What Affect Can The Amount Of Light In The Morning Have On My Mood For The Day?

By Rosana Horowitz

People often wonder if there is any correlation between their exposure to the light in the morning and their mood for the whole day. The answer to this question is undoubtedly "yes, it does have a lot of affect on your mood for the whole day". You all must have heard of the term "winter blues", it implies to the condition when you feel low and gloomy all day long. It is very common for all of us in winters to get out of the bed in the morning, and there is a general feeling of depression for the whole day.

This condition is generally termed as Seasonal Affective Disorder, or the SAD syndrome, which occurs due to the lack of exposure to light. When you wake up in the early hours of the morning, it is still dark outside that gives you a general feeling of gloominess, lingering on for the whole day, if not exposed to enough light. This happens mostly in winters, because days are shorter, and when your day starts, it is still dark at that time, which leaves its affects on you.

On the other hand, have you noticed how a bright sunny day can suddenly lift your mood? The bright sunlight outside, with the noise of the birds chirping and people going out there, daily business seems to make the start of a day a much happier affair. People certainly complain less about having to get up early in the morning during summers.

Actual medical studies done on the subject of "light effecting the mood of a person" shows that everyone, whether regularly afflicted with SAD or not, reacts to an increase or decrease in the intensity of light, during the course of a day. More light leads to a better mood and less to a lazy rather depressive one.

The day in the winters starts when it is still dark, and you leave for office/college/school in the same dark hours of the day. There are some chances of getting some sunlight during the lunch hours, which is usually just an hour; but even then, you get so stuck up with the work at times that you miss this opportunity as well. Therefore, when you are off from work and are heading towards home, it is dark again, and you have missed out the chances of getting some sunlight.

Nevertheless, there is a solution for this as well; some options can be looked in to. You can opt for light therapy to avoid the gloominess. At the start of the day, you get a full spectrum light therapy, which is an alternative to the sunlight. It has been used quite successfully for treating the SAD syndrome.

Light boxes and visors are also helpful along with body clocks - these work by using the natural reaction of your body towards sunrise, and sunset, in order to help synchronise your awake/sleep routine. Every morning, the light comes on very gradually, just like a normal sunrise, so that your body responds to the slowly increasing amount of light around you, subconsciously.

The options mentioned above can be very expensive for some people, so you can use more lamps and tube lights to brighten up your surroundings. Another thing that can be done is to keep one or two lights on before going to bed. The idea behind this is to provide exposure to you to more light that you miss during the day. - 29881

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