- Fall is here again.
Which means pumpkin spice lattes,
and apple picking,
and unfortunately, seasonal affective disorder.
If you happen to suffer from SAD,
you've probably heard the suggestion
to get one of these SAD lamps.
But do they work?
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- Hi, Jamie.
- Hi Dorie, good to meet you.
I'm an Associate Professor at Stanford University
and a staff scientist at the VA hospital.
And I've been studying the impact of light
on human brain and behavior for about 20 years.
- Do people call it S-A-D or just SAD?
- Both. - Both. Okay.
- It feels really silly to be like,
have you experienced SAD?
- I experience happy, I experience sad. Yes.
- Yeah, I experience all of it all the time
and it's overwhelming.
Can you tell us what exactly
is seasonal affective disorder, or SAD?
- Seasonal affective disorder
as opposed to standard depression
is linked to obviously, the seasons.
And so this is something
that you would expect to see more often
in individuals who are living in the Northern climes,
where you're going to have longer nights in the winter time.
So in the summertime, people are fine.
In the wintertime, they become more depressed.
We think that the circadian system's involved,
the circadian system helps keep track
of things like night length.
There's not like there's only one cause for this,
some of it's going to be inability to get outside.
Some people can definitely be more depressed
when that happens.
On someone it's going to be directly biological,
just that you're getting less light during the daytime.
- Is it something you've also dealt with personally?
Have you ever experienced SAD?
- I have not. Lots of other issues, but not SAD.
- (laughs) Yeah, same.
- I do have one, and like, super bright,
but what is it about the brightness
that makes you experience less SAD?
- One of the theories
is that you're basically shortening your brain's perception
of the night length.
So if we were living without electricity,
you would have a perception of night length
based on when the sun rose and when the sun went down.
The idea here is that you're basically pushing back
to an earlier time when the sun is coming up.
And so to the brain,
it feels like those nights are getting shorter.
So if you're getting up at say 7:00 AM,
and it's still dark out,
but you turn this lamp on and you get a big dose of light,
then that's when the brain is going to think
that the night has ended.
- Do SAD lamps actually work?
What is the research on that indicating at this point?
- The lamps can definitely work.
One of the biggest problems with the lamps is compliance.
Do you use them?
Frankly, going outside is better, if you can do it.
But if you're in Wisconsin and it's January,
this might not be so easy to do.
- Some of them are, you know, huge.
And it's not a giant apartment,
and so it involves me moving it back and forth.
And depression is an ouroboros,
like the more depressed you are,
the less likely you are to do the thing
that will help you be less depressed, so it's just like.
Before somebody decides to buy a SAD lamp,
what should they consider?
Are there certain qualities that they should be looking for
in a SAD lamp?
- I think the first thing you need to do
is make sure that what you have is SAD.
You really want to go see a doctor,
make sure this is what you have,
and have them give a formal recommendation
for what you should be doing.
These things can work.
It's just a question of convenience and comfort.
If people like it, will people use it?
And that's really the biggest issue with these devices.
Especially on a daily basis, and for long enough.
Typically people say, well, you know, it's 30 minutes,
but will you do that every day?
Or do you start to kind of cheat?
You turn the light on, you sit there,
but then you don't look at it
because it's bright and annoying.
- It's bright.
- You really looking for something
that is going to fit in with your lifestyle,
your decor, your demeanor.
- This lamp is our top pick,
the Carex Day-Light Classic Plus.
Unfortunately when it shipped,
it showed up with a little bit of damage,
and that's just show biz baby.
Luckily we also have this model by Carex,
which basically functions the same way,
and we'll be using it for the sake of this video.
It's important to know
that obviously we can't test these SAD lamps
for how effective they are
at actually combating seasonal affective disorder.
So when we tested these,
we were mostly assessing durability, comparing prices,
and making sure that they lived up to specs.
Both of them have a really easy on and off switch.
Both of them hinge super easily from the base.
And both of them were super durable. Usually.
This really is a fluke. It's a great model,
besides the day that you need it for a video.
Could you just talk about how somebody would use a SAD lamp?
- Typical recommendations are going to be
to get a half hour of light.
So it's a question of how can you position the light
so that it doesn't have a lot of glare,
so that it doesn't have this kind of annoying aspect to it.
And so if you can have a window behind it,
even if it's still kind of dark outside,
it's gonna be brighter usually than what's inside the room.
Usually people have it about three feet away,
again, it doesn't have to be straight on into the eyes.
It can be at an angle,
but it needs to be bright.
- Jamie, do you have any other suggestions
for people suffering from SAD?
- One of these lamps is low-hanging fruit.
This is not taking a drug.
It's not going to have a lot of side effects.
Not a big investment.
And if it gets rid of depression
for multiple months of the year, that's fantastic.
- If you were super wealthy,
you could spend your summers in Denmark,
and then your winters somewhere warm,
like Los Angeles for example.
- If you're that wealthy you could pay someone else
to have your SAD.
- That's so true. (laughs)
Hi. I hope you had a happy experience
watching this video about SAD lamps.
If you like, what you saw,
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