In the good old days before Edison’s invention of the light bulb, our lives modeled nature. We rose with the sun and went to bed when it was dark. In the shorter days of winter we rested and restored like the trees that drop their leaves, slow down and send their energy down into their roots or like the animals who hibernate.

Liberman explains clearly throughout his book, Light: The Future of Medicine,  “how the cycles of human lives relate to the cycles of our environment” or at least should and that we are designed to respond to them just as plants and animals do. However, since we now live in a 24/7 world that never goes to sleep, it has become harder and harder to honor our natural rhythms, cycles and seasons. This modern day lifestyle of working indoors, artificial light, sunglasses, sunscreen, not slowing down in the winter time in spite of the shorter hours of sunlight has led to millions feeling down and out in the winter time, the “winter blues”.

What was “once a time of year when nature assisted our inner growth by supporting us in going into the unlit aspects of our souls, has now become a time of depression and sadness dreaded by many.”

French physician, J.F. Cauvin, wrote his PhD thesis on the benefits of sunlight for the “sad and weak” in 1815 (p121). As the human population expanded northward away from equator combined with the onset of industrialization (cities, artificial light, working indoors), the reports of a winter melancholy grew. Northeast snowbirds going to FL in the 20^th c have nothing on the northern Europeans traveling to the south of France and Italy in the 19^th c. Intuitively humans have known they need light even if they didn’t understand why.

Symptoms such as depression, sleeping more, eating more, gaining weight, decreased libido, personality changes, decreased energy, poor concentration, social withdrawl, brain fog and fatigue are typical of what was simply called the “winter blues” but it wasn’t until 1980-1981 that we understood the physiological reason for these mood changes and a name was actually given to this group of symptoms.

In 1980 we finally understood the importance of melatonin secreted by the pineal gland. Dr.’s Alfred Lewy and Thomas Wehr “discovered that bright light could suppress the nighttime secretion of melatonin” while working at the NIH’s Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). This discovery led to the conclusion that bright artificial light could counter balance the effects of the shorter days of winter and that if our moods are regulated by melatonin and our melatonin is regulated by the pineal and the pineal is regulated by light then our best anti-depressant is light .

At about the same time, Dr. Norman Rosenthal, a psychiatrist, put a name to this group of symptoms who was also working at the NIMH. This melancholy that had been referred to in literature since the early 1800’s was named Seasonal Affective Disorder in 1981. Not only did Rosenthal and his team name this disorder but pioneered the use of “light therapy” for it’s treatment.

Since the majority of sufferers (and the estimate is around 25-35 million Americans) are not likely to make all the lifestyle changes that could alleviate the symptoms such as moving to the tropics, a light box used primarily in the morning hours that mimics the sun at high noon can help reset the body’s clock and increase the production of serotonin. “Bright light treatment has been scientifically documented by so many different controlled studies internationally that it is considered the treatment of choice for SAD” (p124).

Lack of light has psychological effects beyond wintertime SAD. Non seasonal depression, eating disorders particularly bulimia, addictions, detoxification and withdrawl, PMS emotional symptoms and plain old garden variety stress and anxiety all respond to the introduction of bright light and are most likely caused or at least worsened by the lack of light.

New York psychiatrist Victor Frankel in the 1960’s (years before melatonin and the pineal gland were given their rightful place of importance and SAD was acknowledged as real) found different colored lights triggered memories and stress and that the right (for that individual) colored lights relieved and removed the negative memories and stress. He hypothesized that “removing stress from the mind not only reduces disease but also unleashes human creativity”.

Quite by accident in the early 1970’s Dr. Irving Geller, a Texas pharmacologist, discovered what he called, “darkness induced drinking phenomenon”. When a light timing device broke in his lab that didn’t turn the lights on and off as programmed, his rats went on alcohol drinking binges. Further studies showed increased levels of melatonin lead to an increased desire for alcohol. Now we know why cocktail lounges are always so dim and dark!

Some may think love makes the world go round as the song says, but is truly is Light that makes your world go round.

The body is the most brilliant computer that was ever designed. There will never be a computer smarter than the human body. Given the proper encouragement and the proper information, the body heals itself.” Hanna Kroeger, ND