SoLux™: Light therapy

SoLux: The Brilliance of Daylight
The Truth is in the Spectrum

At Tailored Lighting, "Where SoLux was Invented" our position has always been the best light source to treat SAD is one which replicates the daylight spectrum more accurately than any source on the market. Our technology and efforts have been verified by leading medical equipment, and light therapy companies in Europe that have incorporated the SoLux light source in their products for treatment of SAD related disorders.

Changes in your hormone balance occur without enough exposure to natural light. The disrupted hormone balance can lead to a lethargic and depressive mood. The symptoms associated with a lack of natural light are more problematic in the winter when so much time is spent indoors and outdoors time is spent all covered-up with clothes and sunglasses. The type of weather your area experiences, cloudy days vs. sunny days, also has an impact on your total natural light exposure.

How Daylight Light Benefits Your Health

Daylight is essential for good health because of its beneficial affect on hormone balance. Your brain requires a certain amount of natural light each and every day. The natural light that hits your retina (light gathering area inside the eye) is transmitted to an area of your brain called the pineal body. The pineal is the brain center for the production of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin regulates daily body rhythms, most notably the day/night cycle (circadian rhythms). Normal melatonin levels are important for natural sleep cycles and proper immune system function.

Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD

Between September and April in the Northern Hemisphere (March through October in Southern Hemisphere), certain people who are light sensitive start experiencing something called the winter blues. Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD is the most extreme version and its affect on the body and mind of a lack of natural light. People affected by SAD exhibit extreme depressive behavior and complain of a lack of energy, increased need for sleep, a craving for sweets and exhibit weight gain as a result of their sedentary nature and unhealthy dietary habits.

Symptoms usually begin as daylight hours become shorter, peak in the winter and then usually resolve themselves in the spring as daylight hours become longer. The National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland had this to say about SAD: Along with food, air, and water, sunlight is the most important survival factor in human life. This is important to think about in this time of generalized sun phobia.

Learning and Productivity

Daylight or Natural light is an important yet over looked part of a healthy lifestyle program. Research estimates that eighty to eighty five percent of our perception, learning, cognition, and activities are mediated through vision. Human performance studies were conducted by the Heschong Mahone Group on behalf of the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program landmark studies. These include:how physical comfort conditions in classrooms are associated with student learning at Fresno Unified School District; and how windows and physical comfort conditions are related to office worker performance at Sacramento Municipal Utility District offices. These productivity studies considered the impact of daylight on human performance, along with other aspects of the indoor environment such as ventilation and view. All these studies concluded better lighting conditions resulted in significantly better learning, and performance.

How to Get Healthy Levels of Natural Light

During the summer, getting enough natural light is as easy as taking a walk for 10 to 15 minutes without sunglasses. Without sunglasses over the eyes, natural, full spectrum light easily passes into the eye, striking the retina and positively affecting your brain. In the winter, weather permitting, taking a 10 to 15 minute walk midday provides at least some natural light exposure. To augment your outdoor natural light time you require two important components, light with the same spectrum as daylight, SoLux, and means to achieve equivalent exposure time, Tailored Lighting Fixtures.

SoLux is the only light source in the world to accurately reproduce the daylight spectrum. No other light source replicates daylight more accurately and precisely than SoLux. The outstanding success stories are testament to our commitment to producing the best daylight simulation product for SAD and other light deprivation aliments. A leading Swiss medical equipment company offers an exclusive line of lighting products for treating SAD and other light deprivation aliments. For years this company searched for the optimal daylight simulation source and recently has made SoLux the key component in its ever expanding line of light therapy products. They are reporting better than ever results since they specified SoLux for all their equipment.

To obtain the equivalent exposure from a 10 minute walk outdoors you would need to work or read under a SoLux light for an hour and a half. Achieving this is easier that you think. Many of us work at our desks for 8-10 hours a day. With Tailored Lighting fixtures providing daylight at your side, your brain will think you have been outdoors all day long. See below for the full range of task lamps offered by Tailored Lighting. All our task lamps use the same SoLux daylight bulb specifically developed for SAD treatment. SoLux is also used in many kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms, and even closets. Use and exposure to SoLux in all these rooms will result in a winter time experience that will be much more tolerable, and most say pleasant. We offer track lighting for general use around the house, and conversion/adaptor fixtures for existing recessed fixtures. Our most economical fixture is our clip-on fixture. Clip it anywhere you need daylight such as your sewing machine, computer, or work bench. We also sell art lights to illuminate paintings on the wall, and head board reading lights for the last dose of daylight before going to sleep. Winter time does not need to be a time of gloom and suffering anymore, literally tens of thousands of customers have discovered the value and benefits of SoLux in their everyday lives.
Thanks to: Sequoia Health and Fitness, Inc., www.SequoiaHealth.com, for their valuable input.

About the Competition

Much has been written about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and the use of "Full Spectrum" light sources. The FDA issued a "Health Fraud Notice", stating claims for a full-spectrum lamp were a "gross deception of the consumer". Full spectrum light sources often are no more than glorified incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs. We analyzed the spectrum of a number of popular "full spectrum" SAD light sources and found they did not qualify as daylight sources.

Learn more about "Full Spectrum Lights"
Learn more about SoLux and SoLux Specifications.
Full accounting of SoLux Products.

SoLux Applications

Solux is used in numerous applications all over the world. Here are just a few:

What our customers are saying...

"Maggie (firm lawyer) can't say enough about the remarkable difference her lights have made. Not one headache here since we turned off the fluorescent lights and added the SoLux lighting. "

Glenda Lusk, Office Manager, Nixon Peabody LLP

"(www.shellykatz.com) "You can use my name and not pay me a dime! Your bulbs are that frickin' good!" "

Shelley Katz

"Dear Tailored Lighting, A few months ago, I purchased your clip-on light in a desperate attempt to find a way to get up for work on time. I'm not a "morning person" to begin with, so getting up at 2 am is counter to my normal circadian rhythms. I'd tried everything I could think of, including taking two 200mg caffeine tablets and turning all the room lights on. Nothing helped. I would hit snooze about 4 times, sleepwalk through my shower and be late to work most of the time. I work outside, and I'd noticed that as soon as the sun came up, I would feel wide-awake. I searched the Internet for a full-spectrum light, and found the SoLux site. Now, I set my alarm half an hour before I need to get up, take the caffeine tablets, and turn on the SoLux clip-on lamp over my bed. When I first turn it on, I face away from it with my eyes closed, but by the time the second alarm goes off, half an hour later, I'm turned towards the light with my eyes open, and I feel wide awake and ready to get up! It's made a big difference in the way I function in the morning. Thanks! "

Candace Rushin