Light sensitivity is a common feature of migraine headaches and during an attack most people prefer being in the dark. According to a Harvard professor, Dr. Rami Burstein, exposure to pure green light may be better than being in complete darkness.
Dr. Burstein is one of the world’s most productive and creative headache researchers. His research has been published in such leading medical journals as Brain, Nature, Pain, Neurology, Journal of Neuroscience, and many other. This is to say that his research is of high quality and can be trusted.
I’ve known Rami for over 20 years and he never ceases to surprise with a fresh look at old phenomena that have lead him to many breakthrough discoveries. While studying light sensitivity, he decided to look at the effect of different parts of the visible light spectrum on the brain of experimental animals as well as migraine sufferers. According to his research published in Brain, white light as well as other colors of the spectrum worsen pain perception, but green light reduces pain. Blue light produces the strongest pain response and this is why some of my patients find relief from wearing orange-colored lenses that block the blue part of the spectrum.
Another paper by Burstein and his colleagues published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that exposure green light also has a positive effect on mood and autonomic nervous system functions.
Because of these findings Dr. Burstein developed a lamp that produces pure green color. A regular green-tinted bulb will not work because it does not emit a pure green light. Admixture of other colors negates the beneficial effect of the purely green light. He told me that the original prototype of the lamp cost $50,000, but eventually he and his business partners were able to reduce the price to a couple of hundred dollars. Now, you may think that he is out to make some money on his research, but that is not the case. Being a full professor at Harvard means that the university keeps the profits.
The lamp became available only a month ago and you can buy it at AllayLamp.com. Keep in mind that for green light to work, you have to turn off all other lights and computer screens and close the shades. It may take 1-2 hours to make your pain, throbbing, and other symptoms to subside. A patient I recently saw loved the idea of this lamp because whenever she gets a migraine in the summer she finds relief by sitting in her dense green garden.
