What Affect Can The Amount Of Light In The Morning Have On My Mood For The Day?
A common question is whether the amount of light in the morning can affect the mood of a person for the day? The logical and truthful answer is “Yes, it can”. “Winter blues” is a common enough term and refers to the constant low energy one experiences during the course of a day, in the cold weather. Feeling depressed, low energy, overweight, and literally forcing yourself out of bed in the mornings throughout the short days of winters can be extremely taxing.
This type of seasonal changes in mood is due to the lack of light, commonly known as Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD syndrome. If you wake up in the morning when it is still dark, you are taken over by the gloomy mood; if the darkness continues, the mood only worsens. People feel low and depressed in the winters more, because the days are shorter and the darkness of the night leaves its affects.
Why do we feel happy when the day is sunny? It is the noise of the birds in the morning, and the sound of the daily hustle and bustle of everyone, rushing to their destinations, that make the day a whole lot cheerful. Complains of having trouble in getting out of the bed in the morning is comparatively less in summers.
Medical research has shown that, irrespective of the SAD syndrome, the mood of the people is affected by the amount of exposure to light. Studies show that the more exposure you have to light, the more you feel gay, and less exposure to light makes your mood gloomier.
During winters, you wake up in the dark, usually in a cold rather damp environment, get ready for the day and then drive or walk to your office/college/school. By the time the lunch break arrives, you weigh the option of getting out of the office to get a bite to eat outside, against the shortage of time (lunch break is usually just one hour), and more often, you will probably decide to stay put. By the time it is time to go home, it is dark again. One feels as missing out a whole day and experiencing no or less daylight.
In order to find the remedy, there are a couple of suggestions. If you are really down in the dumps, a little light therapy may be very beneficial for you. This is how you can go about making the start of your day; a much brighter prospect. Use full spectrum light therapy, as it duplicates natural sunlight. It has been used extensively to treat SAD syndrome with positive results.
One other option is light boxes, and visors with the body clocks; they work in a manner to synchronise your sleeping and waking up routine, with the natural reaction of your body to the sunrise and sunset. The light comes up every morning just like the normal sunlight, increasing gradually, and your body responds to it automatically.
These options are very useful, but are expensive as well, so another alternative can be the use of lamps and tube lights to lighten up your surroundings. Avoid turning off all the lights at night. The reason behind this is that it would make up for some of the day light that you have missed.
Rosana Horowitz is an health expert. She is helping people in getting out of depression and she has recommended many products like lumie to get-up on time. You can use it for time management. For more details visit http://www.bodykind.com.