Flip-flops? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Twenty-four degree heat? Check.
Now all I need is a fruity cocktail and I could be in Mauritius.
Except I’m not on holiday. I’m in a basement in central London, moments from the frenzy of Oxford Street.
Outside, it’s a typical day — cold and damp, with a sky as grey and heavy as old army boots.
It’s estimated that two million Britons suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is caused by a lack of sunlight – and up to three times more women than men appear to be affected
Down here, amid the lemon trees and pink, plastic bougainvillea, it’s so tropical that I half expect Barry Manilow to cha-cha-cha past singing the Copacabana.
Welcome to the cheapest winter sunspot in Britain.
This is a ‘Real Sunlight’ clinic, where anyone can drop in for a burst of cheering warmth. But you don’t have to face the airport, and it won’t cost you thousands of pounds.
At the flick of a switch, you can flit between Mauritius, Miami and Bali — or, at least, their sunshine equivalents.
Dr Daya (pictured) originally bought the equipment for her own use, having grown sick of British winter
As holidays go, it’s pretty convenient: no passport, no packing and the weather is guaranteed.
It’s estimated that 2 million Britons suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), caused by a lack of sunlight, with up to three times more women than men affected.
Symptoms include low-level depression, lack of energy and a loss of enthusiasm for life.
The syndrome is so widespread, the NHS has set up a web page giving advice on how to tackle it — which includes artificial sun.
In the past, if you were down in the dumps during winter, the advice would be to buck up or buy a ticket somewhere hot.
But what if you can’t afford to? What if you’re trapped on this cold, damp isle until the spring, whenever that may be?
It was only when a colleague cheerfully announced that he was off to Goa, in India, for a fortnight that I thought, hang on, I need some sunshine, too!
Which is how I found myself slipping on my flip-flops at Dr Daya’s Wholistic Medical Centre on that Monday afternoon.
Dr Daya is the sort of GP you find a lot of around Harley Street.
A private practitioner, she’s open to alternative medicine, ‘taking a holistic approach, looking at the whole body and lifestyle, not just one part of it’. Prince Charles would approve.
Hers is the only clinic in Britain to offer a ‘real sunshine’ room to the public. It opened in 2009, though she has just moved premises and spruced it up.
It’s a normal-sized sitting room, done up to feel like a tropical holiday. The walls are papered with verdant scenes and artificial grass, jaunty pot plants hang off wooden screens, soothing music plays in the background.
In a corner, above your head, beams the ‘artificial sun’.
It looks like a row of wall-mounted security lights — three square boxes, the sort you might get at a football stadium.
Dr Daya’s Wholistic Medical Centre (pictured) in central London where you can experience the Miami sun
The equipment comes from Sweden and cost Dr Daya £25,000 to install, which seems a lot given that you can buy a desktop light box — which beams out an assimilation of natural light — for £50.
‘Light boxes do work,’ says Dr Daya, ‘but this is out of this world. This is the full spectrum — infra-red, UVA, UVB and you get the heat, whereas with SAD boxes, you just get visible light.’
The inventor of the equipment, Ingemar Nilsson, stumbled upon his creation by mistake in 1997.
Commissioned to create a sunlight tunnel for Swedish car manufacturer Saab to test the effects of the sun’s rays on different paints, he noticed that the factory workers liked to congregate under the sun lamps during their breaks.
He realised people could get benefits from sitting under the artificial sunlight he’d created.
It’s estimated that 2 million Britons suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), caused by a lack of sunlight, with up to three times more women than men affected
So he spent some years adapting his equipment to make it 100 per cent safe for human use, and ten years later had created the technology he sells now.
Initially, the biggest demand for sunlight rooms came from the elderly and nursing homes.
The first private sunlight room was created in Sweden, and there have now been 150 installations worldwide.
In Britain, 11 have been installed in care homes and there are three belonging to private individuals.
‘Some people really go to town with replicating a holiday feel for their sunlight rooms,’ says Karl Emanuelsson, the UK company representative. ‘People put sand on the floor, surround sound systems to replicate the sea, the smell of coconut wafting through to create a truly multi-sensory experience.’
Dr Daya originally bought the equipment for her own use, having grown sick of British winters. ‘I was born in Africa and I really need the sun,’ she says.
‘I don’t think you need to have been born in Africa to feel you’re missing the sun here, but that was my excuse.
‘When I was 13, I was sent from Tanzania to boarding school here, and I still can’t get over how long the winters are.’
A woman looks at a ‘ light lounge’ – a treatment aimed at Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferers (SAD)
Back in Tanzania, which lies on the Equator, there is an average of 2,836 hours of sun per year, out of a possible 4,383.
In Britain, the average is typically less than half that, ranging from 1,364 per year in Birmingham to 1,888 in Eastbourne.
Dr Daya had heard of sunlight simulators in spas and health clinics, and decided to buy one for herself.
‘I thought it was a bit extravagant, and that I should really share it with other people, so I opened the sun room,’ she says.
She charges £50 for a one-hour session, which seems a lot to spend on an hour under a hot lamp — but, on the other hand, it’s less than the cost of a holiday and, as soon as you flick the switch, you’re hit in the face with that lovely, warm feeling, as if you’ve just stepped off a plane in the Caribbean.
There are three settings: an hour of ‘Bali’ is the mildest, equivalent to a long sunset, while ‘Miami’, Dr Daya’s favourite, is 45 minutes of full whack, then 15 minutes of winding down.
She finds ‘Mauritius’ is the most popular, as it’s the strongest, so that’s what I plump for.
And, boy, do those lamps give off light. Not just light, but heat. In seconds, the room is toasty warm, and I’m breaking into a sweat.
You can wear what you like — Dr Daya likes to spend an hour here after work, in her underwear, catching up with reading.
There are three settings: an hour of ‘Bali’ is the mildest, equivalent to a long sunset, while ‘Miami’, Dr Daya’s favourite, is 45 minutes of full whack, then 15 minutes of winding down
Some visit as couples, while others pop in for a solitary hour in their lunch break.
But what are the actual health benefits? We know we get a large part of our vitamin D intake — important for the promotion of calcium and healthy bones — from the sun.
Some of our intake also comes from food such as oily fish.
But from October to April, 90 per cent of the UK lies too far north to have enough UVB rays in sunlight necessary to make vitamin D in the skin.
So, if they’re not eating enough oily fish and are spending too much time indoors, many are at risk of being vitamin D deficient.
Which is where a burst in a sunny room could be just the ticket.
But just a burst — and no more. There’s a risk of getting skin cancer if you spend too much time in the room.
‘The recommended dose is no more than one hour a day, which is completely safe,’ says Dr Daya. ‘But if you did three hours every day, we couldn’t vouch for the effects.
‘It’s like anything — it’s important not to overdo it.’
Dr Daya claims her time in the sun room makes her sleep better and feel more energetic during the day.
And one elderly user of a nursing home sunlight room says it helps alleviate aches and pains, especially joints, and has a positive effect on his brain power — it helps him tackle the crossword much quicker.
After leaving Dr Daya’s clinic, I do feel more cheerful and friends say I have a rosy complexion, compared with my normal pasty, winter face.
I ask Dr Daya if she still feels the need to go on holiday. ‘Who wants to go on holiday when you can have one every day in your office?’ she replies.
Good point. Even so, I could still do with a week in Mauritius.
The equipment comes from Sweden and cost Dr Daya £25,000 to install, which seems a lot given that you can buy a desktop light box, which beams out an assimilation of natural light, like this one, the Lumie Zip for £150
