The Dangers of Blue Light: Careful With That iPad

Last fall, I thought I was getting away with something when I watched videos on my iPad at night.  In spite of the blue light emitted by iPads that can be so dangerous to the sleep phases of modd-disordered persons, there I was, sleeping normally.  I theorized that maybe the screen was too small to emit enough light to screw me up.

I now theorize that I was wrong.  My current theory is that I'd been watching videos, which are obviously not all emitting pure white or blue light all the time.  Much of the time, indeed, the colors on the screen can be quite dark.

The same is not true if you're using the iPad as a reading device.  Then, it's straight-up black text on a white background.  Then, you stay up until 2 am reading.  Then, you can't fall asleep before 2 am for the next two weeks; and then, the trend shows no sign of stopping.

Lamictal 300 mgs: Travel, Light Therapy, and Delayed Sleep Phase

If you follow my blog, you know that lamictal messes with my sleep.  If left to myself, I would sleep from three a.m. to 11.  I'd be completely out of sync with the world.

And indeed I was out of sync for months.  This changed when I started using a blue light in the mornings.  Pretty soon I was getting up around 9:15 all by myself.  No alarm, no struggle.

Then, I went out east to visit family.  And getting up became a struggle again.  I could usually make it out of bed by 9:30 or 10, but this required an alarm at 9:15 which I would then ignore for as long as I could.

Then, I stayed up all night for my Solstice vigil, and watched the sun rise.  Suddenly, I was getting up at 8:30 ... again, without an alarm.  For a confirmed night person this was a bizarre experience.

Fast forward to last week.  I was in the Midwest, visiting family.  I dutifully did my light therapy every morning, but didn't adjust my body to the time zone.  My family are all night people, and Pacific Standard Time is two hours behind Central Standard Time, so instead of sleeping from midnight to 8:30 I slept from 2 until 10.  I should have had no problem getting back into my groove at home, right?  I hadn't changed my schedule at all.  I would go home, and my body would still be on PST.  I'd go to sleep at midnight and wake up at 8:30.

But no.  Now I'm once again struggling to get up at 9:30 or 10.

I guess the position of the sun really matters (as if I hadn't figured that out by this point).  I may have thought I was keeping my body on PST, but I was getting up when the sun was in it's 10 o'clock position.  And that was enough to hose me.

I guess I need to stay up and watch a sunrise again.  Sigh.

Happy Solstice, Seasonal Depressives! We made it.

Today I wanted to wish all of you a happy shortest day and longest night.  The sun us is as far as it's going to get from the Northern Hemisphere.  It's all uphill from here.

Of course, for many people there are blizzards and snowstorms to come, and cabin fever, and the grey-brown misery that is February.  You know, I think the only thing I like about California's non-seasons is that February, though often gray at least part of the time, is always green.

We'll still need our sunlamps.  We'll still need to be gentle with ourselves and vigilant about self-care.  But the sun is returning, and bringing with it mood and sanity.

I wish you all the happiest of Solstices.  Remember -- axial tilt is the reason for the season!

Choosing an SAD Therapy Lamp: New Article on Squidoo

Yesterday I finished an review of light therapy devices I wrote on Squidoo.  I really enjoy the Squidoo community and I don't write there enough.  I figured that since I've been learning so very much about different therapy lamps for seasonal depression, I should share my experiences, and my frustrations, with the world.  The article goes into more depth than I have in this blog.

Please check it out!

A Day Without Blue Light Therapy is a Day Without End

After some trial and error with light therapy, I've finally settled on a pattern of using blue light in the morning and my sun lamp in the afternoon.  It's done a lot for my delayed sleep phase.  Since starting the blue light in the morning, I've been waking up around 9 am and falling asleep around 1 am. 

Then, this morning, something came up.  I skipped the blue light.  For just one day.  How much can it matter, right?

You will notice that the time stamp on this message is 3:30 am.  I believe I've answered the question.

Phillips GoLite BLU, and How to Use It.

A few weeks ago, when I was particularly frustrated my life revolving around my sun lamp (oh I do crack myself up sometimes), my partner got me a Phillips GoLite BLU Plus.  It's battery rechargeable, has a clock and a timer ... generally more portable and convenient than my sunlamp.

