Mollie has reminded me that I have forgotten to give you all an update on how my light therapy has been going. My apologies for that, Mollie and others who wondered when I was going to get around to it. There’s rather a lot to put into one post, so what I am going to do is talk a little about light therapy in general today, then review the light box I bought specifically in a later blog post.

For those who haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, light therapy is one of the most recommended treatments for a condition called SAD (or Seasonal Affective Disorder). SAD is a form of winter depression – symptoms in the darker months of the year include: oversleeping and difficulty staying awake, continual fatigue and disinterest in activities, cravings for carbohydrates and sugary foods, along with other common symptoms of depression.

The reason why people get SAD (which does appear to have a strong genetic component) is thought to be linked to nerve cells in our eyes that react to the blue portion of daylight in order to keep our body clock on track. As the days get darker in the winter, this process just isn’t as efficient for some people, hence triggering a “hibernation” effect with the symptoms listed above.

What light therapy tries to do is provide enough light at the correct time of day to “reset” that body clock. It has proven to be highly effective for most suffers of SAD and is often the first choice of treatment before antidepressants and counselling, although the latter two also have proven benefits for this condition.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Seasonal Depression, you can find out more information from the SADA website.

So that’s the theory. What did I find out in practise?

Well the first thing I discovered, is that (contrary to what you would expect… it’s only “light” after all) light therapy does have side effects.

For the first few days of treatment, I really did feel quite giddy and sick. On investigation, this is quite a common side effect and I think next year I will be much more careful to slowly work up to a full “dose” over several days rather than on day one – give my brain a chance to catch up a bit. I’ve also read that (for similar reasons) it’s important to slowly trail off exposure to the light over several weeks at the end of the SAD season.

The other thing that is tricky to get right is the dosage and timing.

I have a fairly high powered light box, which means my recommended exposure time varies between 15 minutes and half an hour (I can also vary the light strength). This was a bit of a balancing act as I found that using it too early in the morning meant I woke too early the next morning, but leaving it too late meant I really struggled to get out of bed in time the next day. Also, too short a dose meant I had an energy slump in the middle of the day and needed a top up.

It was a case of trial and error in the early days to get the right balance. I’ve ended up with a routine of using it an hour after I wake up, for half an hour on a three quarter dose – but each person will have different requirements, I’m sure.

I also found that if one day I had a lie in and hence had a later dose of light therapy than normal it completely messed my body clock up – so those days I would skip the light therapy completely, rather than reset my body clock to a different time. You do have to be careful though, as miss too many doses and the therapy is no longer as effective.

All that said, the light therapy has been fantastic, and I really don’t begrudge spending the money at all. I’m finding it so much easier to get up and have energy and interest in my day again. I’m a nicer person with my children (and you really don’t realise quite how depressed you were until that depression lifts and you start to feel so much better).

I did have a bit of a slump earlier in January when we had a week of constant rain – in retrospect, I should have upped the light strength just for that week as soon as I noticed my mood declining.

I will be using the light box again next year.

So there you go, I hope that was helpful. I will review the light box I bought shortly in another post.

• I’m in season!!
  Seasonal information and recipes
  (tags: food recipes vegetables fruit seasonal)

When I was younger, and had much more free time than I do now, I used to love reading Science Fiction anthologies. There’s something about the SF short story – bite-sized views of unknown and exotic worlds – that just hits the imagination’s sweet spot. However, these days I don’t get as much time to read, and when I do it’s usually “proper” novels.

On my wandering through the online universe, I discovered the Escape Pod podcast. It solves all my problems in one swoop – I get a SF hit without having to “make” time… I can listen while cooking, cleaning or in the car. The short story format means that I don’t have to remember a previous episode or catch up to what’s happened previously, I can just dive right in.

So what of the stories themselves?

Some are pure enjoyable escapism. Some make you stop and think – what would it be like if you could travel back in time or if we invented a true artificial intelligence? Some echo problems humanity has at this present moment in the real world, but just from a different perspective.

All of the stories I have listened to have been thoroughly enjoyable and captivating – not bad for absolutely free!

Escape Pod is released weekly, and is approximately half an hour long.

• Do’s and don’ts with babies
  Important advice on how to look after your first baby.
  (tags: funny humour parenting images comic fun advice baby children cartoon howto)

• Organic Food Myths
  Why organic food may not be so good for your wallet, small farmers, health or the environment.
  (tags: environment green organic health healthy sceptic sceptical skeptic skeptical)

I love the walk to nursery and school in the mornings… I’m so glad they’re local enough not to have to get a car out (I find driving stressful at the best of times, let alone when running late and in heavy traffic).

