Globe & Mail Newspaper
Style Section
Toronto, Canada January 27, 2007

Feeling blue? Try the orange light
Glowing coloured lights are the latest feel-good therapy being used to chase the winter blahs

CECILY ROSS

SAD? You're not the only one. This is the season when keeping the blues at bay is a major challenge. But colour, including blue (and orange, violet and green), may be the antidote to that energy-depleting affliction known as seasonal affective disorder that afflicts so many right now.

Light therapy has been used for years to combat SAD, but now the whole colour spectrum is being brought to bear on the winter blahs.

Julianne Bien, a Toronto-based colour-science consultant, says that "bathing" in different coloured lights keeps you strong in body and mind. "Exposure to the full spectrum of light -- all the colours of the rainbow," she says, "is essential, not just for the production of Vitamin D and calcium, but also for our nerves and thinking processes."

Orange, Bien says, is particularly useful for combatting depression. The colour symbolizes joy and happiness. (It also supposedly increases your sex drive.) Yellow is purifying; green is calming; blue helps you sleep; and violet promotes spiritual growth

Bien became interested in the alternative therapy known as iridology when conventional medicine offered her no relief from severe back pain. "One day I had a vision," she says, and it led her to design the Luma Light 2000, a hand-held device with interchangeable colour filters that, she says, can be used at home or in a clinical setting to relieve everything from anemia to anomie.

Peace of mind, however, comes at a price. The Luma Light 2000 kit (with training) starts at $995 ( http://www.spectrahue.com) . But, as alternative therapies move into the mainstream, less expensive cures for the blues are available. On the mass-market end of the scale, there's Glade's $11.99 PlugIns Scented Oil Light Show, which is being pitched to mothers for their children's bedrooms. It emits a soothing spectrum of rainbow-hued lights along with the aromas of Berry Burst or Vanilla and Cream (the scent bottle is removable if you just want the light).

Coloured light has long been used to treat children with such disorders as autism. The catalogue company Abilitations ( http://www.abilitations.com ) offers a range of therapeutic toys and equipment that aim to enhance the mood of our physical and mental interiors. There are Lightwashers that plug into wall sockets and bathe a room in a wash of colour ($66.99 at http://www.schoolspecialtyonline.com) ; lighted children's building blocks that are said to stimulate creativity ($78.99); and sound-activated floor panels that glow like a huge multihued checkerboards ($4,149.99).

"Coloured light," Bien says, "replenishes the body's natural energy. It allows the cells in the body to communicate through the colours of the spectrum.

"Have you ever wondered," Bien asks, "why we get so excited, feel like a child again and marvel so much at a rainbow after a spring shower? Perhaps we need to discover our rainbow located within."