Philips wake-up light for winter SAD

review by Posy Simmonds

Winter SAD tips: If you wake up grumpy in winter, it could be partly because of your cruel alarm. The Philips wake-up light wakes you gently with high lux-rating light and the music of your choice to beat those winter blues...

• Buy Philips Wake-Up Light with Radio Alarm on Amazon

I've been using the Philips wake-up light for three weeks now. I'm fairly sure I suffer from winter depression, otherwise known as seasonal affective disorder, and I need all the help I can get (er, and afford. There's no chance of moving to Thailand during the winter months for me). There's also the problem of waking up - I get grumpy if I'm woken when my alarm goes off, even in summer. In winter this feels ten times worse.

The nice thing about the Philips wake-up light is it wakes you naturally with light. It has a 300 lux light intensity, which means it genuinely mimics natural light and you'll actually feel the benefits if you do suffer from winter depression.

What happens is this - thirty minutes before the alarm goes off, a minuscule amount of light starts to be sent out. It's completely unnoticeable and certainly won't wake you up. This gradually starts to increase, and about ten minutes before the inbuilt alarm goes off, the wake-up light emits enough light for you to be able to see in a darkened room. Still not enough to wake you up, but after a few weeks of use I believe that your sleeping body is subconsciously believing that the rays of the sun are shining and that waking up soon might be a nice thing. Five minutes later, the wake-up light is actually quite bright - and by the time the alarm goes off, it's ramped up to whatever maximum setting you have selected!

As for the alarm, there's an inbuilt radio and sound effects so you can have the ideal waking experience. You can either wake up to your fave radio station, or you can choose from birds in the forest, sounds of the african jungle, a friendly little beep or soft chimes in the wind. I can't guarantee the quality of even my favourite radio station - if I wake up to the wrong song I might end up grumpy for the rest of the day! So after a few days I settled on bird song, which may sound cheesy but feels genuinely lovely in the morning.

I've been roadtesting the Philips wake-up light both with early starts for work and with mornings after the (late) night before. After a couple of weeks I feel I am truly a nicer person in the morning. I haven't had any extra sleep but I regularly feel better about the day ahead. And this is in winter time, when I'm at my worst! You can't ask for more, really.

PS. Grumpy, lazy girls will want to know that yes, there is a snooze button. And yes, you can easily set it up without reading all the manual. And fashionistas / naturalistas will want to know that it emits a pretty pearlised yellow light that feels - dare I say it - natural.

Using a wake-up light as part of my daily routine has helped me say: Welcome back into my dreary winter life, little sun! I've missed you :)

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