Lumie Bodyclock Starter 30 – Part 2

Back in January I gave my initial thoughts on the Lumie Bodyclock Starter 30, it is a light that is designed to help you wake up in the morning by providing you with an increasing amount of light to mimic the sunlight.

I have now lived with this for about 11 months and I have used it pretty much every working day, I don’t use it at weekends or on holidays unless I need to get up.

I am not going to provide any statistics to back up my review because i don’t have any and I can only write about what I have experienced.

If there was one point I would make it is that ever since using it I have found waking up in the mornings much easier, I don’t wake up with a start when the alarm goes off, I genuinely feel as though I am bought out of my sleep in a gentle way.

I have not used the function at night that dims the light to simulate twilight as I don’t have any difficulty in going to sleep. It does also double as a very useful bedside lamp though!

My use of the lamp has been through a winter, spring, summer and autumn. Firstly I would say whilst I did use it through the summer I think that the natural sunlight probably over rode the lamp, but as I was still waking up well I can’t discount it had some input.

For the dark mornings though, this is where it comes into its own, I don’t know anyone who likes waking up when it is still dark, and I also don’t know many who say they wake up well in those circumstances.

It is difficult to explain exactly what it is like to be woken by the lamp other than to say it is like waking up in the warm glow of sunlight.

In terms of how I use the lamp, I have it set to reach maximum brightness at the same time as my alarm goes off, which means the light starts to put out light from around 30 minutes before, it gets increasingly bright until it hits the allotted time. I have woken up several times as the lamp is starting to come on and you can still doze off again as it feels like dawn is starting to approach.

Would I say this would work for everyone, I honestly don’t know, I will admit to being a bit unsure when I first bought it, and it could take a bit of time of you to get used to, but I would say if you can get one try it and see if it helps, for me it works and now I wouldn’t be without mine.

For more information on the range have a look at the Lumie website

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Lumie Bodyclock STARTER 30

I was introduced to the Lumie product range via the Joe Beer Podcast (well worth subscribing to) and decided to do some investigating into what they were supposed to do for you.

From the Lumie website it says that these products are designed to help you wake up using light therapy to help stimulate production of hormones that help us to get up and go, while suppressing those that bring on sleep.

Now for me up until last November I would never have considered one of these products as I had no problem waking up and feeling ready to go, then for some reason in November and for ho reason I can work out I just couldn’t get up in the morning, the alarm was waking me with a start and I generally didn’t want to go anywhere. At first I thought this would go, but as it carried on into January I decided I need to do something, the question was what.

Having heard of these products I did some research and as they are relatively low in cost (approx £60) I decided to give it a go, I have to say I wasn’t holding out much hope, but try it and see.

The product is dead easy to set up, I think it took about 5 minutes and so isn’t really worth going into more details, I am sure there are unboxing videos on YouTube if you want to see one.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating as they , so what is the product like? Well, it is designed to increase the light in the room from 30 minutes before the alarm time to simulate a sumer morning, and I can confirm it certainly does that.

But does it make you feel better when you wake up? For me I can say that after a few weeks use it is working, when my alarm goes off I am waken yup feeling relaxed and generally ready to go. This i know is not a very scientific result, it is purely subjective, I do however have a second test subject and someone who is frankly rubbish in the morning, my wife!

First things first, my wife is a definite sufferer of SAD, and she has a lamp in her office to help her through the winter, and she also likes sleeping.

So when I asked her what she felt about the light I was very surprised by her answer, I had expected her to say it didn’t help at all, but in fact it was the complete opposite, she says that it really is helping, she is waking feeling relaxed and not dreading getting up.

The big question left for me on this is, is the effect real or is it a placebo effect? For the time being I would say it is real, as time goes on I will re-asses this and see if the results continue to be positive.

In conclusion I would say that this product might help some people, it has helped me, is it worth the money? Yes, as at worse if the effect doesn’t work you get a nice bedside light with an inbuilt alarm clock. Could you replicate the effect with a timer switch on your bedroom light and have it increase the brightness over a period of time, no idea, try it and let em know the outcome.

This review is the first one for this product, as I intend to do another one in the future to see how it is progressing.

Here is the link to this actual product for those interested.