The point: Follow the directions.  If you have trouble falling asleep at night, use it in the morning.  If you have trouble staying up at night, use it in the afternoon.
 
I decided to ignore the directions.  I figured that since my mood slumps between 4 and 8 pm, that's the time I should use the blue light.  It helped, insofar as it freed me up from my desk long enough to lift weights, do my SPCA shift, make dinner, that sort of thing. 

I now think that  using it in the afternoon was perhaps ... unwise.

Blue light is a tricky thing.  It can help with seasonal depression, but it's not necessarily a good thing for bipolar disorder (and whatever my disorder "really" is, it acts a lot like bipolar in some ways).  Folks with bipolar can be tipped into hypomania or mania if they get too much blue light.  For that matter, anyone using too much light therapy can experience headaches, nausea, and irritability.

And if you use it too late in the afternoon, you'll have trouble falling asleep.  Remember my delayed sleep phase?  Course you do.  I emphatically do not need help staying awake at night.

The upshot is that yesterday I used the damn thing for an hour in the morning.  This morning I woke up on my own at eight frakking thirty  Yeah.  8:30.  Me.

I had a bit of trouble falling asleep last night, but when I slept I slept well.  The sleep issue could well be due to the Adderall I took in the morning to alleviate my crazy mood.  I'm writing in front of it right now, so we'll see how it goes in the coming days.

I wrote yesterday about my mood lability over the past few weeks.  My pdoc and I had tried to address it with an Adderall booster in the afternoon -- it made my afternoon depression go away, but it also messed with my sleep.  Then I tried taking the Adderall booster in the morning.  It still helped, but not as much, and it still messed with my sleep.

Your Recommended Dose of Irony: My Sunlamp is Depressing Me

In case you haven't read any other post on this blog, I have severe seasonal affective disorder.  Now, you're asking yourself, how "severe" can seasonal affective disorder really be?

It can be SO SEVERE, that's right folks, SO SEVERE that one can become actually psychotic due to lack of sunlight.  (I've written about it here, here, here, and here.  Also, on a lighter note, here.

Since I don't want to wind up psychotically depressed again, I sit in front of a sunlamp.  A lot.  My sunlamp is in my brightly-lit art studio, which also has full-spectrum lighting.  It's very bright in here.  Which is good.  It helps me.  But it's also getting kind of old.

I need to sit by the sunlamp in the morning, so I do that while checking my email and blogging.  Then I get distracted by checking my email and blogging ... and besides, I just feel so much better when I'm by the lamp.  So I'm here at 9:30 or 10 every morning, eating breakfast and messing around on my computer.  I do that for a couple of hours.

Then, I have to be back in front of the sunlamp when it starts to get dark.  My mood slumps, sometimes severely, between the hours of 4 and 7 pm.  Now that it's getting noticeably dim by 3:30, I have to be here by that point, or the dreaded slump begins.  On days when it's rainy and dark I just park myself here and stay all day.

The problem is that it gives me no flexibility in my afternoon schedule.  Having lunch with a friend from 1 to 3?  Can't stay an extra hour.  Can't run errands afterward.  Can't come home and exercise -- nope, need to sit in front of the damn lamp.  And it's not like I can move the lamp; I need to be in my studio, where it's generally bright, or I start to slump.  Anyway, having a light that emits 10,000 lux seriously strains your eyes if it's all up in your face in an otherwise not-brightly-lit room.

Lamictal 300 mgs: Intermittent Dizziness, and Blue Light Therapy

I've been on 300 mgs of lamictal for a week now.  The dry mouth and GI effects seem to be gone.  The sleep phase issues are better than they were; however, they started improving when I started using the sun lamp are the time of the equinox.

The remaining effects are The Stupids and some balance problems -- which may actually be from overusing my blue light.

I've had trouble with my inner ear for several years now.  I had a lot of infections as a kid, and then outgrew them, only to have them return in my late teens as a fun side effect of severe allergies.  I spent much of my twenties with severe vertigo.  What I'm saying here is that I know dizziness from pretty much every possible angle.