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III. ENERGY MEDICINE

3. Light Therapy

Since the beginning of time, people have realized the healing power of light. The
history of light therapy goes back to ancient Egypt, where sunlight was used for
medical treatments. Healing temples were built with colored crystals that were
affixed on the surface of stone walls so that they were aligned with the sun‘s rays.
People would lie down on benches and their bodies would be immersed with pure or
colored lights. Later, Hippocrates described the use of sunlight to cure various
medical disorders. Although ancient Romans and Arab physicians had no scientific
explanation for light therapy at the time, they knew that the healing power of light
was helpful for medical treatments.

In the early 1980s, researchers discovered that specialized bright light (20 times
brighter than normal indoor light) was the most effective treatment for winter
depression. Now research is confirming that this light is effective in improving the
symptoms of non-seasonal depression as well . In fact, a systematic review of 62
reports on the efficacy of light therapy on non-seasonal depression found it to be
effective and an excellent criterion to include in treatment of non-seasonal depression
today.

Definition: light therapy is defined as daily exposure to full-spectrum or bright light
to treat conditions such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD). It is differentiated from
phototherapy, which is used to treat conditions such as hyperbilirubinemia.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a mood disorder that occurs more frequently
in the dark winter months and disappears spontaneously in spring. However, it has
been found to occur with less frequency in summer, and can occur repeatedly year
after year. SAD is categorized as an indicator of major depression; patients with SAD
experience episodes of major depression that tend to recur at specific times of the
year .

Technique and procedure of Light Therapy:

The recommended device for provision of light therapy is a fluorescent light box that
produces light intensities of greater than 2,500 lux . Lux is a unit of illumination
intensity that corrects for the photopic spectral sensitivity of the human eye. To better
understand the concept of lux, indoor evening room light is usually less than 100 lux,
whereas a brightly lit office is less than 500 lux. In contrast, outdoor light is much

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