WEDNESDAY, Feb. 8, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- As another gray, dreary winter takes hold, you begin to feel a depression settling deep in your bones.
You don't feel motivated. You're eating a ton of food. A gloomy pall engulfs your life.
Chances are you are in the throes of seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, a condition that affects as much as one-fifth of the population in the United States.
The good news: There's a cheap and effective treatment for the disorder -- one that's actually available for free outside during the spring and summer months.
But your health insurance probably won't cover it.
Studies have shown that light therapy -- exposure to bright light -- can reduce the symptoms of SAD in as many as 80 percent of sufferers, according to research by Randall Flory, a psychology professor at Hollins University in Roanoke, Va.
Light therapy is typically administered using a "light box" -- a set of fluorescent bulbs or tubes generally encased in small, portable devices of plastic or aluminum. A plastic screen covering the bulbs blocks out potentially harmful ultraviolet rays.
To use the box, you set it on a table or desk and sit in front of it with your eyes open. For the therapy to work, the light from the box must enter your eyes indirectly. Skin exposure isn't effective, but patients also are warned to avoid looking directly at the box because it could cause eye damage.
Doctors believe the therapy works by stimulating protein molecules in the retina, the back part of the eye, which contains cells that respond to light, Flory said. "When activated by light, they send messages by the optic nerve to a part of the hypothalamus," an area of the brain that regulates a wide range of functions, he said.
Those signals affect the production of seratonin and melatonin, two brain hormones that can cause mood swings, sleeplessness or depression as their levels rise or decline, Flory said.
People suffering from SAD experience many of the symptoms related to imbalances in these hormones, said Anie Kalayjian, a psychology professor at Fordham University, and a Red Cross certified disaster mental health specialist.
"Their future outlook is gloomy," Kalayjian said. "They have trouble meeting their deadlines. They don't like to socialize. Some of my clients have said even returning calls becomes a major, major challenge for them."
In his research, Flory used light boxes to treat women with SAD over five consecutive Januarys. He also tested another treatment that previous research had shown to be effective -- air-cleaning devices that increase airborne levels of negatively charged ion.
The light boxes showed the best long-term symptom reduction, Flory said, although the ionizers also helped.
"The [light box] treatment can produce dramatic change," he said. "Within one or two days of beginning light treatment, people will notice changes in sleep, fatigue, appetite and depression levels."
The only side effect tends to be tension headaches caused by people squinting into the boxes, Flory said. The headaches are resolved by moving the person farther from the light box for a period.
The problem is, most insurance companies still see light boxes as experimental treatment, Flory said.
The health insurance companies won't pay for the light boxes, which run $200 to $300 and last about five years, even though insurers will pay for antidepressants that offer a chemical solution laden with side effects, he said.
"That's still a sticky wicket," Flory said. "It is an extraordinarily safe, easy and cheap treatment for seasonal affective disorder, and proven many times over, but in their minds it's still experimental."
More information
To learn more about SAD, visit the National Mental Health Association.
