Light Therapy for Better Sleep and Reduced Depressive Symptoms

Sleep

Nov 23

Written By

I often recommend light box to my clients under 2 different situations:

1) When someone has difficulties waking up in the morning, for example, they tend to sleep too late and get up too late, even though they have morning tasks to attend. In this situation, light therapy for hours in the morning can help with the shift of the circadian rhythm, staying alert after waking up in the morning.

2) When someone experiences depressive mood in winter time, which is a repeated pattern every year. Light therapy in the morning and day time can be helpful with improving mood and energy during the day time. Acturally, light therapy is one of the first-line treatment for seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

How to use light therapy to improve sleep quality?

For teens with daytime fatigue:

Please go to get natural sunlight first, especially in the morning.
You can consider light therapy after school to avoid nap, but, NO light box after 5pm.

Step by step guideline:

Sit 12-18 inches from light box for 30min upon awakening each day, 7 days a week.
Please don’t stare at the light, try to do other things in front of the light such as reading a book or watching TV.
Set the light box to be turned on about 2 hours before wake time, if that is too hard, can turn the lamp on upon awakening.
Light should be just above eye level for the greatest impact on our retina.