CHICAGO (CBS) — It’s been a while since anybody has seen the sun in Chicago and it’s putting some people into a funk.
Even though the days are getting longer, all that means is more minutes of overcast skies.
Psychiatrist Dr. Robert Shulman of Rush University Medical Center says the cloudy, gray days add up to seasonal affective disorder: a kind of depression that’s really a kind of human hibernation. But he has a remedy.
“You give yourself a dose of a full-spectrum light at a certain intensity early in the morning – and sometimes toward the end of the day period. So just when it starts to get dark, you give another dose sometimes,” he said.
Dr. Shulman says his strategy basically tricks the brain into thinking that it’s midsummer.
He also says turning on all the lights at home is not enough. People need a light box, or a full-spectrum light with 10,000 lux.
from CBS Chicago http://ift.tt/2ky0sZ4
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