Permission is granted to print and distribute this excerpt for noncommercial use as long as the above source is included. The information in this article is meant to educate and should not be used as an alternative for professional medical care. If the heart of bipolar disorders is a built-in problem with the body's circadian clock, as many researchers believe, it naturally follows that readjusting that clock is a possible treatment. Light therapy is one approach that follows this reasoning. If you can control your sleep pattern, you can reduce the number of mood swings, and also reduce their severity and length.
Strict scheduling can be the key here.
That means setting a bedtime and a wake-up time and sticking to them, even if there's a big test tomorrow or a rock concert tonight, and even if it's Saturday morning and you want to sleep in. Obviously, this is not going to be a popular point with teenagers, who want to share in the nightlife of their peers, and who delight in lazy weekend mornings. Light therapy, as discussed earlier, can be used to improve the duration and quality of sleep in people who are in or about to be in a hypomanic or manic phase. It appears that exposure to bright light at midday increases the amount of melatonin naturally produced during night hours. This should encourage more restful and regular sleep.