November 13, 2006
 Our latest purchase - The Litebook. It's supposed to alleviate the winter blues/SAD - the depression, lethargy, irritability, etc, that results from the shorter days and lack of light that occurs in autumn and winter.
I was always curious about the use of light therapy for winter depression but, since light boxes are costly, I was wary of spending so much on something I wasn't sure would work. But a few months ago, one of the regulars at my cafe was talking about light therapy and was downright fanatical about it. He said he used to get incredibly depressed during winter, so last year he tried light therapy and was amazed by how well it worked. Light therapy didn't just lessen his depression symptoms, he said, it prevented them altogether and he went through winter happy as a clam, which turned him into a major light therapy advocate. And that was enough to convince us to give it a try.
So, we just got our own light therapy box, but nearly had to fight to the death for it. We called lighting stores, asking if they had light boxes, but most places didn't cary them and the ones that did were sold out and didn't know when they'd get more in. But we finally found a store that had one left, so we asked them to hold it for us and Ross raced over to the store to buy it. It took him all of 15 minutes to get there but, in that time, someone came in wanting a light box and the store sold them the one they were supposed to hold for us.
When Ross got home and told me that, I wanted to go back to the store and strangle the owner, but then Ross pulled something out from behind his back and, low and behold, it was a light box. Turns out the store had, indeed, sold the one box they had left, but they still had a display model and Ross, bless his heart, managed to haggle and talk them into selling him the display model. The store wasn't happy about doing that, but Ross is a sweetheart who is impossible to refuse and I'm now seeing the light because of it. Yea Ross!
The light box we got is called a LiteBook ($180) and, while it's only 6" x 5" in size, it is incredibly bright and it's small size is perfect for sitting on my desk next to my computer (I'm soaking in it right now!). Most light boxes use broad spectrum lighting, which is why they're so big and cumbersome, but Litebook revamped the technology and instead uses bright white LEDs of a specific wavelength (identical to peak wavelength of sunlight), and that enables them to make a much smaller, more portable product.
It will be interesting to see if light therapy works, and I'm especially curious about it since more and more studies are showing that light therapy not only helps with winter depression, but with non-seasonal major depression as well, and as a year round major depression sufferer who doesn't respond well to anti-depressants, I'll be thrilled if light therapy helps even in a small amount.
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