Colour Temperature and Seasonal Affective Disorder

[Ferdinand]

Does anyone have any experience, or ideas, or suggested products, which could be used during COVID lockdown etc to help family members who have Seasonal Affective Disorder and find winter, especially when unable to go on a sunny holiday, a challenge?

 

I am particularly interested in adjustable smart lighting setups, and if anyone has used one, and whether it was beneficial.

Cheers

 

Ferdinand 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Ferdinand

[Big Jimbo]

What about One of those light boxes. I think they are used for SAD

[Ferdinand]

Just now, Big Jimbo said:

What about One of those light boxes. I think they are used for SAD

 

Thanks @Big Jimbo.

 

Yes they are; I am wondering about more general  environmental changes which are more built in to the house - and so of benefit without needing to sit down with a specific device.

 

I started from wondering about swapping out LEDs for ones with a sunny daylight tone of light, and then spotted stuff about "tunable whites" and Smart Lighting.

So I thought I would ask.

[Big Jimbo]

I know you can get daylight bulbs... Might help a bit. I dislike the winter. Dark mornings, getting dark early. I must get some vit D.

[Big Jimbo]

So glad about your "Good news" fella. Can't have you going anywhere. Much too valued on here.

[joe90]

What about this place.      https://www.sad.co.uk

[the_r_sole]

I used to have daylight bulbs in my office when I worked from home which are we fine for working but absolutely awful if you hit the wrong switch in an evening ?

[Ferdinand]

1 minute ago, the_r_sole said:

I used to have daylight bulbs in my office when I worked from home which are we fine for working but absolutely awful if you hit the wrong switch in an evening ?

 

The context here is a colleague with a family member who gets S.A.D. potentially in lockdown alone at the other end of the country, hatching coping strategies.

 

Normally takes a holiday in the sun as a mid-winter relief, which may not be possible this year.

 

F

[BobAJob]

My Mum has SAD and uses one of the SAD lamps for an hour each day while she is reading the paper. It seems to work well for her. She also gets a vitamin B12 and D booster from the GP which helps too. 

[Radian]

On 25/09/2020 at 17:59, Ferdinand said:

I am particularly interested in adjustable smart lighting setups, and if anyone has used one, and whether it was beneficial.

 

I have a bunch of these colour tunable smart bulbs They have a wide range of colour temperatures between 2700K-6500K. If used with Amazon Alexa routines they can be used to start the day with intense blue whites and change to warm whites towards the evening to help settle down for the night. I find it helps with my sleep by keeping circadian rhythms going through the day when the natural light diminishes. I can't speak for their effectiveness in managing SAD but logic suggests it ought to help. The main point, I think, is that lamps like these can be fitted almost everywhere in a house (all popular lamp bases are catered for) so there is a unified lighting regime wherever you happen to be. Alexa routines are easy to create and  can be as granular as you like. Cost wise, if not already in the house, you can buy a single Echo Dot for £40 and this will open the gateway to as much control as you like. They are frequently on offer for half that as well. The bulbs also work with Google or Apple smart ecosystems but I have a preference for Amazon who seem happy to sell this stuff at a loss.

 

One thing to note however is that these are WiFi dependent so you need good coverage throughout the house. They can also be a bit finicky to set up on your network if you have 5gHz and 2.4gHz access points sharing the same SSID. This is because you need to use a smartphone to run the app that manages the lamps and have it connected on the same SSID.

 

Smart lamps that use other wireless systems like Zigbee or Z-wave are not dependent on WiFi other than for a single hub but these are generally more expensive. I'm really just giving you the lowest cost approach but the end result can be just as good if not better than the big name brands.