ISSUE #62: SATURDAY SEPT 17, 2011 -- Commentary

Time for My Rubber Boots
Caer Weber

THE ENERGY OF LIGHT

Okay, it's here. Just like that we are in the time of rain again, here in southern BC. For some of us, this is the beginning of depression but there are things we can do. One of them is investing in some light therapy.

The days are growing rapidly shorter and the nights only too noticeably longer ... It is the discouraging veil of blackness, falling over the sparkling whiteness of earlier nights, which sends a vein of despair running through our souls." (Dr. Frederick Cook, when his ship and crew became stuck in the Arctic.)

 He eventually resorted to having his crew sit in front of an open fire, not for heat so much as for light and he noted that it helped them.

The impact of light and sun on mood and human drives was recorded well before Dr. Cook, even during biblical times. That we seem happier in the spring than in the ebb of winter is such an obvious fact that we forget that it has deep implications about how to improve our mood and enhance our energy level. Light directly influences, even controls, essential functions of the emotional brain.

From "The Instinct to Heal" by David Servan-Schreiber.

Puddle
Caer Weber

Some of, or many of you who suffer from depression or SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) may know about light therapy particularly the light box which is a bright light device (roughly 20 times the brightness of a regular lightbulb) which can help many people with depression. I have heard that Shoppers Drug Mart and Costco carry them. But there is another type of light therapy called a dawn simulation device. According to Servan-Schreiber this device is even better than the light box.

My Sunny Umbrella
Caer Weber

You set it for a certain time in the morning that you want it to simulate the beginning of dawn and at that time it slowly lights up your room, just as the sun would. Servan-Schreiber explains "Softly, progressively, it simulates the appearance - slow at first, then faster and faster - of a natural sunrise, the signal to which your emotional brain has been wired to awaken during millions of years of evolution on Earth. After several hours of night, your eyes have become so sensitive to light signals that they can detect this smooth transition even from behind closed eyelids. When the first rays of light begin to appear, they register with the hypothalamus and begin to prepare our brain for a soft transition into awakening. Dreams begin to wrap up, body temperature and cortisol begin to rise, and, as the light intensity reaches higher levels, the pattern of typical electrical activity of neurons during sleep progressively transitions into that of light awakening and then of complete arousal."


So, if you want to do some research go to www.fullspectrumsolutions.com
They have information on both light boxes and dawn simulators. You can purchase both on ebay.

This Little Light of Mine
Caer Weber

.... I'm going to let it shine. ....