A method for operating a gas discharge lamp featuring a gas discharge lamp burner and a first and a second electrode, wherein the electrodes have a nominal electrode separation in the gas discharge lamp burner before their first activation and said nominal separation is correlated to the lamp voltage. The method may include checking whether the off-time, corresponding to the time duration between two DC voltage phases, has expired; and if the off-time has expired, omitting commutations or applying pseudo-commutations for a predefined time duration which depends on the lamp voltage in such a way that a time duration of the omission of at least one of commutations and application of pseudo-commutations is predefined for each lamp voltage.