A reader asks:

My ideal position for light therapy, as I am waking up, would be to use the lamp while reading a book while lying on my stomach on the floor. If this sounds okay to you, please can you tell me how to position the lamp, and angle my head?

On a related note, please tell me more about the positioning of my eyes. I read that I should not have my eyes closed, but I can look at the lamp occasionally. What does “occasionally” mean time-wise? Is looking at the lamp important? Are there any potential dangers for my eyes if I look at the lamp? What about if I look more frequently? Please can you elaborate? 

Answer:

Light should go directly to the eyes: draw a straight line in your mind between the screen of the light box and the pupils of the eyes and see whether the light goes freely into both eyes. Be sure that eyelashes do not interfere.

The answer is in the previous comment: the main point is to get light in your eyes directly from the box screen, whether you look at it or not. By closing one eye, you may check whether the entire screen of the box is still in the field of view of another eye (at the recommended distance).

You can look at the light box all the time if you want; it is much dimmer than the sun, and safe. However, periodic viewing (say, one minute looking at it, and one minute not) works as efficiently as constant viewing. There is no rule.