Can staring into a really bright lamp really make you feel more cheerful and energetic when you’ve got the winter blues? I tested out a light therapy lamp for one month to find out.

Unless you live near the equator, you’ve probably realized that during the winter the days get shorter. In fact, the closer you live to the North or South Pole, the more the length of the days varies between summer and winter. Above the Arctic Circle (66° North of the equator) the sun doesn’t fully set during the summer nights, and during the winter doesn’t rise for several weeks at a time.

I currently live in Jyväskylä, which has a latitude of 62°N.  There can be as little as 6 hours of daylight in the darkest part of winter. To put that in perspective, it is dark outside when you go to work/school and again when you leave work/school. The darkness can make it difficult to wake up, maintain energy levels throughout the day, cause depression and result in consumption of massive amounts of coffee. The clinical name for the winter blues is “Seasonal Affective Disorder” (SAD). This is why I decided to try a light therapy lamp.

The TL90 from Beurer claims to address the hormone imbalance caused by sunlight deficiency, returning serotonin (responsible for mood) and melatonin (responsible for drowsiness) to normal levels and relieving symptoms of SAD.  Recommended use is 15 minutes per day, first thing in the morning, to help energize. You should sit with your face 15-20 centimeters from the lamp and can expect results after seven consecutive days of use. There are many models and brands of lights to choose from.

When I first turned on the lamp, the light was very bright, but diffused and soft with a neutral white color. “Is this what sunlight looks like?”, I asked myself. I ate my breakfast in front of the lamp around 8am before going to class at the university.

I have been using the light therapy lamp for the month of January, during most weekday mornings between 7 and 9am. This is also the month that I decided to decrease my coffee consumption, as I started to become caffeine dependent in the end of 2015. Now I know why the Finns drink so much coffee: to stay awake through the winter! Anyhow, I haven’t started any of my mornings with coffee while testing the lamp (at most I sip a green tea). I have also taken daily vitamin D supplements, which helps with sunlight deficiency.

My Verdict

After one month of testing a light therapy lamp, I must say that I’m a believer! I’ve seen the light! On those dark mornings when I need to wake up before the sun has risen, light treatments have worked better than coffee for me. In the time that it takes me to eat my breakfast in front of the lamp, a gradual perkiness and a clarity comes over my groggy, sleepy mind. After 15 minutes I find myself jumping up to finish getting ready and eager to walk to the university. Even after the sun comes up and I have been in lectures for several hours, the clarity remains without the jitteriness and crash of caffeine.

The long term effects have been positive as well: I feel overall more energetic than during December, before I had the lamp. I have been exercising and even learning to ice skate.

My conclusion is that light therapy works! At least when combined with other healthy practices like taking vitamin D supplements, exercising and getting enough sleep. Light therapy lamps can be a bit of an investment, but the fluorescent bulbs inside this model should last 10,000 hours according to the manual – that is a lot of 15 minute treatments! If the winter darkness has got you down, I recommend you try light therapy.