Hey everybody, it's Doctor Jo, and this video's so bright, I gotta wear shades.
But seriously, today I'm gonna talk about light therapy.
So let's get started.
So a lot of you have asked me about light therapy, so I wanted to talk about it.
Does it help?
Is it really beneficial?
Is it worth trying?
Well, especially now when people are working more from home, when people are eLearning,
they're not getting outside as much, research does show that light therapy really can help.
And the reason for that is especially in the fall and the winter, you're, if you're not
getting as much sunlight coming in, you're not going outside because it's cold, you really
need that natural light to kind of help reset your body, energize your body, keeping everything
and your circadian rhythm like stuff working properly.
So one of the biggest things that research shows that the light therapy helps with is
something that's called SAD.
Which is seasonal affective disorder.
So just kind of like I said, when it becomes fall and winter, we often don't get out as
much.
And also the sun's not a bright, and it doesn't have as much, what we call lux, or the amount
of light that comes in.
So trying light therapy can really help mimic maybe that sunlight that you're not getting.
It can also help kind of get your sleep on track.
Or if you have something like jet lag.
Or even if you work at night, instead of in the day, and you're trying to get that rhythm
fixed a little bit, using light therapy can be very, very beneficial.
So now that I've talked it about it a little bit, you might be wondering what this thing
is over here.
So this is the Carex Daylight Classic Plus Light Therapy Lamp.
And so this one is nice.
I like it as an option just because it has the 10,000 lux, which is what the light amount
they recommend to get that natural kind of daylight.
And this one has that and it has two different settings.
So if you want to start it off a little bit lower, that's great.
And then you can build it up.
It also has an adjustable head here.
So you can bend it down and up to angle it because most of the time with the light, what
you want to do is, you want to have it not super close, but fairly close enough where
you can have it slightly above you at an angle kind of like it's reproducing the sunlight
coming in.
You can also adjust the height a little bit.
Going down and up if you want.
So I don't want to blind you, but I'm gonna turn on the light now.
So this is the lower setting.
And I would always maybe recommend starting off with the lower one and bringing it up,
and that's pushing it down.
And then you come up with the brighter one.
So it's usually recommended for light therapy in general that you want to start off with
about 20-30 minutes a day.
And a lot of the research recommends doing it in the morning when you first wake up to
kind of help get you energized and everything like that.
But the biggest thing with light therapy in general is you really have to be consistent
with it.
This is not something that you're gonna turn it on once and feel immediately better.
You have to be consistent.
You have to do, you know it every day the amount of time for it to really hopefully
help those symptoms.
It's not gonna work for everybody, but it's definitely something that is worth trying
if you have these symptoms.
Like again if you have seasonal depression, even if you have some other types of depression.
Make sure you talk with your doctor, make sure this is something that is appropriate
for you.
Even things like jet lag, I talked about, sleep disorders.
Things just to kind of help you get moving again.
Even in some research shows it helps with dementia, just kind of resetting that brain
to get that natural light.
But it's also important to note that even though there's very little side effects because
it is just a natural light therapy.
That sometimes there are some side effects.
People might report a jittery feeling, so slightly you know irritable, or maybe headaches.
And there's some other ones, so that's why it's always important to talk with your doctor
before you want to try something like this.
Especially if you've been diagnosed with these specific things.
So if you're interested in purchasing the product, make sure and click on the link up
there.
And don't forget to subscribe by clicking down there.
And remember, be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.