''Plants always turn to face the sun. People tend to do the same for thousands of years"
"These days, sun salutations tend to take the form of Caribbean vacations and despite the widespread threat of skin cancer, even among doctors and medical researchers, the sun remains a threat.
"Rather, it is considered a healer."
Researchers have found that regular exposure to sunlight or artificial sun-like light has many benefits. Such exposure can help soothe the winter blues and treat other forms of depression, treats kind of insomnia, help relieve some symptoms of lupus and serious disease involving the immune system.
“Spring fever” as we all know it is the uplifting dizziness when the short dark days of winter give way, to the long sunny days of spring. Doctors first noticed its counterpart 'the annual winter depression', was discovered 150 years ago, but the condition has remained a medical footnote.
• Researchers have found that winter blues can range in severity from mild 'winter blur' to moderate 'winter dollar drum' to heavy wine. This severe form is now medically called seasonal affective disorder, or appropriately put, 'SAD'.
According to San Francisco psychiatrist Michael Freeman, M.D., people with the mildest winter blues function normally during the winter months, but by February they start feeling vaguely unwell.
"Welcome the rising heat of spring as the days get longer. ”
Moderate Winter Blues can function all winter long, but it's not normal at all. "You're more depressed," explains Dr. Freeman, and more suffering from cabin fever. You often feel an increased need for sleep, gain a few pounds, and may find it difficult to get up in the morning ” People who are terrible at winter blues, are really thrilled. Each fall it becomes depressed and cannot function properly until spring. SAD shares some symptoms with other forms of depression. lethargy, hopelessness, anxiety, social withdrawal. In addition, people with SAD crave extra sleep, experience daytime sleepiness even when asleep, gain significant weight, and often have an uncontrollable craving for sweets.
Does it sound familiar to you? Arrive at your Paris hotel at 1:00 AM after an overnight disembarkation on the Atlantic Ocean. French time You've been swept away, but you can't sleep. Finally doze off or fall asleep soundly. Woke up a few hours later with a complete hangover, even though hadn't had any alcohol on the flight.
Air travel has made the world much smaller and more accessible. But its downside is jet lag, a nasty combination of disorientation, nighttime insomnia, daytime sleepiness, loss of appetite, poor concentration, decreased reaction time.
Here's the problem:
Your body may be in Paris, but your body clock is still in Chicago.
Traveling in any time zone can disrupt the body's natural rhythms, but most people do not experience noticeable jet lag unless they exceeds three or more times. Jet lag tends to become more pronounced with age and on eastbound flights. The body has a harder time adjusting to short days than long ones. The body's rhythms disrupted by the trip usually recover in 2-5 days, but if you're only in Scandinavia for a week and want to prepare for the scheduled boat tour around the fjords on the day of your arrival, The natural recovery process also takes time.
As early as 1958, scientists discovered that the body clock resides in clusters of cells along the optic nerve pathway. Recently, Al Lewy, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland and director of the university's Institute for Sleep and Mood Disorders, found that carefully timed exposure to outdoor light can It can facilitate time zone transitions.
Dr. Lewy's technique to overcomes jet lag.
1. Stay indoors during the day and avoid light. If you've flown less than 6 time zones west, catch up with the sun in the evening and avoid the bright outside light in the morning.
2. Fly between 6 and 12 time zones and stay out of the sun at 10. Either way, spend some time outside in the sun and eat.
Other experts on jet lag recovery, both medical researchers and frequent flyers, agree that other adjustments are made before and during. Helps overcome jet lag even after travel.
Recommended:
* Change your sleep pattern, In the days leading up to your night, adjust your sleep schedule based on the direction you plan to travel. Get up and go to bed an hour earlier each day before flying east. After an hour it ascends and retreats before flying west.
*Don't torture yourself more than necessary. Try to book flights that don't require you to wake up unusually early or past your normal bedtime. Make sure you get a flight that lands at the desired time in the evening.
By the mid-1980s, bright-light therapy (phototherapy) had become the treatment of choice for SAD, says Michael Terman, Ph.D., director of the Light Therapy Unit at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, "but at four hours a day, it took so long that for most people, it just wasn't feasible." Then Dr. Terman's additional studies showed that the evening session was unnecessary. Morning-only bright-light therapy cut treatment time in half.
A few years later, Dr. Terman cut it further by brightening the lights. Light intensity is measured in "lux" units. The typical home is illuminated at a level of about 250 lux. Early light boxes emitted 2,500 lux, which sounds like a lot but really isn't. "That's the brightness of outdoor light shortly after dawn," Dr. Terman explains. "At noon on a summer day, you can have 120,000 lux.'
When Dr. Terman constructed a 10,000-lux light, he found that people with SAD obtained effective relief with daily exposure of just 30 minutes. "You put the unit on your kitchen table," he explains, "and by the time you've finished your morning coffee, you're protected for the day."
SAD symptoms typically begin to lift about a week after the start of phototherapy. But, they return shortly after discontinuing treatment. As a result, authorities urge people with SAD to sit under bright light daily from Öctober through April.
Can prolonged daily exposure to 10,000 lux be harmful No, says Dr. Terman. Individual bright-light tolerance varies, however, some people may start to feel uncomfortable. Overdose symptoms include queasiness and agitation, but these symptoms disappear within a few hours of turning the lights off.
"When people learn their limits and stay within them, they don't have any problems, " says Dr. Terman.
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