Heliophobia can be treated using talk therapy, exposure therapy, self-help techniques, support groups, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and relaxation techniques. For people who are severely heliophobic, anti-anxiety meditation is a recommended mode of treatment.

Phobias are classified as a type of anxiety disorder. There is often no discernible cause of phobia onset, though Rachman describes three possibilities: classical conditioning, vicarious acquisition and informational/instructional acquisition. Occasionally, they are triggered by negative events surrounding the phobic object or situation - in this case, perhaps severe sunburn.

The Pacific Health Center suggested that these people have been staying away from the sunlight because of the growing fears with skin cancer or blindness. This is not technically heliophobia, but simply an unfounded and illogical solution. Obsessive compulsive disorder, if it includes an intense fear of being harmfully affected by exposure to the sun or to bright lights, can also cause heliophobia. It should be noted that forms of heliophobia based on such irrational fears can cause the sufferer to eventually develop a fear of being in public or a fear of people in general by association, as a crippling fear of bright light can significantly limit the places a heliophobe can comfortably visit, as well as prevent that person from going outside during the daytime, when most other people are active.

Other medical conditions such as keratoconus (an eye disorder that results in extreme optic sensitivity to sunlight and bright lights), migraine which can be triggered by bright light, and porphyria cutanea tarda, which causes the skin to be overly sensitive to sunlight to the point of causing blisters, can result in heliophobia if the sufferer begins to associate pain and discomfort with bright lights.

People with hemeralopia may benefit from sunglasses. Wherever possible, environmental illumination should be adjusted to comfortable level. Light-filtering lenses appear to help in people reporting photophobia.

Otherwise, treatment relies on identifying and treating any underlying disorder.

Photophobia may also affect patients' socioeconomic status by limiting their career choices, since many workplaces require bright lights for safety or to accommodate the work being done. Sufferers may be shut out of a wide range of both skilled and unskilled jobs, such as in warehouses, offices, workshops, classrooms, supermarkets and storage spaces. Some photophobes are only able to work night shifts, which reduces their prospects for finding work.

The best treatment for light sensitivity is to address the underlying cause. Once the triggering factor is treated, photophobia disappears in many but not all cases.

People with photophobia will avert their eyes from direct light, such as sunlight and room lights. They may seek the shelter of a dark room. They may wear sunglasses designed to filter peripheral light and wide-brimmed sun hats.

Wearing sunglasses indoors can make symptoms worse over time as it will dark-adapt the retina which aggravates sensitivity to light. Indoor photophobia symptoms may be relieved with the use of precision tinted lenses which block the green-to-blue end of the light spectrum without blurring or impeding vision.

A paper by Stringham and Hammond, published in the "Journal of Food Science", reviews studies of effects of consuming Lutein and Zeaxanthin on visual performance, and notes a decrease in sensitivity to glare.

Hemeralopia (from Greek "ημέρα", hemera "day"; and "αλαός", alaos "blindness") is the inability to see clearly in bright light and is the exact opposite of nyctalopia (night blindness). Hemera was the Greek goddess of day and Nyx was the goddess of night. However, it has been used in an opposite sense by many non-English-speaking doctors. It can be described as insufficient adaptation to bright light. It is also called heliophobia and day blindness.

In hemeralopia, daytime vision gets worse, characterised by photoaversion (dislike/avoidance of light) rather than photophobia (eye discomfort/pain in light) which is typical of inflammations of eye. Nighttime vision largely remains unchanged due to the use of rods as opposed to cones (during the day), which are affected by hemeralopia and in turn degrade the daytime optical response. Hence many patients feel they see better at dusk than in daytime.