Do the Shorter Days of Winter Make You Want to Hibernate?

Jackson, MI, November 14, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) affects approximately 10 to 20 percent of Americans every fall and winter. In addition to the normal symptoms of SAD, such as feeling depressed, lacking energy, weight gain, and loss of motivation, a number of people also have difficulty getting out of bed on those dark winter mornings. If you or your children are one of these people who have to hit the “snooze” button countless times before getting up in the morning, you may want to consider trying a dawn simulator.

Just as the name implies, a dawn simulator is a system that incorporates an alarm clock with a lamp that gradually turns on in the morning. You can program a dawn simulator to gradually simulate a natural sunrise so that your body naturally starts waking up before your alarm clock sounds. For example, if you typically set your alarm to go off at 6:00 am, you can set the dawn simulation to start anywhere between 10-90 minutes before your alarm goes off, depending on the type of dawn simulator you purchase.

Full Spectrum Solutions, Inc. offers a large selection of dawn simulators as well as light therapy products, including light boxes and light therapy lamps. The BlueMax™ Model 320 dawn simulator (retail price $169) is the brightest dawn simulator and only uses 10 watts of energy. It uses approximately 80 LED (light emitting diodes) bulbs that produce a bright, white light that illuminates the entire room when it has reached full intensity.

Dawn simulation has been proven effective for regulating a person’s circadian rhythm, which is a name given to the “internal body clock” that regulates the 24-hour cycle of biological processes in animals and plants. It is also responsible for the sleep and wake cycles in humans.

During the winter months when the days are shorter and the mornings are darker, in a similar way to bears that hibernate in the winter, some people feel the need to sleep longer hours and eat more carbohydrates. This happens because our levels of melatonin (sleep hormone) and serotonin (associated with mood) are out of sync due to the lack of sunshine.

Using a BlueMax™ dawn simulator during the winter months can adjust your circadian rhythm to what it should be so that you can wake up less like a “grizzly,” and get on with your daily routine.

Full Spectrum Solutions, Inc. is the manufacturer of BlueMax™ and UltraLux® full spectrum light therapy products. For more information, call 888-574-7014 or visit www.fullspectrumsolutions.com. For press inquiries, contact Lindsey Edwards by phone at 517-783-3800 or email lindsey@fullspectrumsolutions.com.

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