The days are getting shorter it's colder and darker outside
How many of you all are feeling a little bit more depressed ?
In this episode I'm going to teach you how light impacts your brain and influences
your mood and I'm also going to teach you how you can use light therapy as a natural ,
non-medicinal way to treat seasonal depression which is also known as winter blues or SAD and
how rigorous research has shown that light therapy can be as effective as antidepressant medication
at treating non-seasonal depression. Oh and if you'd like to learn more natural research-backed
ways to treat depression and anxiety check out my online course Change Your Brain: 10 natural
research-backed ways to treat depression and anxiety the course link is in the description.
this video is sponsored by Carex, Carex makes quality natural light lamps that are used by
medical professionals and these mimic natural sunlight to improve mood enhance sleep schedules
and treat depression so go to carex.com and use the discount code Nutshell20 to get 20%
off your purchase in my 20s I spent a couple of years working in wilderness and adventure therapy
programs with troubled teenagers and as staff our shifts were eight days on six days off so
during our shift we lived outside in simple tarp shelters and over time we noticed that our bodies
started to adapt to outdoor living so for example because we didn't shower very often our scalps
just naturally started to produce less grease or after being in the wilderness for a while
we'd start to smell like dirt and we'd notice that the bugs didn't go for us as much or another
example is when we'd show up for our first day on shift out in the desert the temperatures were over
100 degrees it would just seem unbearable but within a few days of living out there
our bodies would adapt and the heat didn't bother us so much anymore and I personally noticed that
during the hot summer months I had a lot less of an appetite and in the cold winter months
when I needed to burn calories to heat myself I naturally had a much bigger appetite but one
of the biggest changes that I noticed while I was living in the wilderness was that my body started
to naturally sink to the cycles of light outside so in the summer during the long bright days I
didn't need as much sleep I would only sleep six or seven hours but I would still wake up in the
morning just like full of energy and I couldn't stay in my sleeping bag any longer than that
and in the winter months we would still camp outside in these simple tarp shelters even if
there was a couple feet of snow on the ground and my body naturally adapted to that as well
so your body cranks out more heat in the winter and naturally I had a little bit less energy and
I was able to stay warm and stay wrapped up in my sleeping bag during those long winter nights and I
was probably sleeping 11 or 12 hours a night and I was able to spend like 13 hours in my sleeping bag
now during the summer that would have driven me crazy spending that much time just laying around
so despite all the other factors that may have been present it was clear to me that
light was having an impact on my day-to-day work and my energy levels in the wilderness
research shows that the light that enters our eyes gives information to our brain as
to what our energy level should be light sets our body's clock which is called the circadian rhythm
and changes in light levels can affect hormones like melatonin and serotonin so sunlight cues
these special areas of our retinas this triggers the brain to release serotonin and serotonin
is a neurotransmitter associated with happiness serotonin also impacts sexual functioning sleep
memory learning digestion and other functions throughout the body decreased sun exposure is
connected to a drop in serotonin levels and this can lead to depression with a seasonal pattern
you may be familiar with serotonin because some of the most commonly used antidepressant medications
like prozac these work by impacting serotonin but you can also trigger the release of serotonin by
increasing your exposure to daylight or bright lights another hormone melatonin this is a key
to our body's sleep-wake cycle our bodies respond to darkness by producing melatonin which signals
the body to prepare for sleep when we're exposed to sunlight in the morning melatonin is produced
sooner and it helps us sleep more easily come night time regular sunlight exposure during
the day is essential for a synchronized melatonin production and a healthy sleep and wake schedule
and this is really important because sleep problems are directly linked to depression
when we can improve sleep research shows it can improve depression symptoms 87 percent of the time
light impacts our body in other ways too the sun's uv rays have been linked to vitamin d production
lower blood pressure and research shows that people generally have lower mood and less
energy on cloudy days than they do on sunny ones and this isn't like a brain defect or something
it's a trait that's helped our ancestors survive so historically our ancestors almost all worked
outdoors on cold wet or dark days it was more efficient for them to stay indoors and to stay
warm and to conserve energy and the bright hot sunny days it was better for them to get outside
and be hunting or farming or whatever it was that they needed to do so if you look at the symptoms
of seasonal depression these are things like low energy sleeping longer eating more these could be
really adaptive if you were stuck inside a hut all winter and it was best if you just spent more time
sleeping than being stuck inside full of energy our brain has evolved to adapt to our natural
environment and it's not adapted very well to our modern environment our modern society expects us
to work a nine-to-five schedule regardless of the season the temperature or the weather
and according to the epa Americans spend 90 of their time indoors and our brain just hasn't
adapted very well to this artificial indoor light is not nearly as beneficial to our brains and our
bodies as natural sunlight so this sets us up to be more irritable depressed or feel low energy
because our body is out of sync with our work environment and this can lead to depression so one
way to improve your mood is to start by increasing your access to natural sunlight throughout the day
