...and do Mick’s light therapy glasses actually work?
WHAT was Sir Mick Jagger wearing on that Miami hotel balcony? The Rolling Stones singer was pictured in a pair of futuristic light therapy glasses the morning before the band’s final world tour date.
Some thought he was trying to banish the winter blues — light therapy can ease Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) — although he was in sunny Florida.
In fact, the Re-Timer device is used to reset the body clock to tackle jet lag. If you’re flying east, you wear the glasses for 60 minutes, three mornings before travel, then for three days after arrival. If going west, wear them for 60 minutes for three evenings before, and three days after, travel.
Jet lag is caused by a misalignment between your body clock and your destination time. Bright light is thought to re-set the body clock and sleep patterns.
The Re-Timer glasses have four LED lights that stimulate the brain’s pineal gland, responsible for body clock regulation, their inventor, Professor Leon Lack of Flinders University in Australia, told Good Health. ‘Our extensive research studies have shown that green light, used in the
Re-Timer, is one of the most effective wavelengths for advancing or delaying the body clock.’ Malcolm von Schantz, a professor of chronobiology at Northumbria University, says the principle behind the glasses ‘does make sense’.
Light suppresses the hormone melatonin — levels usually peak at night and prepare the body for sleep. He says portable devices with about 500 lux brightness (a living room is some 200-300 lux), can deliver enough light to be effective as they concentrate light.
A 2015 study, published in the journal Sleep and Biological Rhythms, found the Re-Timer headset to be effective at shifting the body clock, but some people had headaches and eye irritation. And the glasses are not cheap at £189 a pair.