Andrew Huberman· PhD
Viewing Bright Light & Mood, Depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
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The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
Viewing Bright Light & Mood, Depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
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one is very bright light as we just talked about that's why getting a lot of daytime sunlight is correlated with elevated mood that's why looking at a 10,000 Lux artificial lamp can offset Seasonal effective disorder
there's a long-standing treatment for Seasonal effective disorder which is to give people exposure to very bright light especially in the morning the way that that's normally accomplished is with these sad lamps Seasonal effective disorder lamps and those lamps are basically bright meaning more than 10,000 Lux lights that they place on their kitchen counter or at their table in the morning or in their office so they're getting a lot of bright light that is proven to be fairly effective for the treatment of Seasonal effective disorder
The protocol I just described is exactly the same protocol that they have used successfully to offset seasonal depression.
And that can offset things like not just seasonal depression but mild depression, malaise, lack of daytime energy, and on, and on.
I think if people don't have access to sunlight, enough sunlight, there are great data that a 10,000 lux artificial light placed in the kitchen or in the bathroom when you wake up in the morning, you don't need a lot of time in front of it. You don't have to stare at it. That can help offset some seasonal effect uh depression. And some people just need more photons to get that morning spike in cortisol, which is good to get the catakolamines going to dopamine and so on.
there's a long-standing treatment for Seasonal effective disorder which is to give people exposure to very bright light especially in the morning
those lamps are basically bright meaning more than 10,000 Lux lights that they place on their kitchen counter or at their table in the morning or in their office so they're getting a lot of bright light that has proven to be fairly effective for the treatment of Seasonal effective disorder
one is very bright light as we just talked about that's why getting a lot of daytime sunlight is correlated with elevated mood