How a lamp can help with the 'winter blues'

The "winter blues" season is upon us. As our exposure to daylight decreases over the winter months, millions of Americans suffer each year from the effects of seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, a form of depression that for some can surface like clockwork each year. SAD is defined as a type of depression that comes and goes with the seasons, typically arriving in the late fall and early winter and going away during the spring and summer. SAD can also occur with the change of season to summer, but that type is much less common than the winter episodes, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Since diagnosis of SAD emerged in the 1980s, the mainstay of treatment has focused on the one thing most of us aren't getting enough of in the winter: sunlight. One at-home treatment option, light therapy, works by using electric lamps to artificially simulate the natural light received from the sun. For people with SAD, light therapy can help regulate and restore disrupted...