sunlight, a study shows.
"Negative air ionisation," also delivered at the bedside, seems to be effective as well.
naturalistic, non-pharmaceutical environmental enhancements now treatment of winter depression," Dr Michael Terman told Reuters Health.
In the study, dawn simulation and negative air ionisation, both activated toward the end of sleep, proved to be as effective as winter depression, also known as seasonal affective disorder or SAD.
With bright light therapy, SAD sufferers sit at a bright light box for 30 minutes at breakfast time.
Dawn simulation and negative air ionisation are more convenient, hours of sleep by an apparatus placed next to the bed.
In their study, Dr Michael Terman and Dr Jiuan Su Terman of flow rate ionisation.
Full dawn simulation, high negative air ionisation, and bright symptoms of SAD, the investigators report in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
light therapy, 50 per cent of those in the dawn simulation group and 48 per cent in the high air ionisation group.
By contrast, improvement was seen in just 23 per cent of those sunrise pulse group.
active" in some patients, it led to the persistence, emergence and exacerbation of depressive symptoms, making it an "unfavourable option," the Termans write.
Summing up, Michael Terman said while morning bright light therapy "remains the first-line intervention for SAD, with thousands of successes and satisfied patients," dawn simulation and negative air ionisation may also be considered as options.
If you think you may suffer from winter depression, Terman suggests, as a first step, completing the Personalised Inventory for Depression and SAD survey, a free and confidential online the Centre for Environmental Therapeutics, www.cet.org.
ion therapy.
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