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Light Treatment for Sleep Disorders: Consensus Report

III. Alerting and Activating Effects

Laboratory of Human Chronobiology, New York Hospital, Cornell University Medical College, 21 Bloomingdale Road, White Plains, NY 10605

Derk-Jan Dijk

Institute of Pharmacology, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057, Zürich, Switzerland

Ziad Boulos

Institute for Circadian Physiology, 1 Alewife Center, Cambridge, MA 02140

Charmane I. Eastman

Biological Rhythms Research Laboratory, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, 1653 West Congress Parkway, Chicago, IL 60612

Alfred J. Lewy

Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health Sciences University, 3181 S.W. Sam Jackson Park Road, Portland, OR 97201

Michael Terman

Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, 722 West 168th Street, New York, NY 10032

In addition to the well-established phase-shifting properties of timed exposure to bright light, some investigators have reported an acute alerting, or activating, effect of bright light exposure. To the extent that bright light interventions for sleep disturbance may cause subjective and/or central nervous system activation, such a property may adversely affect the efficacy of treatment. Data obtained from patient samples and from healthy subjects generally support the notion that exposure to bright light may be associated with enhanced subjective alertness, and there is limited evidence of objective changes (EEG, skin conductance levels) that are consistent with true physiological arousal. Such activation appears to be quite transient, and there is little evidence to suggest that bright light-induced activation interferes with subsequent sleep onset. Some depressed patients, however, have experienced insomnia and hypomanic activation following bright-light exposure.

Key Words: sleep • light • arousal • alertness • phototherapy • EEG • shift work

Journal of Biological Rhythms, Vol. 10, No. 2, 129-132 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/074873049501000205


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