RESETTING OUR BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS TO 'HAPPY' SETTING

From Science Daily:  out of this week's issue of PLoS Biology:  " Better known as the light sensor that sets the body's biological clock, melanopsin also plays an important role in vision: Via its messengers-so-called melanopsin-expressing retinal ganglion cells, or mRGCs-it forwards information about the brightness of incoming light directly to conventional visual centers in the brain, reports an international collaboration of scientists in this week's issue of PLoS Biology."

As someone who realized that S.A.D.(Seasonal Affective Disorder) was the reason I felt I was dragging an anchor behind me all day starting in October when I (who has maybe cried once in each decade) I felt like crying.about fifteen or more years ago. Fortunately a friend with a back problem had a light box too heavy for her to lift, sold it to me and I was able to manage my fall and winters quite well after that.  This year I have not had to pull out the light box and have had a pretty cheerful Fall.  However, unlike a research project, there are too many variables in my life to figure out which one is the THE one...maybe they all are?

First, my friend had told me to cut down the tree which was shading and darkening my work area.  I resisted because my father, long since deceased, had planted it for me and I was sentimental about it.  Finally, this year, putting sentiment behind me, I had the tree cut down and now get good southern exposure in the relevant windows.  Secondly,each year I develop more floaters in my eyes so that I require extremely bright lights to read...something I do many hours of the day.  Another psychiatrist friend said he had heard that it is the blue in the light spectrum which gets to our pineal gland and works for us, steering us away from hibernation..  I have noticed ads for lamps that have blue light as the primary light in their spectrum. I've yet to try one but probably will, just to check the effect out.   Since Vitamin D3 came on the market it has been added to my daily intake.  I'm on the cusp of retiring from my professional life and that has eased my schedule and stress level.  Lastly, I really work on keeping my stress level as low as possible by prioritizing my activities and relationships to maintain as peaceful a state as possible.

Bringing my comments full circle to the first paragraph, I read only 'happy-ending' books, for the most part.  Since I have the attention span of all good people with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) I like to read long enough to finish the book I have started, with as few interruptions as life, phones, friends, chores, biological needs, etc allow.  Thus, I read under my bright lights even during the day and often to between 3 AM and even as late as 6 or 7 AM if if the book is longl and I don't have to be up by 8 AM.  Consequently, I am not ready to sleep until those hours even when I am not reading.  Noting that I have not had S.A.D. this fall, I speculating that reading under a bright OTT-LITE for many hours, working in a sunnier room on the computer, lowering my cortisol level by ridding myself of stress, my biological clock has been reset.  Too often I find I am just going to bed when friends say they are getting up to start their day.

It seems that regularity in more activity than eating fiber is the order of the day!