A common question is whether the amount of light in the morning can affect the mood of a person for the day? The logical and truthful answer is “Yes, it can”. “Winter blues” is a common enough term and refers to the constant low energy one experiences during the course of a day, in the cold weather. Feeling depressed, low energy, overweight, and literally forcing yourself out of bed in the mornings throughout the short days of winters can be extremely taxing.
This condition is generally termed as Seasonal Affective Disorder, or the SAD syndrome, which occurs due to the lack of exposure to light. When you wake up in the early hours of the morning, it is still dark outside that gives you a general feeling of gloominess, lingering on for the whole day, if not exposed to enough light. This happens mostly in winters, because days are shorter, and when your day starts, it is still dark at that time, which leaves its affects on you.
You must have noticed that you have a generally happy and lively mood when the day is bright and sunny. The day becomes happier if it starts with the normal hustle and bustle of the day and the sounds of the nature. People do not generally complain much about getting up in the morning during summers.
Actual medical studies done on the subject of “light effecting the mood of a person” shows that everyone, whether regularly afflicted with SAD or not, reacts to an increase or decrease in the intensity of light, during the course of a day. More light leads to a better mood and less to a lazy rather depressive one.
Normally, days in winters start when it is still dark and damp outside; in the same weather, you get ready, and go to your office/college/school. Once out, you normally wait for the lunch break to go out and have something to eat; this is one time when you have the chance of some exposure to the sunlight, but it usually happens that you get so busy in work that the time for the lunch break ends. Therefore, when you finally get free and are set to get back to home, it is already dark again. With such a routine, you hardly get any proper exposure to the daylight; you actually miss it.
There is always a remedy for every problem. There are a few suggestions for it in order to deal with these winter blues. Take a light therapy to lift up your mood and put the gloom away. Use a full spectrum light therapy at the start of the day, as a substitute to the natural sunlight. This light therapy has been widely used for treating the SAD syndrome.
One other option is light boxes, and visors with the body clocks; they work in a manner to synchronise your sleeping and waking up routine, with the natural reaction of your body to the sunrise and sunset. The light comes up every morning just like the normal sunlight, increasing gradually, and your body responds to it automatically.
The options mentioned above can be very expensive for some people, so you can use more lamps and tube lights to brighten up your surroundings. Another thing that can be done is to keep one or two lights on before going to bed. The idea behind this is to provide exposure to you to more light that you miss during the day.
Rosana Horowitz is an health expert. She is helping people in getting out of depression and she has recommended many products like lumie to get-up on time. You can use it for time management. For more details visit http://www.bodykind.com.