We are confronting three main factors that can underlie depression: an internal clock that runs slower than 24 hours, late evening light exposure that adds physiological time and further slows the process, and a dark bedroom that disallows the morning light signal essential for achieving synchrony with local solar time.

Michael Terman

Dr. Terman is Professor of Clinical Psychology in Psychiatry at Columbia University. He directs the Comprehensive Chronotherapy Group (nychronotherapy.com), which combines expertise in light therapy, pharmacotherapy, and psychotherapy. Michael was graduated from Columbia College in 1964 and received his doctorate in behavioral, physiological and sensory psychology from Brown University in 1968. His work has focused on mood disorders, circadian rhythm sleep disorders, chronotherapy, photobiology, and diagnosis and assessment. The National Institute of Mental Health supported his lab research and clinical trials, which produced a set of novel treatment methods including 10,000 lux light therapy, dawn and dusk simulation, high-density negative air ionization, and microdose melatonin for sleep and circadian rhythm adjustment. Michael was a founder of the Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms (sltbr.org), the international organization of clinical specialists with focus on the role of the circadian timing system in psychopathology and its treatment. He is president of the Center for Environmental Therapeutics (cet.org), the nonprofit education and research agency offering public and professional education, and a unique set of online assessment instruments for circadian rhythm and depressive disorders. He was an early recipient of APA’s Young Psychologist Award, and more recently the inaugural Elliot D. Weitzman senior researcher award from the Sleep Research Society Foundation. Michael’s work has been widely covered by the media, including 60 Minutes, the Today show, 20/20, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Time Magazine. In 2009, he co-authored the field’s first clinical treatment manual, Chronotherapeutics for Affective Disorders (2nd edition, 2013; S. Karger, Basel). In 2013, Penguin Random House published his book for general readers, patients, and their doctors, Reset Your Inner Clock.

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