Light Therapy for Depression: Natural Treatment for Depression
Do you want to learn How to Process Emotions and improve your Mental Health? Sign up for a Therapy in a Nutshell Membership, you’ll get access to all of Emma’s courses, workbooks, and a Live Q and A with 100’s of exclusive videos: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/membership
If you’d like to learn more natural, research-backed ways to treat depression and anxiety, check out my course Change Your Brain: Neuroplasticity and Mental Health
https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/change-your-brain?utm_campaign=Nov%205,%202020&utm_medium=Description&utm_source=YouTube
Light therapy is an effective natural treatment for depression with less side effects than medication. Multiple peer-reviewed RCT have shown that light therapy is as effective or more effective than medication at treating non-seasonal depression.
In this episode, I’m going to teach you how light impacts your brain and influences your mood and how you can use light therapy as a natural, non-medicinal way to treat seasonal depression (aka winter blues or SAD). I’ll also teach you how rigorous research has shown that light therapy can be as effective as antidepressant medication at treating non-seasonal depression.
Check out Bright Light Therapy Lamps at Carex:
Bright Light Therapy Lamps
Discount code: NUTSHELL20
Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/?utm_campaign=11052020&utm_medium=Description&utm_source=YouTube
Sign up for my newsletter: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/free-resources
Thanks BetterHelp for sponsoring the video. BetterHelp: Professional, affordable online counseling starting at around $65 a week: https://www.betterhelp.com/therapyinanutshell
Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/?utm_campaign=11052020&utm_medium=Description&utm_source=YouTube
Check out my favorite books for mental health:
https://kit.co/TherapyinaNutshell/best-self-help-books
Music licensed from www.Bensound.com or Artlist.io
Images from Freepik.com (premium license), Pixabay, or Wikimedia commons
Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC, and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health.
About Me:
I’m Emma McAdam. I’m a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and I have worked in various settings of change and growth since 2004. My experience includes juvenile corrections, adventure therapy programs, wilderness therapy programs, an eating disorder treatment center, a residential treatment center, and I currently work in an outpatient therapy clinic.
In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life’s direction.
And deeper than all of that, the Gospel of Jesus Christ orients my personal worldview and sense of security, peace, hope, and love https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/believe
If you are in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or your local emergency services.
Copyright Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC
—-
Music licensed from www.Bensound.com or Artlist.io
Images from Freepik.com (premium license), Pixabay, or Wikimedia commons
Very useful information! Thank you for bringing out a topic that people may not even know they have (depression, SAD), and that there is a solution that does not include drugs. Of course, there are some that will benefit from today’s medicines, however, it may be worth a try to get one of these lights and see if you notice a difference. Have a great day!
Dear Emma, thank you again. Do we have to face the light? Or we can place directly behind our office chair to get the same effect? Thank you
Btw walmart sells a small 10000lux light therapy lamp for $39. It’s very bright with a timer and it’s what I use.
Is this similar to red light therapy?
Any idea why a 10,000 lux fluorescent bright light therapy light box has a different effect than sunlight? It’s like a get a withdrawal effect hours after doing the lightbox but not with sunlight. This happens even if I combine light therapy with getting sunlight throughout the day.
Do these lights give off vitamin D?
Are you still gifting therapy lights? I would love to have one for healthier mood. Do you have an email I can message my information to? Thank you for considering me as a candidate.
thanks a lot
Can i still get sunlight even its gloomy? I live in alaska always no sun during winter.
Thank you for the video! So happy I moved away from Sweden! This is a big reason! Love beautiful, warm days! 😊
What are your thoughts on light therapy glasses? (Luminette)
Would grow lights from the greenhouse work? Emitting a broad spectrum of light?
I found what happened to you when you were living outdoors so interesting. Thank you for all the info on light therapy.
LED lights are not at all natural unfortunately. Wish incandescent bulbs were still around. Best to just sit outside. LED’s are just like sitting in front of a computer.
Are there withdrawal symptoms upon discontinuation of light therapy?
are these lights different from the Led lights in our house?
There is new research v about suna
Thanks for the video.
Now i understand why i feel depressed during winters and rainy seasons.
