Acording to Wikilies,
which doesn't contradict anything else I've read about the subject, there are non image forming photoreceptors in the human eye which, even in people without working rods and cones, can detect blue light and use it to reset the viewer's circadian clock, so one of the primary properties of a SAD treating lightbox is a lot of emission at 480 nm or thereabouts.
Further down the thread I did write that some people seem to need more blue. But my response that it IS the eyes applies whether it is ordinary rods and cones or some ganglions. :-)
No argument with that, the reset seems to survive a lack of rods and cones, and also reasonably dense cataracts. As cataracts not only reduce the amount of light entering the eye, but the colour balance, too, then it's possible that differing degrees of opacity in the lens and cornea may change sensitivity to various types of light in the resetting process.
are just bulbs in a box.
R+G its news to me
The bit that matters can't detect the difference.
Plenty of high efficiency lights ain't broad spectrum. Which is why many find them unpleasant. Ordinary tungsten tends to be broad spectrum.
I don't know if I suffer from 'SAD' but short dark days do sort of depress me. Or rather a bit of sun cheers me up. And a goodly level of artificial light helps on those sort of dark days.
I thought it was melamine deficiency?
That is what poisoned lots of people in China!
Obviously - not the deficiency, but the presence of melamine in lots of things where it should not have been.
Um, it's good for counter tops but very poisonous.
I think you mean melanin.
Tim
I don't.
I think he might mean melatonin. At least that is a hormone! Rather than a plastic or a pigment.
But not everyone who has taken melatonin supplements has benefited. It is not clear that the issue is a simple melatonin deficiency.
Im sort of the same. I swear I can feel it as the days get shorter and longer, and so my mood and energy levels, or whatever, is effected. For me though, no artificial light helps at all. I think its as much day length as sun light.
However, Im not 100% sure its not a psychological thing that I have kind of trained myself in to as a annual routine. But I would not assume that of everyone else.
It's just the ursine genes sending out a 4-month version of a mañana signal.
Same here, I really don't function at 100% in Dec/Jan. Getting up in the dark, getting kids ready with it dark, dark at 1600 to 1700. Start feeling a lot better once there is decent light outside from about 0630 or earlier so it's properly light by 0700.
I made one from a 4ft recessed fluoro ceiling box that had 4 fitting installed. I doubled the tubes to 8 and fired it up. SAD? Not me :)
I also made a smaller one from 2' fittings, same idea.
Lovely finish, though.
I probably hibernated in a previous incarnation.
I'd like to do that, and have a cool cave to crawl into in summer.
Owain
Did you see that some UK supermarkets are now restricting purchase of baby milk powders because a huge unofficial export market has developed? Seems the Chinese do not trust their own (after the melamine in formula scandals there) so are sending vast quantities to relatives in China - and maybe even commercially.
You need some lights on a timer. It is claimed a bluish light will wake you so fit one of those for the morning and fit a warm white to switch on a few minutes later.
Keep the lights on till you go to bed.
I heard about this sort of thing on a podcast about blind people being test ed with SAD light boxes. It's not just about the visual light as you say.
I believed a flatmate of mine suffered due to lack of sunlight because her working hours were ~10:30pm to ~5am 5-6 days a week.
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