Videos
These videos are part of the Continuing Education Course for Professionals that was presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms. The conference was co-sponsored by CET in 2016.
The Biology of
the Circadian Rythms
Sleep naturally
Dan Oren, MD
Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
How to set light and dark for
personal and work schedules
Your inner clock
Marijke Gordijn, PhD
University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
Psychological factors in the
etiology and treatment of
seasonal depression
SAD and treatments
Michael Young, PhD
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Recommended reading
Reset Your Inner Clock: The Drug-Free Way to Your Best-Ever Sleep, Mood, and Energy
Michael Terman and Ian McMahan. New York: Avery, 2013
A clear overview of the science of circadian rhythms and related forces shows how sleep, light, travel across time zones, shift work, and other factors affect our mood, and lives, across the lifespan.
Recommended reading
Chasing the Sun: The new science of sunlight and how it shapes our bodies and minds
Linda Geddes. Profile Books Ltd, London; Welcome Collection, 2019
Our biology is set up to work in partnership with the sun. Little wonder then that humans have long worshipped and revered our nearest star: life itself arose on earth because its relationship with the sun was a special one, and that relationship still affects us well into the era of electric lighting, indoor workdays, and vitamin D supplements.
Recommended reading
The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight
Like most people, you probably wake up, get hungry for meals and doze off in bed around the same time every day. If you’ve ever experienced jet lag or pulled an all-nighter, you know that this schedule can easily be thrown off kilter. But for some people, that imbalance—difficulty sleeping at night, hunger at odd times, or sudden fatigue at noon—is a constant. If you’re one of those people, Dr. Satchin Panda, one of the leading researchers on circadian rhythms, has a plan to reset your body clock.
Recommended reading
Internal time
Early birds and night owls are born, not made. Sleep patterns may be the most obvious manifestation of the highly individualized biological clocks we inherit, but these clocks also regulate bodily functions from digestion to hormone levels to cognition.
Recommended reading
Rhythms of Life: The Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Living Thing
Russell G. Foster and Leon Kreitzman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005
In this fascinating book, the chronobiologist Russell Foster and the journalist Leon Kreitzman explain the significance of the biological clock, showing how it has played an essential role in evolution and why it continues to play a vitally important role in all living organisms.
Recommended reading
Seasons of Life: The Biological Rhythms That Enable Living Things to Thrive and Survive
Russell G. Foster and Leon Kreitzman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010
How do plants and animals “know” that the seasons will change? How do seasonal changes affect humans? What happens when the timing of seasonal events is altered? Just as daily events are timed by living creatures through circadian rhythms, so seasonal events are timed through an internal calendar that signals birds to return to nesting grounds, salmon to spawn, plants to flower, squirrels to hibernate, kelp to stop growing.
Recommended reading
Sleep: A Very Short Introduction
Russell G. Foster and Steven W. Lockley. London: Oxford University Press, 2012
Why do we need sleep? What is sleep? What happens when we don’t get enough? Two chronobiologists seek the answers.
This Very Short Introduction addresses the biological and psychological aspects of sleep, providing a basic understanding of what sleep is and how it is measured, a look at sleep through the human lifespan, and the causes and consequences of major sleep disorders. The book describes dramatic breakthroughs in our knowledge of how sleep occurs, what it does, and what happens to our health if we do not have enough. The authors consider the impact of modern society, examining the relationship between sleep and our 24/7 culture.
Recommended reading
Winter Blues, Fourth Edition: Everything You Need to Know to Beat Seasonal Affective Disorder
Norman E. Rosenthal. New York: Guilford Press, 2012
Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal is the pioneer of light therapy in Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). He reviews the research and provides information about treatment possibilities.
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