People with seasonal affective disorder (SAD).What’s the optimal duration of light therapy?Īs these things are figured out, results may get even better.įor now, we know that the populations that are most at risk of developing circadian rhythm disorders are:.The fact that most studies have found some positive effect of light therapy is a good sign. People with this type of disorder are often very alert at night, and also sleep better during the day. It's fairly difficult to diagnose a circadian rhythm disorder, but there are some common signs. One note by the authors of the review is that higher light intensities led to larger effect sizes. Overall, there was a significant positive effect of light therapy on sleep problems in general, including circadian rhythm sleep disorders and insomnia.Īs you can see, some studies showed a large positive effect, but overall the effect size is typically small to medium. Does Light Therapy Work for Insomnia?Ī 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis looked at 53 studies (1154 subjects) that looked at the effects of light therapy on sleep (1). The science isn’t fully settled here, but I’ll walk you through what’s currently known. There’s a decent amount of research that shows that bright light therapy works in some cases but not others. Light therapy is a potential insomnia treatment for circadian rhythm disorders.īasically, if someone’s circadian rhythm gets out of sync due to a weird sleep schedule or not getting enough light, bright light therapy may be able to correct the schedule.
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