Pacific Northwesterners know that keeping spirits up during this time of short days, long nights and perpetually overcast weather is no joke. Like plants, we seek the light and crave its enlivening power.
This winter, with seasonal sadness and pandemic sadness threatening to meet in our minds like a thunderclap of doom, it’s vital that we find ways to get more brightness into our interior environs. That can range from adding sparkle to your living room with twinkle lights, lamps and cozy candles to purchasing or renting a sunlight-mimicking therapeutic light to alleviate the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder, or SAD.
“You basically want to be surrounded by light,” said Emily Powers, owner of Three-Sixty Interiors, a Vancouver interior design and home staging company.
The first thing Powers looks at when designing a room is natural light. She uses minimal window dressing — maybe “wispy drapes,” she said — instead of heavy curtains or thick blinds, except as needed in a bedroom for privacy. She places the furniture to allow maximum light into a room.
“A lot of people will put a couch or chair in front a window,” she said. “It’s amazing the amount of difference that a little bit of blockage can make in terms of the amount of light entering a room.”
When daylight wanes, however, electricity must be called into service. Powers uses a few simple tricks to make dark rooms feel cheerful and inviting. She uses overhead light sparingly because it can be harsh, she said. A lot of older homes (including her own) don’t have many overhead light sources at all. Instead, she uses corners to reflect light into the room.
“If you’re picturing a room and it’s a square or a rectangle, you want to have light in three corners,” said Powers. “It doesn’t matter which corners, just make a triangle of three lamps.”
She uses a mix of floor lamps and table lamps, and she’ll also place lamps in front of mirrors to double the light effect. When lighting a bedroom, she makes use of sconces for extra reading light, perhaps a wall fixture with an extendable arm so that the light can be angled where it’s most needed.
There’s no need to stop at lamps or sconces. Make a room cozy and cheerful with lighted garlands or flickering LED candles. (Powers recommends against using real candles because they’re sooty and have the potential to set things on fire.)
“I know people who have used outdoor lighting, like a string of lights. They’ll string them up indoors and it looks so nice and inviting and warm,” said Powers. “I love outdoor lighting inside. Christmas lights with colors, that’s really festive.”
Powers has another nifty trick: setting room lights on timers so that they come on automatically at dusk, giving extra brightness at just the right moment. She’s also careful about the color temperature of the lightbulbs she chooses, avoiding both bright white and yellow bulbs.
“I like a soft white. I think they’re called daylight bulbs. It’s supposed to mimic natural light. I use those a lot,” said Powers. “It definitely makes a difference. It’s amazing how little things like that can affect your mood.”
Edna Ness and Caitlin Wilson couldn’t agree more. They’re the co-owners of In Light Hyperbarics, 1601 Broadway, Vancouver. The company offers, among other things, LED light therapy, also called photobiomodulation.
“We’re great advocates for people getting outside for natural sunlight, but many people in the wintertime find that hard to do,” said Ness, who called sunlight “one of our most important primal nutrients.”
When the days are short and dark, some folks become light-starved. Light therapy, which is FDA approved for the treatment of SAD, can help make up for the winter’s light deficit by affecting the chemicals in our brains that regulate sleep and mood. Ness first tried light therapy in 2004 as treatment for chronic migraines.
“A light box – that’s what most people associate light therapy with, which can be beneficial,” Ness said. “We find it more beneficial to use light pads that are directly against the skin. The light boxes are a blue light that is simulating natural light. The lights that we use in our pads are red light, blue light and near infrared.”
Wilson pointed out that although much has recently been discovered about the effects of light on the body and mind, it was also used in the healing regimes of many ancient cultures, including China, Greece and India.
“I always love to share with people that light therapy dates back to ancient Egyptian times, so there are thousands of years of using light for therapeutic benefits,” Wilson said.
Even if you remain unconvinced about aspects of light therapy, the services at In Light Hyperbarics all sound as relaxing and restorative as any spa treatment. The light sauna is a room where clients bask in LED light instead of steam. The full-body light bed is similar to a tanning bed, enveloping the entire body in a gently warming light (and on the upside, it won’t damage your skin). There are multiple sizes of flexible light pads that can be applied to different areas of the body as well as light masks that are worn over the eyes and hand-held light wands.
“It just warms us up internally, which lifts us up and out of our depression,” Ness said.
Clients can purchase single sessions (about $130 for 40 minutes in a light bed) or pay a monthly membership fee for access to a range of services, similar to a gym. If you’d prefer to enjoy light therapy from the safety and comfort of home, In Light Hyperbarics’ light-producing products can also be rented or purchased for personal use. It’s $350 to rent the smallest light pad for a month, or about $150 to buy a handheld device.
Light is a sought-after mood lifter, regardless of climate or latitude. A quick internet search yields a vast spectrum of light therapy products for every budget, ranging from $15 for a small portable light box to $25,000 for an infrared light therapy pod. You can also find light therapy items at Bed Bath & Beyond, or pick up some extra light therapy gadgets along with your groceries at Target or Walmart. (Before treating yourself, be sure to talk to your doctor.)
Who hasn’t felt a jolt of joy when the sun comes out at the end of a cloudy day, or when you come home after dark to find the windows aglow with lamplight? This winter, every little bit of joy counts, and if you’re finding it difficult to let your own inner light shine, try shining some light on yourself.
