Did you know there are lamps available to help train our circadian rhythms to simulated daylight? In the modern world we don’t play by the rules of the sun – we stay up late with our lights on and close our blinds against the morning light. We travel huge distances to completely different time zones and expect our bodies to quickly adjust.
Our circadian body clocks control everything from energy levels to hunger and metabolism. When our circadian rhythms are out of sync with our environment, like when we travel to new time zones, our mood suffers terribly and we’re more likely to fall into unhealthy habits like eating sugary or fatty foods. In the worst cases serious depressions can develop in people who suffer from seasonal affective disorders (SAD).
I have bipolar disorder with a strong seasonal affective pattern. I spend a huge portion of winter in a very deep depression almost every year, which significantly affects my work and every other aspect of my life. I’ve been reducing the medication I’ve been taking lately and I’m going to try regulating my moods more through looking after my sleep patterns.
So I purchased a light therapy lamp from Amazon and it has finally arrived! I’m super excited to try it out.
I bought the NatureBright Sun Bliss which has dual function as a dawn simulator and bright light therapy lamp.
The dawn simulator turns on the light which gradually gets brighter for 30 minutes before your alarm to train your body to think it’s dawn.
The light has several adjustable brightness levels with the brightest (10,000 lux) being clinical-grade for treatment of seasonal mood disorders.
I didn’t appreciate how small and light the unit is until I took it out of the packaging today (just like a beside alarm clock – a feature it also has by the way!) which makes it ideal for traveling and helping you adjust to changing time zones!
I will be letting you know how I find this product once I’ve tried it.
Nourish My Life 
Thinking of buying one of these. How does it work regarding blue light in the bedroom? Doesn’t the clock facility emit blue light? Excuse my ignorance on this!
That’s a very good question and a factor I hadn’t thought of until I started mine up! The blue backlight on the clock shuts off after 30 secs, so it is not lit up during the night.
It is definitely something to consider if you like to the check the clock during the night – if you press it on it will emit blue light into your room for 30 secs. Obviously not great if you are trying to avoid blue light exposure at night, but I work around it by just having my phone nearby as an alternative to check the time very quickly if need be during the night.
Also if you haven’t seen it already, http://www.sadlightreview.com contains some good critical points on a range of SAD lights on the market to consider, and there are some other review sites which rank them and can provide some helpful pros and cons about each, such as https://www.lighttherapydevice.com/best-sad-light-reviews/ and http://www.sadlightsreview.com/bestselling-sad-lights-2017-reviews-and-guide/
🙂
Thanks for that. At the moment the quetiapine ensures I sleep soundly through the night!