Mind Body & Spirit: Into The Light...Therapy

Mind, Body, & Spirit
Maintaining A Balance of Health & Wellness

Into The Light...Therapy

by David Banyas

Winter is nature’s way of saying, “Up yours.” — Robert Byrne

In the shortened days, cold snaps, and diffused and gloomy light of the fall and winter seasons, two to three percent of Central Pennsylvanians feel a nonspecific melancholy and develop a hollow despair. It has long been known that sunlight, as it peaks and ebbs over the year, affects the seasonal activities of many animals, most noticeably those that hibernate. Less obvious is how these same changes in sunlight affect human beings. It can be as simple as tiredness and a desire to stay in bed, or as debilitating as depression that can result in problems at work and at home. Harrisburg psychotherapist David Schwartz, Ph.D., attributes this hazy malaise to the circadian rhythms of natural energy. “When people lived closer to nature, they were more aware of the slowing down of their energy,” said Schwartz. “Before artificial lighting, people slept 11 hours a night during the winter. Trying to continue the same level of energy throughout the whole year is going against nature, and a kind of depression can result.”

This condition is known as “seasonal affective disorder” or, appropriately, SAD. The psychiatric community officially recognized SAD as a clinical condition in 1987. All of its symptoms resemble clinical depression under diagnosis excepting that SAD develops in the fall and winter seasons and disappears in the spring and summer. Sufferers may exhibit a pronounced lethargy, a loss of interest in pleasurable activities, a severely depressed morning mood, a tired wakefulness, suicidal thoughts, and a positive response to anti-depressant medication. SAD sufferers also may display “atypical” depressive behavior during the fall and winter like the tendency to oversleep and overeat. The cyclic nature of SAD to manifest during the ill-lighted, funereal months has prompted more interesting, vibrant alternative healing in place of the more orthodox custom of medicating.

Acupuncture, massage, meditation and aromatherapy are established alternative treatments that many people react well to for a variety ailments, including depression. The lesser-known light therapy, or phototherapy, uses light — natural or artificial, white or colored — to relieve stress, boost mood, and treat various medical problems. Some of this therapy isn’t the least bit alternative. Putting newborns under intense light is a routinely prescribed treatment of jaundice. Exposure to carefully timed bright lights can reset the biological clock, helping to overcome jet lag or a shift change. And sitting under fluorescent light for about 15 minutes a day can help people get the better of SAD.

Does this actually work? Direct sunlight stimulates our skin to produce Vitamin D. Colored lights have been studied in mood management as well as plant growth in botanical science. So is it not feasible that light or a lack of it will affect our health? I decided to ask around.

Vonnie Capazo, owner of the New Age and holistic shop The Environmental Center in the Route 22 Plaza, provided some literature of the light therapy products she has sold. It is universally accepted that a light therapy box producing 10,000 lux of bright light offers the most effective course of treatment. Initially, researchers used 2500-lux light units, but they soon found that more intense light and shorter duration of exposure was just as effective. Ott-lite bulbs and “lighthouse boxes” provide something called “full-spectrum” light, claimed by inventor John Nash Ott to be the closest thing to natural sunlight known to man. A bit pricey, but testimonials are all sweet on these lights.

Manfred Maier is an instructor at the Beaver Run Camphill Special School in Glenmoore, PA, where the mission is “to create wholeness for children and youth with development disabilities through extended family living, education and therapy.” Maier tells of the School’s Rainbow Hall, a room with 18 carefully designed stained glass windows intended to promote “the production of an artistic/hygienic/therapeutic working together of colors, speech, music and movement.” According to Maier, Scotland was the pioneer in light therapy in 1948, calling it Daylight Colored Shadow Display (DCSD). “[Those] adults who have watched the DCSD [say] it calms one down, the beauty of it enhances happiness, it promotes deeper and relaxed breathing, it enhances deep sleep during the night to follow … and is altogether experienced as an antidote to the ever-increasing multitude of disjointed sensory stimuli.” Maier says that, in general, blues, turquoises and sea green promotes a balancing and a calming of moods — especially with greens; purple creates a festive expectation; red is exciting; orange and yellow promote well-being and happiness. Maier has witnessed seeing two cases where “badly-shaken” car accident victims showed and felt swift improvement in their physiological and psychological conditions after only five sessions of DCSD.

Schwartz says that before putting someone you think is depressed in front of a blue light expecting a smile to pop up, talk to them. “Light therapy just won’t work on people with real issues like a bad marriage or another kind of conflict,” said Schwartz. “Get a dialogue going first. Talk it out.” You can always brighten the day for someone by giving yourself.

David Schwartz is located in the Heart of Harrisburg and can be reached 230-8761. For more info on the Beaver Run School, call (610) 469-9236 or visit beaverrun.org. The Environmental Center is on Jonestown Rd in Harrisburg; call 545-0204.