD light box and portable SAD light box, sufferers of seasonal affective disorder need no longer be left in the dark.
In fact, people with SAD can now be treated and regain control of their happiness and ultimately their lives.
And if that's not a cause for some light celebration, what is?
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