What are the differences in the light, other than that tanning beds cause cancer? Would a tanning bed increase vitamin d at all or in any other way benefit someone who has seasonal affectiveness disorder?
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5 Responses to “Do tanning bed lights have the same benefits as a sunlight lamp on seasonal affectiveness disorder?”
Oh god no. DO NOT look directly into a tanning bed light, tanning beds put out mostly UV light, which is VERY harmful to your eyes when you look directly at it. There is some UV in normal white light, of course, but far less that you would get by staring at a tanning bed (it can cause permanent damage to vision and even blindness).
The lights they use for SAD are very powerful, yes, but they’re basically white lights, they’re trying to essentially fool your body into thinking it’s not winter by adjusting the amount of light that you see daily.
So no, I do not think that a tanning bed would be of benefit for seasonal affective disorder, and certainly not in the same way that the sunlamp would be.
Tanning lights are UV and since you have to wear darkened goggles it kindof defeats the object. SAD really needs you to see bright light which resets your bodyclock properly and produces the hormone which I can’t remember the name of.
Anyway, you can get special daytime lights or “daylight boxes” I think they’re called which effectively give out normal sunlight wavelengths and these are supposed to help with SAD and similar conditions.
Jasper9, have you seen the BBC General Health messageboard? There is a poster there who knows all about the vitamin D research and theories and who posts interesting links such as this one
http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/
It seems that the tanning bed would indeed increase your vitamin D status. Whether SAD is rooted in vitamin D deficiency is another question.
I have SAD, and my docotr told me to go tanning cause it would help. But she said only do it when I start to feel down. So don’t do it all the time. But you can use the the light theripty. Good luck and merry christmas
NO! They are not the same! Get yourself a lightbox and adequate levels of vitamin D.
http://www.sad.co.uk/p/1127/SAD-Light-Products/SAD-Light-%7C-Apollo-Golite-M2-SAD-Light.htm