Opinions plse on SAD lamps

[eddieo]

Seeing as we are supposed to becoming a water logged country with no summers for the next 20 years. We have been recommended to get a couple of SAD lamps, one in bedroom and one in study.

Anyone any experience with these please? as dont really want to waste any money if they don't work.....This weather is driving us nuts but we cant go travelling all the time.

 

[amigafan2003]

Go out for a walk occasionally instead?

 

[morphix]

Never tried them myself but I also get the winter blues and find St John's Wort very effective.. I use the tincture which I find works a lot better than tablets and is easier to dose. 10 drops in a bit of orange juice once daily does me. I can really notice the difference when I stop taking it for a few days.

You're supposed to avoid too much sunlight if you're taking SJW so not sure whether you can combine SJW with these lamps, saying that, you can get low energy lamps now I heard and I'm not entirely sure how these lamps work anyway..do they actually put out UV rays like a sun bed?...

I'd be interested to know how you get on anyway

 

[flecc]

Watch TV documentaries from sunny places and bask in the light from the screen!

 

[eddieo]

Go out for a walk occasionally instead?

we go for a walk rain or shine most days..were the only ones up in the woods this morning. anyway its not that, they work like natural sunlight apparently, my wife finds mornings problematic....I'm fine.

 

[GORDONAL]

Seeing as we are supposed to becoming a water logged country with no summers for the next 20 years. We have been recommended to get a couple of SAD lamps, one in bedroom and one in study.

Anyone any experience with these please? as dont really want to waste any money if they don't work.....This weather is driving us nuts but we cant go travelling all the time.

Get the campervan to Spain Eddieo

We just arrived here 2 days ago , 19-20 degs in day 13 at night what a contrast to dank dismal Wales

Added bonus at least we can cycle here ......

Alan

 

[eddieo]

will be there in new year all being well..India for Christmas first Where about are you, and for how long?

 

[halfer]

I've used 5-HTP (available at health-food shops, but expensive) to combat mild depression; it's a seratonin stimulant, I think. It seemed initially to have an effect, but in retrospect it may have been that I was taking an evening meal earlier to try it, which in turn substantially improved the quality of subsequent sleep - presumably due to increased digestion time. So, my first bit of advice would be to tinker with your daily routines, to see if that has any effect.

With that in mind, consider these things first: (a) an earlier daily stop on eating and drinking (especially caffeine and other stimulants) before bed, (b) moving sleep times to synchronise with natural light/dark cycles, (c) waking naturally rather than using an alarm clock, (d) improving diet, even if this means only taking a multi-vitamin, (e) spreading meals throughout the day to avoid post-eating "crash" (I've heard good things about having five small meals a day for this very reason).

If that lot doesn't work, try 5-HTP for a month (Holland & Barrett do them, try to get their two-for-one deals). I've also had recommendations for Passiflora (Passion flower) and Withania (Ashwaghanda) remedies, but I've not tried them yet. Also munching on glucose tablets (from any chemist) or Lucozade may help.

 

[Scimitar]

To avoid spending money if they don't work for you, try this...
I made my own SAD lamp, using a 4-lamp fluorescent ceiling fitting and packed 4 extra lamps into it, giving an 8-lamp total of 320W, iirc.
It's bright, by gawd, it's bright.
It seemed to work all right and before I knew it I was skipping merrily along the road, being as bright as a button all day long. Nary a dismal thought crossed my mind and for sure, it was like being in Nirvana most of the time.
Or perhaps that was the pills...
Anyway, you can try it that way if you find some old office fluoro fittings.

 

[halfer]

I'd have thought fluorescent lights don't contain the same frequency mix as daylight, which is what SAD lamps try to emulate. However if they put Scimitar on Cloud 9, it's gotta be worth a go

 

[Old_Dave]

Replace a few of the tubes with UV ones, get happy and a tan at the same time.... Just like being on holiday


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Scimitar]

I'd have thought fluorescent lights don't contain the same frequency mix as daylight, which is what SAD lamps try to emulate. However if they put Scimitar on Cloud 9, it's gotta be worth a go

I used daylight tubes - they're dead cheap, too. A fraction of the cost of fancy SAD tubes.

