Yesterday we had some friends over for dinner. Something we do semi regularly. But after a night with our friends, every time, no matter what time people leave at we are always thrown off of our sleep cycles. After some thought of why this might be I have come to the conclusion that the culprit is the use of artificial lights.
You see we only use minimal artificial lighting in our normal day to day life. We have some twinkle lights and we use the bathroom light and that's about it so when the sun goes down the twinklers go on and we just make it work. We do this except for when we have guests over, then we make the exception to flip the switch and turn on the big light so that everyone can see properly. But is this really helpful!?
So once again I turned to Dr. Google to do a little research on the effects of artificial lighting and my oh my they are way more harmful then I ever could have imagined! Let's start from the beginning. When night time rolls around and we mindlessly flip on a light so of course we can see better what we don't see happening is that that seemingly harmless light is actually suppressing the production of melatonin. So what right!? Well melatonin is responsible for regulating the bodies sleep-wake cycles so of course to start sleep is going to be all messed up. On a more serious note, melatonin suppression is surprisingly also linked to increased cancer risks! Yikes!
Something else that I think we should all remember are all those nights after having really crappy sleep how the whole next day you just feel terrible... You remember those days right!? I certainly do. Lol. Well that's because circadian rhythms are essential for your overall health and wellness. We all need natural light and dark phases, it's important for all your bodily functions.
Optimal health requires you to be exposed to natural light everyday and to limit the exposure of artificial lights with an emphasis on reducing artificial lighting. Too much artificial light can make you sick! Throw off the circadian rhythm, which is what these little lights are doing, and a list of health issue are way more likely to occur. Things such as obesity and metabolic disorders such as diabetes. Pro-inflammatory activation of the immune system, muscle loss, and early signs of osteoporosis. Holy beegeezes!
There are tons of studies showing these awful results over and over again. Plus side though Is that studies also show that it takes about 2 weeks of being on a proper sleep-wake cycle for these issues to resolve... Well most of the time. So take care of yourself and turn off those lights.
