When it starts to get dark early–right now my kids are walking to the school in the dark, but after daylight savings ends, they’ll be coming home in the dark–you can get SAD. That’s short for Seasonal Affective Disorder, and it can really affect a person. And that means, it can really affect your business.
To learn a little more about SAD and what managers and business owners can do to combat it within their offices, click here:
Can Seasonal Affective Disorder Affect Your Business?
Both Jessica and I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. To remedy this I’ve installed all halogen lamps in every lightbulb socket and put full spectrum fluorescent tubes where possible. We have eleven lights in the MBR and sometimes Jessica says it isn’t enough.
The LED lights they sell for SAD are cr*p. LEDs are pretty much mono-spectral and no matter how bright you make them or how many you use, they still only output limited bands of the visible light spectrum, thus aiding the manufacturers of the lights but not the users.
My office has tinted windows with internally sandwiched nonadjustable miniblinds that are always closed. It’s dark there, like a rabbit warren. All winter long we wait for Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction of an early spring.
Mandatory naps outside in the sunshine for 30 mins every day. Help you digest lunch and gets you fresh air and Vit D.
I’ve worked in a windowless office with standard fluorescent lighting for years. It’s awful. It’s especially bad in the Winter (I am in the Northeast). I go to work in the dark and leave when it’s getting dark, and for years I felt like I just wanted to go home and sleep.
Now, no matter how cold or how bad the weather is, I go outside at break and lunch times, and I burn candles at home in the evening. It’s made such a huge difference in my outlook. I even bundle up and take walks at night, unless we’re having freezing rain or some other horrid weather. For me, just seeing daylight during the day makes such a huge difference.