You may have heard that lightbox therapy helps with mental well-being. It improves your mood, sleep habits, and focus. But how does it specifically help with anxiety? Light Therapy Increases the Brain’s Ability to Handle Emotion Denmark’s Neurobiology Research Unit at the Copenhagen University Hospital fellow Brenda McMahon published a 2014 study in Biological Psychiatry that followed 30 healthy males as they received 30 minutes of daily light therapy for three weeks.  The results of the study showed that the brain improved its ability to control fear and anger. Per Dr. McMahon, “If peopl ..read more

For most people, spring means a lift of spirits and a feeling of rejuvenation. Days start to last longer, the warmer weather brings people out of hibernation, and an increase in sunlight just makes them happy. For one out of ten people, however, the season has the opposite effect. Welcome to the world of Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. What is Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder? For a small group of people, warmer weather brings the same feelings of sadness, lack of energy, and depressive symptoms that are experienced by the larger group of Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferers throughou ..read more

Sunlight can make you happier, restore your energy, and is important for your sleep rhythms. There’s a reason for that; sunlight causes a release of feel-good hormones guaranteed to lift your mood.  Sunlight Impacts Your Brain by Creating Serotonin Both darkness and sunlight trigger the release of hormones, responsible for either helping you sleep or waking you up. At night, melatonin helps your body fall asleep. In the morning, your brain releases serotonin to wake you up. Studies show that workers with windows tended to sleep better and longer.  For many people, feeling awake, happ ..read more

While many people dislike the long, cold winter months, for an estimated ten million people across the nation, it’s more than just feeling a little “blah.” For individuals dealing with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), the entire winter season can be filled with sadness, hopelessness, and a nearly debilitating loss of energy and motivation. There’s no doubt that being stuck inside lately with the latest challenges from COVID-19 only add to the stress and strain. Do you have an occasional bout of winter blues, or is it seasonal depression?  Typical Signs of Seasonal Affective Disorder Wh ..read more

That time of year is upon us once again: for an estimated 10 million Americans, the winter season brings Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) due to shorter days and less exposure to natural, healing sunlight. When your body is deprived of sunlight, it produces melatonin, which is a big reason for feeling sluggish and tired all winter long. Light boxes are a highly recommended treatment for SAD, but are you getting the most out of light therapy? 1. Make Sure Your Light Box is 10,000 Lux The quality of light therapy treatment relies on how bright your light box is. SAD is treated most effectively ..read more

While light boxes are relatively new on the light therapy scene, light therapy itself has been around in some form or another since ancient times. Read on for the surprising history of light therapy. Light Therapy Throughout Ancient History Almost every ancient civilization understood that light plays an important role in healing. The Babylonians and Assyrians, for instance, encouraged sunbathing to aid in the healing process. Heliopolis, a city in ancient Greece, means “City of the Sun.” Its citizens built light rooms inside of healing temples, supplementing these rooms with window coverings ..read more

You love your lightbox, and for good reason. You’ve discovered that it can not only help with SAD, but it improves sleep, increases energy, fights depression, and can help with age-related disorders such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. Now, you want to keep your lightbox clean and make sure it keeps working fo r a very long time. Here are a few tips on how to best care for your SunBox and keep it running safely and optimally. Turn the device off and make sure it is unplugged before cleaning it. Avoid cleaning the LED lights with a dampened cloth, liquids, or sprays. You can spray these surfaces ..read more

For 10 million Americans, winter Seasonal Affective Disorder strikes in the fall and lasts until April. While the exact mechanism that causes SAD isn’t entirely understood, it’s believed that the shorter days trigger the disorder by limiting access to natural light. For those suffering SAD, light therapy is a proven treatment to help relieve symptoms including fatigue and irritability.  The concept behind light therapy is a well-established and simple one: light helps us feel better. In the days of antiquity, light therapy was believed to rebalance the humors. By the turn of the 20th cent ..read more

Good sleep promotes good health.  But for some, the ability to get to sleep—and stay asleep—is elusive. A full 70 percent of American adults report the inability to get a satisfactory night’s sleep at least once a month, and 11 percent say they don’t get enough decent quality sleep every night. While sleep disorders are less common in children, one group of kids whose nighttime rest is often significantly disrupted are those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). According to a recent article from sleephealth.org, between 40 and 50 percent of children and adolescents with autism have diffi ..read more

Note: Please check with your doctor to make sure light therapy is a safe option for you. One of the things that goes along with being eligible for Medicare, collecting Social Security, and getting “senior discounts” are a few other things that are far less welcome. For example, many of us experience disruptions in our sleep patterns as we age, leaving us drowsy during the day and walking the floor at 3 AM. As we get older, we tend to spend less time in “deep sleep,” also called REM sleep. This is sometimes caused by things like obstructive sleep apnea, or an increase in stress due to changing ..read more