mailbag
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Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome to Joy Lab.
Aimee: And I am Aimee Prasek. So here at Joy Lab we infuse science with soul to help you build your resilience and uncover your joy. And we are talking about our mailbag today. So our mailbag is really our way to co-create our episodes, co-create with you listening. So even though Henry and I could really just talk about this stuff with each other all [00:01:00] day, that's not the point.
That's not why we're here. The point is for our conversations, for these episodes to make a meaningful and measurable difference in your mental health and wellbeing. That's the point. So if you're in our Natural Mental Health community, then you'll the form in your community newsletter.
And also in the community homepage, you can submit your idea, what you'd like us to get into here on the pod. We can't answer individual questions like which supplement or medication or some other individual treatment question. But we wanna hear from you all about these broader questions that we get into here.
So just let us know what's on your mind. You can also comment over on YouTube with your ideas or reply back to our weekly NMH newsletter with your mailbag ideas. We will prioritize our community submissions, but we'll consider [00:02:00] those YouTube comments and newsletter replies as well.
So, let's do one right now. Henry, I'm gonna throw this one for you. A common question we get is when should I stop using my SAD light? I've got mine right down here. Mine is actually off right now. But when should I turn it off? Perhaps if I was using it in the winter to support my mood. When don't...
Henry: Great question. So, my first response to that is that you don't actually have to stop using it. I mean, it's, it's okay to use these lights at any time, year round if you wish to. That being said, most of us use it for a specific purpose. Usually it's for either SAD, seasonal affective disorder, winter depression, or sometimes we just use it because we may not get depressed in the winter, but we do get kind of sluggish and lethargic [00:03:00] and
unfocused, and it can help with that too. So anybody who's using it primarily for a seasonal issue, you can stop it, I would say right around the spring equinox, you know, which is close to March 20th or 21st or you can just say right around April 1st. So I like to suggest using it from about October 1st until about April 1st.
There's quite a bit of variation with that. There are some folks who find as early as second half of August, they're noticing a change and they can start it then. Again, it's useful to think about what it is doing for our bodies and that can kind of help you decide if and when to stop using it.
So, the problem with winter depression is circadian rhythms get really off kilter in such a way that our bodies wanna kind of hibernate and the light helps trick us into [00:04:00] thinking that the days aren't so short. So it's kind of extending our days or ~it's,~ it's tweaking our circadian rhythms. Some people find that that's a really helpful thing to do.
Let's say if they travel or they go across time zones and they get back and they're having a hard time getting back into their home time zone. You can use it then for a week or two just to kind of help facilitate that process. Same thing if you've , I don't know, found yourself sleeping in, for a few days in a row and you need to get back on track, you can use it then. I also know of people who, anytime that it's a little bit of a dreary day, rainy, cloudy, you know, or they just need to pick me up, turn it on. It's just fine. There are only a few exceptions to that and I'll share a couple of those.
Some folks in the late winter, early spring get a little revved up and agitated. And ~the light, the bright light can, yeah, I do too. ~
~Um, ~the bright lights can aggravate that, ~you know,~ and it can just make you feel [00:05:00] even more that way and accentuate it. And then it's probably a good idea to stop using it or use it for a shorter time period. And then, ~um, like~ there are times where I'll turn it on
at my desk in the morning and ~just kinda~ leave it on all morning just 'cause I like the brightness and I, I swear after a couple of hours, I get a little, I get a little funky, start, I start to feel kind of, I don't know, revved up or even more unfocused, even though it might've, it might've helped me at first, it seems like later I get more unfocused.
So, ~you know,~ you gotta ~be a little,~ pay a little bit of attention, ~um,~ knowing that it can rev you up a little bit. Notice if it's affecting your mood or just how your brain is working and back off.
Aimee: Yeah, ~I,~ my experience with using a SAD light is it's very much to support my mood for winter depression. I don't use it to support energy. For me, it's just [00:06:00] that doesn't, you know, I mean certainly the shared relationship of depression and energy and being a mammal in the winter, but that's not my primary reason for using it.
