Winter Blues? A SAD Light May Make All The Difference
SAD lights are said to lower the sleepy melatonin chemicals and raise serotonin levels to improve mood and energy.
SADMENTAL HEALTHTHERAPYSEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDERSAD LIGHT
Ellie-Ren
11/30/20243 min read
About a month ago in the UK we had almost a full week of no sun, not a peek, just dull, gloomy clouds. Borrowing lyrics from ‘Bye Bye Birdie’; the gray skies did not clear up and I most definitely did not cheer up and put on a happy face.
Every year I seem to forget that I get Seasonal Affective Disorder symptoms, and every year a week or so after the clocks change, it takes me by surprise when my mood becomes so LOW.
Things seem incredibly bleak: It’s depression and self-loathing, it’s higher anxiety and harder to find the motivation to go out or do much of anything. It’s brain fog making me feel thick-headed and loopy as though I have some kind of degenerative brain disease - Need to remember a word to describe the thing that drains pasta? Ha! You can’t because it has literally fallen out of your brain into the scrap heap of other words you’ve lost recently.
I couldn’t even remember the name of the lead singer of Queen for about half an hour, a fact that I have known since I was a child in the flipping 80s for goodness-sake (thankfully Freddie’s name did pop back into my head, but for a while there I was worried).
When did I realise that I was experiencing SAD again I decided that taking high dose vitamin D3 supplements wasn’t helping me enough. I needed something else, I needed a SAD lamp.
Buying a SAD light/lamp
This was not exactly my first foray into SAD lamps, about 15 years previously I owned one of the early, chunky versions that had individual bulbs. Unfortunately, my house rabbit chewed through the electrical cord and it stopped working (She was fine, it wasn’t switched on).
I searched around online and saw an offer on at Amazon for a Sad Light within my budget and after checking the reviews and specs, decided to buy it. - By the way I am not getting paid for promoting this particular item, many other similar products are available! -
The modern SAD lights are slim, look a bit like a tablet or IPad and come with a stand so they can be positioned on a table directly in front of you.
Photo by Ellie-Ren
The thing that most appealed to me about the Beurer Daylight Lamp TL35 https://amzn.eu/d/25sBr4L was that it had different light settings and colours, so you can change the amount of brightness to suit your needs and mood.
Sometimes I use the brighter white light to help me to focus on my writing or wake me from my winter stupor while I get more serotonin. It’s like drinking a strong cappuccino and it really does lift your mood and help with concentration. If you need to work on something on your laptop or read a book but find yourself regularly drifting off and your eyes glazing over, yes take a break and remember to blink but also try a SAD light. Trick your brain into believing it’s wakey, wakey time, not time to hibernate in your cave.
On this SAD light there are also warm light settings that have more of an orangey tone and can be altered to various levels of brightness including a dusky glow that is less stimulating, and more relaxing for when you don’t need a kick up the backside but also don’t want to fall asleep.
The amount of lumens (lux) a SAD lamp has is important to consider when buying as 10,000 lux is the recommended amount for raising serotonin. Whether you sit closer to your light or have it at eye level also affects the effectiveness of a SAD lamp, as does the settings you use.
Results
After a few weeks of regular use for around an hour a day, I can definitely say that I have noticed the positive effects of my SAD light. I can feel the similar feeling of energy in my body as I get when the days are longer and the sun is shining.
I find writing on my laptop much easier and I don’t lose my train of thought like I used to. My mood lifts when I sit in front of the light and I feel more positive and productive.
Losing daylight at 4pm used to feel claustrophobic and depressing but now I have more control over the light I feel like I can cope with the darkness, because now I have ‘bright skies’ whenever I want.

