It doesn't take long for the strong lamps illuminating the white walls of the Iglo Light Cafe to have their desired effect on Carina Fabregat.

"Everything already feels so much easier here than it did outside," Fabregat says, gesturing toward the cold, dark streets hidden beyond the cafe's white window shades.

Like so many other Swedes, the 24-year-old is going to some length to escape the winter blues. That's what sets in when the sun disappears each day by 3 p.m., leaving Stockholm as dark and dreary as an Ingmar Bergman film.

"I always get really depressed in the winter," Fabregat said. "It's like we go into a collective coma. It really affects you when everyone becomes so introverted."

Excessive darkness, it turns out, should not be taken lightly.

A majority of Swedes feel gloomier in winter than in summer, and up to 3 percent have to seek professional treatment for so-called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or winter depression, said Baba Pendse, a doctor at the Malmo University Hospital in southern Sweden.

"You sleep a little longer, you're more tired and you get a stronger craving for sweets and candy," said Pendse, an expert on winter depressions.

To counter that, the Iglo cafe is offering so-called light therapy, an idea normally seen in Nordic hospitals treating patients with SAD.

Dressed in white cloths draped over their regular clothing, Fabregat and other guests sit in an all-white room to bask in the intense indirect light reflected from strong lamps off the ceiling.

The cafe sells coffee, smoothies and an assortment of pastries, but it is the light therapy that attracts guests, said Martin Sylwan, who opened Iglo in 2004 after fighting off his own winter depression. Most guests come in the morning, he said, spending an hour in the light before heading off to work.

"This is a sort of surrogate for the sun," Sylwan said. "It gives your body the signal that it's actually day."

While the "sun" is artificial, the effect on the mind is real, Pendse said.

A lack of light affects the body's release of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate a person's sleep cycle, he said. As a result, the brain thinks it's night when it's day.

For those with only mild symptoms of the blues, there are other simple ways to chase off the gloom - like taking a 30-minute walk outside when the sun actually appears.

"You can do a lot by just changing your habits," Pendse said. "You can also treat yourself to some niceties, like lighting a candle or eating some chocolate - something to make you happy temporarily."

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