Welcome to light therapy Guide
Blue Led Light Physical Therapy Article
. For a permanent link to this article, or to bookmark it for further reading, click here.
SAD Light Therapy for Seasonal Affective Disorders
from:In institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, SAD light therapy is considered a standard form of treatment for seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. Also referred to as a more serious form of "winter depression", affected individuals suffer depression, lethargy, fatigue, and many other symptoms when shorter days and longer nights begin to raise their ugly heads in the fall and winter.
SAD has been recognized by the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual, in the DSM-IV as an official subtype of major depressive episode. Approximately 75% of those involved are women, with the most common age of onset being the thirties. A psychiatrist by the name of Norman Rosenthal in 1984 had published a paper SAD light therapy, with research still going on today in regard to it. From that moment in time in the early 1980s, SAD light therapy--also been called bright light therapy or phototherapy--and over the years has been associated with the disorder SAD.
SAD light therapy requires about 30 minutes a day of daily light treatments--with the light treatments working best in the mornings with some using it in the evenings. The amount of light and when it is to be used depends a lot on the individual and the type of light box. A 10,000-lux light therapy box requires only 30 minutes a day of light treatment as a SAD light therapy, with the initial treatments requiring full spectrum lighting. More recent studies show that regular fluorescent bulbs can work as well, with UV or ultraviolet lighting needing to be filtered out as it damages the eyes and skin. But people still prefer the full spectrum minus the UV, as it is the closest to natural lighting available for SAD light therapy.
There are three key elements combined in SAD light therapy: intensity, duration, and timing. As many people know, light therapy is best used early in the morning as compared to using it in the evenings, as it has been known to disrupt sleep or cause insomnia. How long of a duration may range from 30 minutes to two hours, with initial doses as low as 15 minutes and working up. The intensity is a little more complicated, as the lux of the light box varies. The term "lux" refers to the measurement of light received at a specific distance from a particular light source, with the average light therapy box running between 2,500-lux and the typical 10,000-lux. To put this into more clear terminology, the average living room in the evening is about 400-lux, and the bright sunny day runs about 100,000-lux.
Blue Led Light Physical Therapy Specific links
Blue Led Light Physical Therapy News
Asheville area fitness calendar for the next few weeks.
HATHA YOGA: 4 p.m. today, Cloud Cottage Community of Mindful Living, 219 Old Toll Circle, Black Mountain. Led by certified yoga teacher Cyndy Kirkland. 669-0920 or www.cloudcottage.org .
Read more...Lancaster Scene
If you are a nonprofit organization and wish to have an item in the LANCASTER SCENE column of the Sunday News, send a note to the Sunday News sports department, P.O. Box 1328, Lancaster, PA 17608. Items can run for up to three consecutive weeks and will not be repeated after that period. The email a...
Read more...Hold on tight
I came home from work late one evening, hungry and frustrated, and popped into my mother’s house, which was next door to mine. She was eating a frozen dinner and sipping from a mug of hot water. CNN blared on the TV in the background. She asked how my day had been. I said, “Oh, it was good.” She looked up from her black plastic food tray and, after a moment, said, “No, it wasn’t. What happened ...
Read more...Broomfield Enterprise upcoming events -- May 27
Upcoming events
Read more...Workout on the screen
The paper chain counting down to summer is growing smaller. (Come on, surely I'm not the only adult who still uses paper chains).
Read more...