Partner feels need for bright light in winter - but cannot tolerate the full-strength SAD light boxes.
She feels very much better by our having generally higher colour temperature CFLs, and overall more light in the living room than most people would expect. Will move to appropriate LEDs, I'd guess, as these die.
Specifically, there was a small-ish desk lamp at Lidl a few months ago, IIRC about 5000 K, which she has near her and that makes a big difference.
Anyone with SAD should consider their vitamin D status, cheapest decent finger-prick UK testing seems to be available here:
Not myself, but I thought the idea was that the light was evenly distributed and it has to be very accurate colour wise, I guess this means the bulbs need to be sourced carefully.
AIUI, SAD is caused by Vitamin D deficiency, and Vitamin D is made in the skin under the action of sunlight. Hence the deficiency and the incidence of SAD tends to rise in winter. The instructions to look at the lamp is probably intended to ensure that the skin on the face and neck gets as much from the lamp as possible, though I had understood that the usual idea was to 'sunbathe' under them, as if one is on a beach.
Yes - some people do seem to need the blue end to be emphasised. But SAD lights do not need to be super-broad spectrum, etc. Nor do they produce any appreciable UVB so are useless for making vitamin D.
While low vitamin D has been found in those suffering SAD, and it is always worth checking this out (whether empirically or by test), it is quite clear that people can be vitamin D replete, and yet suffer SAD.
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