Imagine buying a penthouse apartment for $14.3 million and then finding that new buildings being erected alongside were going to keep your home in the shade the whole time!

That’s what one buyer Pritam Singh found in Boston. He is attempting to extract himself from the purchase and sale agreement as a result. His wife is a sufferer of Seasonal Affective disorder it seems.

Did you check the light levels before moving in the last time you moved house? especially the light levels in winter when they count more than ever?

Definitely a factor to watch out for.

BostonHerald.com - Real Estate: A shady 14.3M deal? Mandarin condo buyer sues over sun block

technorati tags:Boston+lawsuit, SAD, lack+of+light

Last year I reported about the town of Rattenberg which was immersed in darkness all winter and about its novel solution to lighting up the area.

Then I just read about the little town of Viganella in Italy with just 197 inhabitants which was plunged into near darkness each year on November 11 for 84 days in a row due to the sun disappearing behind the mountain. And they are using giant mirrors too to bring more light into their lives and reduce the incidence of SAD…

Maybe there’s a way with mirrors in space or something to make the whole world a lighter place (although goodness knows what that would do for Global Warming).

The Raw Story | Mirror mirror on the mountain, let the sun shine on our fountain By Nicholas Rigillo

technorati tags:Rattenberg, Viganella, SAD, Global+Warming

The Weather Channel in the UK is publishing charts to show how the UK and Europe might be affected by SAD each day. Anyone know of a similar service elsewhere in the world? If you do , please add a comment to let us all know.

weather.co.uk - UK - SAD Forecast (24 hr)

technorati tags:SAD, Seasonal+Affective+Disorder, Weather

Wouldn’t it be great if there were cafes in every city like the Iglo Ljuscafe (Igloo Lightcafe) in Stockholm in Sweden which offers light therapy and a light reflective decor along with your coffee or breakfast.

What a great way to take your daily light therapy in a convivial atmosphere and with your favorite drink too!

Just imagine if you could change the light environment at every Starbucks and Macdonalds too. What a difference that would make to the nation’s psyche. Maybe we’d all smile more at each other all winter long.

Seed: In Dark of Winter, “Light Cafe” Battles Blues

technorati tags:light+cafe, coffee+shop, Stockholm, light+therapy, Seasonal+affective+disorder

This is the Luminous Elyptical Sky Ceiling by the Sky Factory which emits light to give an illusion that you have a real view of the sky.

The light is daylight balanced light apparently at the same level used to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder and although the picture doesn’t change you can arrange for the lightto dim when appropriate.

Shame about the price - about $300+ a square foot.

Note and correction: Following Bill’s comment, it seems the price is a lot cheaper than that - $95 a square foot which puts it much more in reach

The Future of Things

technorati tags:SAD, Seasonal+Affective+Disorder, Sky+Factory

Someone posted this link over at the SAD support group I subscribe to. It shows the number of hours you might expect at particular times of the year.

Hours of Daylight by Latitude - Table - MSN Encarta

I struggled though with knowing where in the world different latitudes were and as I couldn’t find my trusty school atlas I found this list of places names with all kinds of data (including latitude)

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/surface/stations.txt

Apparently the UK is around 50 degrees North….feels worse on some days but the past few weeks the weather has been kind with lots of sunny days.

Apologies that I haven’t blogged for a bit - it has been an amazing summer here in Edinburgh and SAD thoughts have been far from my mind.

Fantastic summer weather here though is anything between 24 and 30 C (up to about 84F!). Although the heat has been hard to cope with at times (we are just not used to it in Scotland and air-conditioned homes are a great rarity) it was not enough to bring on the kind of seasonal affective disorder found in summer.

I just read this article from the Edmond Sun which explains just how depressing and enervating heat can be for some folks. If you’re driven to stay indoors in air-conditioned rooms the lack of fresh air (and negative ions) and even ironically the lack of daylight can bring on a kind of summer depression which lifts when the weather grows cooler.

I heard to that excessive use of sunglasses can lead to SAD - the light is just not reaching your eyes even though it is bright.

If you have the kind of summer where you feel like you want to stay indoors make sure you still get some natural light - maybe by walking outdoors in the early morning when it’s cooler or even spending a little time in dappled shade - it will still be lighter than indoors.

The Edmond Sun, Edmond, OK - Is summer making you SAD?

technorati tags:SAD, Seasonal+Affective+Disorder, Summer, Heat, Negative+ions

Wherever you are in the world today it’s an important day in the calendar for Seasonal affective Disorder.

As one cheerful soul (obviously in the Northern hemisphere) remarked on a SAD support group I subscribe to “after today the days just get shorter and shorter, the light dimmer and dimmer”.

Of course the opposite is true “down under” in Australia and New Zealand. Things are going to start to get brighter.

Wherever you are in the world it makes sense to plan your activities to take into account the way the seasons affect you, taking things more slowly in winter and making the most of any good weather and bright light which comes you way by getting outside as much as possible. And of course, it helps to plan any treatment you need well before the level of light affects you so badly that it’s difficult to summon up the energy to do anything about anything.

The weather is so unreliable at this time of year in the UK that you really can’t pack away your light box for the winter if you seriously suffer from Seasonal Affective disorder.

One day it’s sunny and you think you’re in the clear and the next gloom has descended again. Reminds me of that old English saying

“Ne’er cast a clout ’til May be out”

(Clout is an Old English word for clothing, and the saying was a reminder not to be too quick to get rid of the winter woollies before the chilly days of May were over)

And the way recent summers have gone here in Scotland, the light box might as well stay around all year…

You can tell that the weather is getting better by the amount of activity in the SAD support groups. There have been just a handful of posts this month at the Yahoo group S-A-D I belong to and one of them was posted by mistake. When I looked at the history of postings over the last few years that holds true as well - posts about SAD drop off from April to September.

Makes me suspect that there’s not so much of a problem with Seasonal Affective Disorder in the Southern hemisphere.  I think it’s at least true that the highest percentage of sufferers (in particular those with access to computers at least) are in the Northern Hemisphere and starting to enjoy better weather and moods to match.

What about Australia and New Zealand where it is getting into winter? Do you have a separate support group for your region?