Lightbulbs… A wonderful invention that’s been around for over a hundred years. Did you know how many different times Edison tried to make the lightbulb and learned how not to suceed? The numbers vary from 100 to 10000. I suspect it’s somewhere in the middle. Imagine, something as simple as the lightbulb we all know just waiting to be discovered.

A few years ago, I begin investigating different ways of overcoming a bad mood. I was in Salt Lake during a winter, and felt absolutely terrible. I did some reading and learned that the sun makes us happy. Amazing. Someone told me it is because the Sun creates Vitamin D, which affects seratonin uptake or something like that. Anyways, there is lots of supporting evidence that sunlight make people happy.

Enter… The sunlight lamp… Light is usually measured by it’s “temperature” see: Color Temperature. In a color temperature scale, you have incandescent lights at one end, and sunlight at the other. Incandescent light is yellow… (Because the light is generated by a glowing hot piece of wire, duh). Whereas sunlight bulbs are bright white light. They vary from 5000k to 6500k in color temperature.

Sunlight lamps are so good at re-producing sunlight, that when my wife and I first got one (A 200W huge desk lamp), we plugged it in and my brain said “Whoa! Where’s the window that all of this light is coming from?” And I turned my head to look out the “window” before I realized it was the lamp… Now, I feel my mood lessen when I walk from a room lit by sunlight lights and a room lit by regular lights.

So, how much does it cost?? Home Depot has a good selection of lights. Look on the box, and try to get ones that are 5500k, they have a lot of cheaper 5000k, these are good, but 5500k are better. It’s about $5 for a 60W equivilant 5000k light, but they are CFL’s, so they last forever anyways. If you buy one light a month you’ll have all the lights in your hose replaced before long! I suspect that as they get more popular (which they will) eventually they will be almost the same cost as regular CFL’s and the good 5500k ones will be just a few dollars each.

So, are you stressed? Wish you were a little happier? Or, just curious? However you feel, you’ll feel better with sunlight lamps, and you’ll never go back.