Don’t mope around in the dark this winter — instead brighten up your world with some healing light therapy.

Many of us swear by the benefits of complementary therapies but, if push comes to shove, wouldn’t have a clue how they actually worked. One woman, however, has come up with an explanation.

“To me, it is all about light,” says Doctor Susan Jamison, the Harvard-trained doctor who recently published her views in Medical to Mystical: bringing life into your life (£9.99, Findhorn Press). In her fascinating book, she details how science backs up what complimentary therapies have been working with the so long. “In so many traditions and religions, human beings are referred to as ‘beings of light’. Scientists have already accepted the concept that we are light beings,” she says, adding that at the sub-atomic level we are all made up of solid light.

“We all know people who radiate more light than others. We call them sunny personalities,” says Doctor Jamieson. She started to notice this when working as a family doctor. People who were just there for checkups, mostly children and pregnant women stood out from her depressed, anxious or seriously ill patients. “They had a different quality of energy about them. After some time it came to me that the difference was the ‘light’.”

Known as the ‘ light doctor’ at her clinic in London, and she treats all sorts of ailments through her unique healing treatments. “Our hands radiate light,” she says. “ With electro-magnetic energy, ultrasound, gamma, ultraviolet, light we see is only one part of the spectrum.”

Light energy is used in all sorts of complementary therapies. For example homoeopathy uses essential light energy of the plant, while energy therapies such as Reiki, emotional freedom technique and crystal therapy use a similar light to kick-start the body’s own healing processes, says Susan.

She believes that harnessing light energy can help to boost your wellbeing, heal sickness and combat fatigue caused by emotional stresses such as grief, break-ups and job loss.

“Sometimes, our bodies need an energetic helping hand,” says Doctor Jamieson. “Most people don’t really understand that we’re being of light. Biologists just accept it physicists think we’re vibrating molecules of light. If we accept it, then maybe we can use it.”

— Eve Menezes Cunningham, Natural Health Magazine