 

[neptune]

Perhaps fluorescent tubes do not work quite as well as the real SAD lamps, but I strongly suspect they are well worth a try, especially if you can use recycled fluorescents. I know you can get special tubes for horticultural use. Plants think they are a good substitute for the sun, so they may work. A cheap way round it might be to work as a caretaker at your friendly local indoor cannabis farm!
Joking apart, SAD is no laughing matter to the thousands if sufferers, and although I have not been diagnosed as such, it definitely effects me. We do not all enjoy the benefit of foreign travel, so we must make the best use of what we have. Spend as many hours of the daylight outdoors as you can manage. If you work indoors, get outside at lunchtime. Get plenty of gentle exercise, walking, biking and ebiking. Do not use bad weather as an excuse, wear suitable suitable clothes. Visit the woods and the fields, even if the trees are bare. Treat yourself to a change of scenery now and then. Take or ride your bike to a different town or area, and ride there for a change. Before you know it, the winter solstice will be upon us, and we shall move, albeit slowly at first, out of the land of shadows.

 

[morphix]

Perhaps fluorescent tubes do not work quite as well as the real SAD lamps, but I strongly suspect they are well worth a try, especially if you can use recycled fluorescents. I know you can get special tubes for horticultural use. Plants think they are a good substitute for the sun, so they may work. A cheap way round it might be to work as a caretaker at your friendly local indoor cannabis farm!
Joking apart, SAD is no laughing matter to the thousands if sufferers, and although I have not been diagnosed as such, it definitely effects me. We do not all enjoy the benefit of foreign travel, so we must make the best use of what we have. Spend as many hours of the daylight outdoors as you can manage. If you work indoors, get outside at lunchtime. Get plenty of gentle exercise, walking, biking and ebiking. Do not use bad weather as an excuse, wear suitable suitable clothes. Visit the woods and the fields, even if the trees are bare. Treat yourself to a change of scenery now and then. Take or ride your bike to a different town or area, and ride there for a change. Before you know it, the winter solstice will be upon us, and we shall move, albeit slowly at first, out of the land of shadows.

Yeah that's good advice neptune, I think just getting a bit of exercise that involves some fresh air each day makes all the difference in how you feel. I like jogging in the mornings myself but a bike ride is just as good. It's not all negative about the dark nights and cold winter, there's some nice aspects of it too..if you were in a hot country all the time I think you would get bored and miss the British seasons, including the winters ;-)

 

[flecc]

if you were in a hot country all the time I think you would get bored and miss the British seasons, including the winters ;-)

Yes, but missing them would be enjoyable.

Missing summers ain't.

 

[neptune]

It always seems very strange to me that some people are totally oblivious to the changing of the seasons. I had a girlfriend once who really hated summer, and loved winter. She could not explain why. As a kid, I was brought up on a farm, and we used to play outside in the evenings all year round. We would bike miles in the dark on deserted country lanes, or walk across fields in the moonlight.
Something I recently discovered is "street view" on google earth. You can visit some of your favourite places, and lots of the photographs are taken in summer. A real treat.

 

[muckymits]

Perhaps fluorescent tubes do not work quite as well as the real SAD lamps, but I strongly suspect they are well worth a try, especially if you can use recycled fluorescents. I know you can get special tubes for horticultural use. Plants think they are a good substitute for the sun, so they may work. A cheap way round it might be to work as a caretaker at your friendly local indoor cannabis farm!

Yes they called grolux and are a pinky colour, suppose to be red as thats the best colour for making foliage, not sure if it will do you any good for SAD. My wife gets annoyed when I call the propagator my weed farm as she expects the door to go in with an early morning raid.

 

[GORDONAL]

will be there in new year all being well..India for Christmas first Where about are you, and for how long?

Costa Brava L'Estartit Camping Les Medes until end of Jan. then will move somewhere south

 

[eddieo]

I had never heard of SAD lamps until yesterday when a relation recommended them for my wife. the relation seems pretty sure they work (pharmaceutical consultant) interesting thread!

lovely up the park/woods this morning, sun shinning for a change...really does set you up for the day

the good lamps mimic natural daylight. you set them up like an alarm clock and they come on very slowly....will look into it a bit more before flashing the cash

 

[morphix]

I had never heard of SAD lamps until yesterday when a relation recommended them for my wife. the relation seems pretty sure they work (pharmaceutical consultant) interesting thread!

lovely up the park/woods this morning, sun shinning for a change...really does set you up for the day

the good lamps mimic natural daylight. you set them up like an alarm clock and they come on very slowly....will look into it a bit more before flashing the cash

I've seen you can get these "daylight" light bulbs which provide a brighter and more natural light spectrum so that might be a cheaper way for you to try this with your wife..put one of those in the room she spends most of her time and see if it helps.