Even a Little Light in Your Bedroom Could Harm Health

So if you need a night light for safety, Zee said, that’s fine.

Just make it less bright and place it closer to the floor. Zee added that light at the red/amber end of the spectrum is better than white or blue. Because it stimulates the brainless. It is well known that people need sunlight during the day. And darkness at night to keep their bodies healthy. circadian rhythms works optimally. These rhythms, similar to a 24-hour internal clock, help regulate processes throughout the body. Including sleep, metabolism, and hormone release.

But modern humans are exposed to all kinds of artificial light at night, and research points to pitfalls. Exposure to blue light from glowing devices can be especially problematic. It suppresses the body’s release of the sleep hormone melatonin, making us feel more alert when we need to relax. According to Zee, there has been less research done on the potential exposure to artificial light while sleeping.

So she and her colleagues recruited 20 healthy young adults to study in the sleep lab.

The tenth spent two nights in a row, falling asleep only by the dim light of a nightlight. The other 10 had dim lighting one night, but slept with the overhead lights on the second night — enough to light up the room with a moderate amount of light, Zee said. On average, this light-on condition caused a slight increase in heart rate in the volunteers, as well as a decrease in their heart rate variability (bad), the researchers found. It also made their bodies more resistant to the effects of insulin the next morning. insulin resistance persists, maybe a precursor to type 2 diabetes.

It’s not that the study volunteers were bothered by the light.

“They thought they slept well,” Zee said. Light did not disrupt melatonin levels in humans. Instead, Zee says, the effect of light on heart rate and insulin levels suggests that light activates the sympathetic nervous system, which keeps us awake and is normally activated during the day. Research – published online March 14 in the journal proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — not the first to suggest the harm of sleeping with the lights on.

He called the new study “a good step forward.”

Future research, Lehrer said, could include people who already have insulin resistance and high blood sugar to see if having the lights (or the TV on) on makes sleep worse. Lehrer noted that compared to other lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise, less is known about the health effects of light. But, he says, people need to know that it matters. Zee agreed and noted that getting sunlight during the day is just as important as limiting artificial lighting at night.

The Sleep Foundation has more information on light and sleep.