[The Lizard of Oz]

(09-03-2014 12:32 PM)kbell Wrote:  

Do you have to have your eye open while this is running? I tend to wake up early to go to the bathroom than go back to sleep for a few hours.

LOL, I think that is one of the most unlikely questions that have ever been asked! Kudos.

Yes, kbell, you have to have your eye open -- in fact, I'd be even so bold as to say you should have both eyes open . That is really the point here. Although there are many places in your body that have light receptors, the eyes are a pretty important one, unsurprisingly.

Also, using the light box and then going back to sleep completely defeats the purpose. The idea of bright light therapy is to cue your body and brain to start the diurnal cycle at the same time, shortly after you wake up. So the idea is that you wake up at the time you want to set as your day-to-day waking time, use the light box for 30 minutes shortly thereafter, and then start your day. Believe me, after 30 minutes of 10,000 lux (eyes wide open ) you will not be wanting to go back to bed -- you will be feeling awake and ready to start your day.

If your bathroom waking time is too early for you to start your day, you do the light box later. Again, you want to entrain yourself to wake up at around the same time every day, and you use bright light therapy to (among other things) entrain yourself to that time by always doing it at the same time which is shortly after your desired waking time. If you do it for a while, you might find that your sleep structure changes and you no longer even have the early bathroom waking.