Most of the days, I also feel sadness and low energy in early morning…
Im bipolar, bought 7 lamps – it didnt end well
My dr just prescribed this ! We’ll see if it works
Can u tell the name brand of your light
Can it be used for a few hours ? Rather than just 30 mins
I wake up before the sun rises for work and it makes me feel like shit, it doesnt something to my hormones or something, I’ve got on of these 10,000 lux lights set on a timer switch that turns on when my alarm goes off and blasts me with fake sun light, it wakes me up so well and makes me feel alot better.
One more thing that costs me again from my low paycheck till paycheck salary. Healing is expensive.
Hmm I am not sure natural is good a serious mental illness. Yes I heard light therapy can help for depression.
thanks for all of the great content, my ginger.
I don’t see the link for the the light therapy company please help
You have to say “see your dr for legal reasons “…but unless your dr is a wholistic dr. Its pretty useless as they dont know how to treat anything without drugs.
Thank you! I recently received a light therapy lamp from a family who knows I struggle a lot in the winter months. This video helped answer a lot of my questions about benefits, risks, how to use it, and if the one I received is even legit
i have photosensitivity but i have vitamin d medication now due to lupus medications
if i went to talk to a doctor about llight therapy… they would have a clue about it.They will just prescribe a pharmaceutical.
Sunlight doesn’t just help prove with SAD, but with normal depression or anxiety too. It does everything you explained in this video.
The sun literally resets my brain and all of its emotions, clears my congestion in my nose, cures my diet pattern. And makes me FEEL more, wherever I’m depressed. I live for the sun
I’m wondering if I could also use studio video lights also for this purpose? Such as Godox SL100D which at 1 meter puts out 32 100 lux of 96+ CRI quality 5600K or 6500K (depending on the model) daylight. Thus it is much brighter than many light therapy lamps which only put out 10 000 lux at 30 cm. Not sure about its specific wavelengths though, but if it’s 96+ CRI then I guess the spectrum should be pretty even and thus usuable for therapeutic purposes, right?
I woul love you to cover a video on what can be helpful for spring summer depression. Despite medication and therapy, spring-summer is hell to me. All this light totally kills my energy and I’m overwhelmed with negative thoughts. Yet I’m not bipolar.
100% sleep and light impacts depression. When I was working overnights and early mornings inside a concrete building where I got no sun and had a consequencely poor sleep schedule…I spiraled into depression. When I finally threw my hand up and quit my job entirely (I didn’t work for 8 months straight) I was able to reset my sleep schedule to waking with the sun. I found sleep easier and my depression resolved. I no longer take antidepressants now that I sleep more and have a better job with regular hours that allows me to rise with the sun. I also am starting to use a light therapy lamp. It’s really a far cry from the last few years where just getting out of bed was an insurmountable chore.
@therapyinaNutshell what would someone suggest for people like me who have to work NIght shifts/graveyard til like 5 -8 am in the morning? I feel so depressed for years and unmotivated in life, stuck in low moods swings and victim mentallity and depression. SO just light box therapy alone? idk……. …sigh Thank You
I think light therapy is extremely important. However we need more research.
I go to bed real early now to wake up early to get more light. Its working
Using sunglass in the sun ,will that affect serotonin production
I deal with pmdd and chronic depression. Prozac worked so well for me until I became allergic to it and had to stop it. Happy to know this can be an option and it makes so much sense thank you.
Stoppibg the chemtrails would be helpful. That’s why we have dark misting in Ohio for 10 days and counting. We should all get together and take av stand against it. The military does this
Does it also help with GAD, anxiety?
What do you think about red light therapy?
I use high pressure sodium light.
Love your videos!
Walk in the light, as He is in the light, literally.
Why do Drs never suggest non-pharmaceutical options 🙄
Improve your mental health with the free course, https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/grounding-skills-for-anxiety-stress-and-ptsd
I’ve used light therapy since 1992. I live in a region of the U.S that has a lot of dark dreary days in the winter and fall. It was a game changer to Learn and utilize light therapy.
I work graveyard and the sun is blocked daily here 80% of the time so this might help I’m just not sure working 3rd shift when to use.