Since I’ve learned the golden rule about always allowing WAY too much time to get places with young children, it’s been a fun and relaxed part of our day and gets us all off to a good start. We may be shouty and stressed in the process of getting shoes on and bags on backs, but once we’re out of that front door we can take our time and chat a little on the way.

We’ve had some nice little conversations as a result: what makes a bird a bird, whether Akra Jr can use a swear word that mummy uses (ahem), a favourite Doctor Who episode, running through Akra Jr’s weekly spelling list and then seeing if he can spell them backwards too.

This morning though, Li’l Bhaji was grumpy and easily upset. He didn’t want to put his shoes on, he didn’t want to leave Cuski behind, he didn’t want to go to nursery but most of all HE DIDN’T WANT AKRA JR TO BE IN FRONT.

Whining… tears… “I want to be first!”… Akra Jr in a competitive mood racing ahead faster than Li’l Bhaji’s legs could go. I took hold of his hand, bent down and whispered “it’s all right… First the Worst, Second the Best”.

Okay, it’s childish, playground stuff… and not usually wise to introduce yet another thing they can taunt each other with, but it made Li’l Bhaji giggle.

Akra Jr wanted to know what I’d said, I thought what the heck and repeated it. More giggles.

What followed was a race… a sort of a Red Dwarf race – you know that episode where neither of them wanted to be at the back or the front as EVERYONE knew that’s where the alien picked off the unsuspecting crew member, so they kept shuffling around each other so both could be in the middle? That’s what we had. Calls of “I’m First the Worst!”… “Well I’m Second the Best!” kept us amused all the way to nursery with me trailing behind trying to keep up.

Good job I didn’t teach them the part about “Third the Turd”.

• What The Duck – HD TV
  I always love this comic strip, but this one is particularly funny.
  (tags: funny whattheduck hdtv humour)

Over at Money Blogger, Dom has his beloved 8GB 3rd Generation iPod Nano up for grabs in a straight forward competition: all you have to do is blog about Money Blogger while linking to them, tell your readers about the competition and drop a comment on the site with a link to your post. Much like I’m doing now, in fact.

Why should you visit Money Blogger other than for the fairly regular competitions?

Well, if you’ve ever wondered about how to earn some money for the writing you do on your site, then it’s always worth finding someone else who’s done it, if only so you don’t make the same mistakes and hopefully get to share in the successes.

Money Blogger is a year long experiment to see how realistic professional blogging actually is, and shares everything learned along the way with its readers.

Apparently, today is Blue Monday – the day of the year we’re all supposed to feel the most depressed and listless.

The weather is supposed to be crap, all the “fun” stuff of the festive season has well and truly gone along with any spare cash, and it’s ages to spring. I’m not quite sure of the wisdom of the subliminal message received from the radio this morning while I was still half asleep telling me all this. I’m sure people are more susceptible in the state between sleep and waking. “Good morning everyone, you’re going to be feeling really SHIT today”.

Anyway, I actually felt fairly upbeat this morning. It’s Monday, so Li’l Bhaji is at nursery for full school hours (the one day a week he does a whole day). Sure it was a bit gloomy out, but it also felt a bit warmer in the air than it has been for a while and the birds were giving me a full concert on the walk back from nursery and school. The winter cherry blossom has come out in places and I’ve spied a snowdrop or two out and about. Spring doesn’t feel impossibly far away.

Still, I’ve been reading an interesting article in the Times, entitled Why the happiness industry can only lead to misery and it appears that all this happiness lark is a bit overrated anyway. We’re not designed to be happy all the time, and it is not in our interests even if we managed to achieve it. Rather ironic, considering so many parents (including myself) declare it as the ultimate goal for our children: “I don’t care what they do with their lives, as long as they’re happy.”

Evolutionary scientists believe that the slight advantage that depressive, hypochondriacal cave-dwellers had over their happy-go-lucky neighbours meant that, over millions of years, the anxious survived, while the carefree lolled about grinning while their wounds festered, their crops died and bears ate their kids.

So there you go, feel free to be bloody miserable on this Blue Monday. It’s good for you.

• The Dalek Song
  Awesome – child safe (as long as they’re not scared of Daleks) except for one use of the word “bloody” near the beginning.
  (tags: dalek funny doctorwho drwho song flash fun)