but especially in the morning within the first hour of waking up even diffuse light coming in
through the windows can be beneficial so open your windows natural sunlight is powerful and a recent
study showed that spending a weekend camping in the winter can even reset your natural body clock
and resolve those seasonal issues like low energy but the thing is most of us just aren't able to
hibernate during the winter or get enough sunlight to have regular energy and a positive mood
so when natural light isn't an option it's possible to do light therapy at home
so light therapy has been shown through rigorous research to be helpful with seasonal affective
disorder and also non-seasonal depression I mean just regular old depression so multiple large
careful studies using control groups these are the best kind of studies have shown that light therapy
is as effective at treating non-seasonal depression as antidepressant medications and
light therapy shows even more success in treating depression when it's combined with antidepressant
medication light therapy has been shown to be effective with low energy sleep problems
changes in sleep schedules like having jet lag or shift work and emerging research is showing that
light therapy has possible promising effects for depression in schizophrenia borderline personality
disorder parkinson's and fibromyalgia and some very small studies have shown that light therapy
can be helpful at rapidly treating depression in bipolar disorder now I think ideally we would all
spend a lot more time outdoors and have the opportunity to hibernate during the winter
or at least go camping but since that's not realistic for most of us using a therapy
light can be the easiest way to help boost your mood so let's talk about how to do light therapy
light therapy can be used with medication and it has very few risks or side effects
now of course I recommend talking with your doctor about your specific situation before using light
therapy but the first thing to know when beginning light therapy is that not just any light will
work so as I mentioned at the beginning of this video this this episode is sponsored by Carex
and just so you know I turn down a lot of sponsors that don't meet the standards of rigorous research
I won't promote something that I don't believe is safe or effective and Carex makes very nice lights
that carefully meet all the cet guidelines so in addition to
sponsoring this video they've also given me some of their lights to donate to my clients
so what you need is a light box that can actually project 10 000 lux at a comfortable distance
so you don't have to have your face like right up against the light box and the other important
things are that this light should emit no uv rays and it should use a white light spectrum
so this lamp here is the daylight classic and it uses a uv filter to make sure that no uv
uh comes through now the other light that I was sent by Carex it uses bulbs that don't have any
uv in them they use uv-free technology now the lamp should have the ability to mimic the sun
by entering your eyes from a downward angle so it needs to be able to be propped up in some way
and it should have a very large lit surface area and not a single point of light so if you look at
this light box it's quite large right and this makes it a lot easier for you to get the needed
therapeutic dose in less amount of time so with the 10 000 lux light box light therapy usually
involves daily sessions of around 20 to 30 minutes and you can just sit or work near a light box and
the light needs to enter your eyes indirectly so you need to have your eyes open you can set it
on your table or your desk at home and that way you can read or you know do some other activity
while having your light therapy you can't get the same effect by just exposing your skin to the
light so you do need to have your eyes open you can't just lay in bed while you do light therapy
the other thing is you don't want to like stare directly into the light box that can be a little
hard on the eyes and if you're going to choose to do light therapy i recommend you using a tracker
and carex.com has a cool little uh tracker where you can track your mood and track your
light therapy use and that way you can be really consistent because to see results you need to
put in a consistent amount of time every day for most people light therapy is most effective when
it's done early in the morning right after you wake up and you want to have this box about 16
to 24 inches from your face now light therapy has very few risks but using artificial light boxes
can trigger irritability or even mania so if you have bipolar disorder or a manic disorder or if
you've had manic episodes in the past you'll just want to be very cautious about using light therapy
maybe start with smaller doses or shorter amounts of time and you know of course work with your
doctor to figure out if it's a good option for you the only other precautions are if you have
really sensitive skin or really sensitive eyes you might want to talk with your doctor first and some
medications including some antidepressants and st john's wort they can make your skin and your
eyes more sensitive to light so I recommend you talk with your doctor about that too now
just in case you were wondering tanning beds are not a good alternative they release a different
wavelength of light and they can increase skin cancer risk just like exposure to sunlight does
so most people don't know that there are many natural options to treat depression
and many doctors aren't even aware of the benefits of light therapy their first go-to treatment is
often recommending an antidepressant medication and antidepressants are a really valid form of
treatment they've got a lot of good research behind them but they do come with side effects
and one of the best things about light therapy in my opinion is that it has very few side effects
and research shows that it's also a effective way to treat seasonal and non-seasonal depression so
if you think that this might be a good option for you talk with your doctor and check out the link
in the description to buy a therapy light I hope you found the information in this episode helpful
please share this video with someone you think could benefit from light therapy and if you
haven't already please like and subscribe to help others find these videos take care.