Light therapy effective for treating depression, not just winter blues
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But subjectively, I agree with you; the quality of most fluorescent lighting is aesthetically inferior to halogen or other incandenscents.
LED has a better balance than incandescent or fluorescent, but still not "natural" light.
See http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/reviews/g...
LEDs can be okay if you make an effort to find ones which are ~3000K CCT, and diffuse them properly. Fluorescent bulbs are invariably unpleasant, and tend to give me a headache, in addition to making everything look garish.
LED car headlights and streetlamps of CCT >3000K should be illegal, they’re much too bright in the short-wavelenth part of the spectrum, blinding drivers and pedestrians, disrupting people’s sleep (and animals and plants), creating nasty light pollution which blacks out the stars, and not actually improving visibility compared to less-blue LEDs or high-pressure sodium lamps. Same goes for flashlights and camping lamps, though those probably shouldn’t be literally illegal, just discouraged.
I hope someday display technology improves a bit and can support broader spectrum output with more than three isolated/intense primaries. Ink on paper is much nicer to look at than pixels on current screens. (Of course screens have the nice feature that they can easily change what they show.)
For daytime lighting a carefully constructed LED lamp might be better than incandescent lamps, but I much prefer just sitting near a window.
May well move to a 'chandelier' style luminaire downstairs for Xmas look and warm spectrum.
Days are short at this time of year at 52.5 North. Art shops sell 'daylight' bulbs (incandescent with light blue glass envelope).
The bulbs also cost much more to produce than incandescents and are full of toxic mercury, and wear out much more quickly than advertised when turned on and off frequently (as is typical in residential uses).
This page mirrors my thoughts reasonably well (http://www.richsoil.com/CFL-fluorescent-light-bulbs.jsp). On the whole, CFLs are a handout to a small handful of rich lighting companies, sold to the public under false pretenses.
Incandescent bulbs also use about 3 - 4 times the power, and burnout quite often. There is no perfect solution.
CFL yellows everything and washes out colors. I believe some people are more sensitive to this effect. For me, it deadens everything. I think some are sensitive to the frequencies as well, just as to the old interlaced monitors.
LEDs have gotten better, but the light tends to be harsher and less diffuse than incandescent. Even the newer halogen incandescents on offer tend to be too white or harsh for my taste.
Never realized that the "default" incandescent brightness and temperature were so perfect until they became harder to find amidst the push towards energy efficiency. Since then, our living spaces have become dimmer and more lifeless. It literally changes how we experience life.
I thought I just needed to get used to it, but the effect is still very noticeable to me.
How it works in practice, well, the usual caveat about varying mileage definitely applies in this domain. I've recommended adjunctive light treatment over many years. Though it can help reduce symptoms, in most cases other therapies are still necessary to achieve remission of depression.
Several comments were made about the lamps used for light treatment. The optimum emission spectrum for light therapy is really an unsettled question. Early on (in 1980's) the quantity of light was emphasized, 10000 lux is considered standard since that is equivalent to minimal "normal" daylight, e.g., heavily overcast midday sky in late fall. Some work suggests as little as 4-5K lux may be sufficient for response.
Some studies have shown blue light (say ~460nm) to be most effective, others found peak response to green (~500-550). And some researchers in the field have the opinion the spectral quality is less important the light intensity.
Since usually light treatment for depression is administered in early morning, consistent with normal circadian influence, the blueness of light as encouraging wakefulness is not a problem. As some comments noted, some research suggests blue light exposure in evening hours can trigger wakefulness, though not yet enough evidence to say that's been proven.
Notably device displays have been getting brighter, and more blue, thanks to "white" LED illumination which has prominent emission ~450nm. Of course LED output spectrum varies across diodes, but kind of a parallel to fluorescent lamps which tend to have prominent green emission regardless of apparent "warm" or "cool" effect.
The advice to avoid computer or phone use in evening is based on both brightness and spectrum, to say nothing of the mentally stimulating effects interfering with sleep onset.
For me having fixed sleep rhythm and eating breakfast are two things that help with moody periods. So it could be that the side effects are more important than the light itself.
If it's true that this helps, but doesn't really cure. Then it might be best used on healthy people. So they don't ever get depressed.
If that light is producing UVB, then people should be wearing UV goggles while using it. I highly doubt they are using "naked" CCFLs producing UVB.