Although light therapy is most often used to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder it can be an effective treatment for many types of issues. Light therapy is essentially a treatment of the body’s circadian rhythms, it works by triggering the brain’s chemical response to light. This stimulates serotonin levels that help the body to regulate its sleep schedules. It also alleviates stress and fatigue. Serotonin behaves similarly to medications like Prozac that are used to treat different types of depression. As a result, it may very well have an effect on non-seasonal depressions, some mental disorders, and circadian rhythm disorders as well as SAD.

Proof of this comes in studies that show patients who were hospitalized for depression were able to leave up to three days sooner when their rooms faced the direction of the morning sun. Other studies show that light therapy provided in low doses with the help of a physician can be one of the safest available treatments for bipolar disorders. It has also been tested for use in softening the effects of graveyard shifts and jet lag. All of these disorders are related to the same lack of serotonin that causes SAD. For that reason, they can all be treated by the application of specifically timed doses of light therapy which works to keep the body’s rhythms and the brain’s chemicals in balance.

The chemistry of Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to be directly related to the balance between two important chemicals found in the brain, melatonin and serotonin. Melatonin is the chemical that regulates sleep. It in turn is regulated by light. Within the brain, there direct connections between the retina, where light is received and measured, and the pineal gland, where melatonin is produced. The onset of its production is triggered by darkness, the body’s cue to rest. Once the body’s exposure to light increases, though, melatonin production decreases and the body converts its energy to serotonin production.

Serotonin is one of the chemicals responsible for the brain’s control over mood and appetite. High levels have been linked to positive feelings, relaxation and the ability to focus. When the brain’s production of melatonin switches over to serotonin it tells the body that it is time to be awake and alert.

Recent research suggests that serotonin levels are the key to SAD. While melatonin levels seem to remain the same in both those who experience SAD and those who don’t, serotonin levels have been show to be significantly lower in seasonally depressed patients. Scientists show that the proteins responsible for clearing the brain of excess serotonin are extremely active during periods of darkness, depressing serotonin levels to aid sleep. When the body and the brain are not exposed to enough light, as sometimes occurs during the winter months, serotonin levels stay low during the day as well.

Professionals identify light therapy as the primary treatment available for Seasonal Affective Disorder for a number of reasons. During winter, the amount of light that the body is exposed to is significantly smaller than in summer months. The amount of light available in an office or other room may be as much as 500 to 1000 times less than that on a bright sunny day. An overcast or wintery day provides only one fourth of the sunlight of summer. That amount of light is hard to replace without the bright, focused spectrum used in light therapy. For those suffering from SAD symptoms, the lack of light is the main problem and this therapy is its most studied and most effective treatment.

The exposure to light therapy helps to trigger the body’s biochemical responses to daylight. These responses help to alleviate several types of depression. Therapists are now exploring the treatment of many other disorders using light therapy. Some of these include non-seasonal depression, post partum depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, sleep disorders, and jet leg.

Doctors suggest considering light therapy as a response instead of drug treatments that may be expensive and carry unwanted side effects or complications. With proper professional support, the use of bright light therapy for as little as thirty minutes at the beginning of the day may be the very best treatment for SAD.

Studies are showing that light therapy is the best treatment for sufferers of Seasonal Affective Disorder. It should be noted that this research has come a long way. Light therapy is currently the most researched treatment available for SAD and scientists continue to work at discovering the extent of its wide-ranging applications.

The advantages of light therapy in treating SAD are plain to be seen when the treatment is compared to other methods. The primary option is to treat SAD with antidepressant drugs like many other types of depression. Drugs are significantly more expensive than light therapy and they also come with the prospect of side effects. In addition, a drug like Prozac only mimics the effects of the natural serotonin production that light therapy encourages. Recent studies have confirmed that the use of light therapy to treat SAD produces stronger effects in a weeklong treatment period than Prozac can. Further studies show that when the light therapy is calibrated to the patient’s specific circadian rhythms, the response is up to twice as strong.

Light therapy is more natural and more powerful than other treatments for SAD. It is the safest, most tested, option. It is also the most efficient. Light therapy takes effect with a morning application of as little as thirty minutes and can alleviate symptoms in one to four weeks. It does this by mimicking the sunlight the body lacks and triggering an entirely natural response. There is simply no other treatment that can offer these benefits.