Seasonal affective disorder: Treatment with light therapy
Light therapy is a standard treatment for seasonal affective disorder. Consult your doctor to make sure you're using it effectively and that you understand the potential benefits and drawbacks.
In the dark days of fall and winter, you may turn your face to the afternoon sun, seeking out what little light filters through fading gray skies. You may throw open the blinds, leave lights on throughout your home or even head south for a vacation - anything for a little more light. Or you may even be unable to crawl out of bed in the morning.
For people with a type of depression called seasonal affective disorder (SAD), this need for light takes on greater significance. Treatment with light therapy may offer a chance to regain the happier mood and brighter outlook that you lose to seasonal affective disorder. Learn how light therapy works and understand its pros and cons.
Understanding light therapy
In light therapy, you sit with your eyes open in front of a light box - a small, portable device that contains fluorescent bulbs or tubes. The light box emits a type and intensity of light that isn't found in normal household lighting, so simply sitting in front of a lamp in your living room won't relieve the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder. Light therapy mimics outdoor light and causes a biochemical change in your brain that lifts your mood, relieving symptoms of seasonal affective disorder.
Light therapy, also called bright light therapy or phototherapy, has been used to treat seasonal affective disorder since the early 1980s. Many mental health professionals now consider light therapy to be standard treatment for seasonal affective disorder.
However, light therapy hasn't been officially approved as a treatment by the Food and Drug Administration because of a lack of definitive evidence about its effectiveness in clinical trials. Results of some clinical trials have shown light therapy to be effective - and in some cases even more effective than antidepressants - while other research has shown that it's not effective.
The link between light and seasonal affective disorder
The precise cause of seasonal affective disorder isn't known, but genetics and your age may be factors. Most evidence, though, suggests that it arises from abnormalities in how your body manages its internal (circadian) biological rhythms or matches those rhythms to the 24-hour day. In particular, the hormone melatonin is thought to play a major role in seasonal affective disorder. Melatonin helps control body temperature, hormone secretion and sleep. It's produced in a specific area of your brain during the hours of darkness.
During the low-light months of fall and winter, people with seasonal affective disorder produce more melatonin than normal - enough to cause potentially debilitating symptoms of depression. But exposure to bright light, such as that from a light box, can suppress the brain's production of melatonin, helping regulate your body's internal clock and reducing symptoms.
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