So I do notice, like you said in the spring, and I'll link to our episode on this variation of seasonal affective disorder or this mood shift that happens in late winter, early spring that if I have my SAD light on, it's like I had a little too much caffeine. And when I start to feel that, I know that my SAD light is gonna now go off for the rest of the season.
And we've had such a weird winter in Minnesota. I usually use it until April, but I had to turn it off
Henry: ~Yeah. ~
Aimee: ~you know? And. Like~ about a week ago. 'cause I was getting that little like, ooh, I am itching to go running and, you know, attack someone. It's just ~like the,~ the energy was not supportive of my, being. So anyway,
Henry: You know, there's one other thing that I think is [00:07:00] worth seeing here, and that is that in the winter months, those roughly six dark months, let's say we use the bright lights because we don't have the option of going outside and getting bright light early and late in the day. You can go out in the middle of the day and get bright light, but it doesn't do as much good for your circadian rhythms.
But in those other six months, most folks are far better off actually going outdoors or just being, even being by a window and just being exposed to the natural early ~bright. ~brightness and late brightness, especially going outside, it just does so many other good things for us. The sun is gonna have such a stronger impact on our circadian rhythms than our SAD lights are going to. So, you know, you, you still might want to be careful about ~um,~ sun exposure if you're fair skinned or have a history of skin cancer. We all, we are all at risk of that. But early in the [00:08:00] day and late in the day, that's quite safe and you're just, you're just better off getting your dosing of bright light by being outside.
Aimee: I love that. Maybe just a quick follow up here then, as we're talking about when to stop using these supports relevant to seasonal affective disorder or winter mood shifts, what about vitamin D 3? Is that something that if people are adding a little extra dose to which I do on top of my NeuroMood Pure Pack that I like, I'll usually have a little boost of D alongside of it.
When do you usually have folks stop using additional supplements?
Henry: Yeah. That's a really good thing to remind us of. ~Um,~ So, usually ~it's,~ it's about the same. ~Um,~ I think about the same timeframe. October 1st to April 1st is when most folks living north of a line through Atlanta, in the US, anybody north of there ~is probably going to,~ their vitamin D levels are gonna drop.
And [00:09:00] remember~ it does,~ vitamin D does so many good things, not just for bone health, but also for mood, for immunity. ~Um,~ it's just a very important,~ um,~ hormone. ~And um,~ And so I think most people are wise to supplement with at least 2000 units up to 5,000 units ~un~ unless you know that you've had a blood test and you know your levels are low, then you can use more than 5,000 units.
And if you know that your levels are exceedingly high, you shouldn't take any extra vitamin D at all. But for most of us, I would say right around, October 1st to April 1st, and then from, ~you know,~ April through September, unless you're actually getting sun exposure on your skin during the middle portion of the day, then you, you still can take some extra vitamin D. Maybe a lower dose, like just one or 2000 units in the summer months.
Again, we're best off getting our vitamin D through actual [00:10:00] sun exposure, but we have to be mindful about skin cancers.~ ~~And so forth. ~
Aimee: ~Yeah. Um,~ Yeah, so I love this. It's, we're coming to this season perhaps where we can back off on some of the supplements, if we're taking those, we can unplug the SAD light. We can plug into that healing grid we talked about in our Joy Lab episode I'll link to that. Um, which is always there for us to plug in whether or not the SAD light is on.
So, I hope this is helpful and that you're excited about this mailbag 'cause we are. This co-creation of our podcast is something that has been important to us. So we wanna co-create with you. So please send us your ideas. And to close, I'm gonna quote Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh. I think it answers maybe our second mailbag question, which is, what is the most important thing I can take away from this episode?[00:11:00]
I'm gonna answer that right now. Here it is. "Promise me you'll always remember. You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think."
Henry: I love it.
Aimee: ~Yeah. ~
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