Now that we're almost 20 years into the smartphone age, most of us have heard this basic tip for higher sleep: put your phone away well before bed.
The theory is that the blue light emitted out of your phone signals to your brain that it's time to be energetic, not switch off.
Hang up the phone?
Over there Stanford Center for Sleep and Circadian SciencesJamie Zeitzer felt that something about this recommendation didn't add up.
“There's a bit of a misconception about how important screen light is,” says Zeitzer, who’s best known for combating jet lag as an issue Sleep science study 2016 (more on that in a moment). His team found that the blue light emitted out of your smartphone has almost no effect on the standard or duration of sleep for most individuals. Something else does – essentially.
But first, Zeitzer says, it's vital to grasp the systems that allow our brains to receive light. One of those systems lets you see objects. The other is a series of cells within the retina that project many various things which can be around but unrelated to the image, including light. These cells don't ask how shiny the sunshine is, but slightly how shiny it’s in comparison with the sunshine we receive, says Zeitzer. And this lux measurement – the quantity of sunshine hitting a surface – is all relative.
For a one who spends a lot of the day outside and absorbs sunlight between 10,000 lux on a cloudy day and 100,000 lux on a shiny day, 30 lux on a phone screen “has nothing to do with the brain,” he says .
Studies linking sleep problems to phone use before bed often test individuals who have been indoors all day where the lighting is between 50 and 500 lux. If you've spent the day at home, checking a phone before bed can actually make a difference.
If you spent the day outdoors, the phone's brightness has no effect, says Zeitzer. It depends upon what you do on this phone.
“At this point, it’s no longer the blue light that’s keeping you awake. It's about using apps, social media or gaming entertainment on your phone to make sure you don't fall asleep,” he said. “You do things that psychologists have designed to make sure you stick with it for as long as possible.”
And the longer you stay up, the greater your fatigue and its impact on mental health. There is a certain level of “social isolation and loneliness when you stay up late at night,” says Zeitzer. “It’s 3 a.m., no one else is there. Is this an environment that contributes to being anxious and depressed?”
Not only does being outside provide help to sleep, it also makes you’re feeling higher within the moment. So much in order that Zeitzer is experimenting with a 20-foot-long virtual window within the lab.
“We're trying to figure out what makes us feel better from a visual perspective when we're outside,” Zeitzer said.
Wake as much as light
Cassie Hilditch, a sleep scientist at San Jose State, has spent 20 years studying the best way to help emergency responders and other night shift staff take care of fatigue. Short naps during night shifts might help boost performance, she says, however it's really vital to show yourself to shiny light right after you get up. (If you get up after dark, discover a therapy lamp that may emit as much as 10,000 lux.)
“Light has the ability to make you more alert once you are exposed to it,” Hilditch said.
And whether you're adjusting your body clock for an evening shift or bracing for jet lag, “changing” time zones and increasing your exposure to light might help.
“You can use light to manipulate the timing of your sleep,” Hilditch said. “If you want to delay your sleep – if you are on the East Coast and traveling to the West Coast – you can start preparing by exposing yourself to light later in the evening and avoiding light during your usual waking hours. The opposite is true if you are on the West Coast. To prepare, I try to avoid all light in the evening and then expose myself to really bright light in the morning.”
Most people's circadian rhythm can only change by about an hour every day. So it could possibly be helpful to delay bedtime – and lightweight exposure – by half an hour each evening before a coast-to-coast flight.
In the Stanford sleep laboratory, Zeitzer discovered one other Light related tip to cure jet lag. There's advice you've probably heard before: “Expose yourself to bright light when landing and stay awake all day, even if you didn't sleep well,” he says.
This part may be recent to you, though: Set a blinking light to go off three hours before your alarm goes off, says Zeitzer, if you happen to're traveling from the West Coast to the East. Even when your eyelids are closed, the cells within the retina can relay light information to the circadian system, and the dark gaps between flashes of sunshine allow the eyes to regenerate, allowing you to proceed sleeping while your brain recalibrates.
His test results? A flashing light during sleep triggered a delay within the onset of sleepiness by almost two hours.
A Stanford student-run company, LumosTech, has licensed a patent for such technology and is now selling it Eye masks with flashing lights ($250), timed to cut back sleepiness upon waking.
Light and happiness
Every fall, Californians set their clocks back an hour, a change that heralds the beginning of winter, longer nights and shorter days.
For many, it could possibly trigger seasonal affective disorder (SAD), an illness that has most of the symptoms of depression, including sadness, listlessness and sluggishness. in accordance with a study by Harvard University. About 5% of Americans report experiencing SAD 40% of the 12 months.
There's no cure-all, but light therapy — essentially using a therapy light for 20 to half-hour to extend light exposure within the morning — has proven remarkably effective, says Richard S. Schwartz of Harvard Medical School, who found that light therapy improved SAD symptoms occurred in 40 to 60% of individuals in his study.
Of course, good sleep habits – exercise, sunshine, weight loss plan, bedtime routine – play a crucial role for everybody. Whether you're trying to go to sleep or get up at 3 a.m., swapping a book in your phone is a fantastic idea.
Lesther dadan assistant professor of psychology at San Jose State, uses a Casper glow light with 45 minute timer. During these 45 minutes, he enjoys reading while the regularly fading light signals to his body that it's time to sleep. The light works in reverse within the morning and activates regularly 45 minutes before the alarm clock.
“It feels like sunlight is already coming in,” he says. “The first thing you should do when you wake up is not pick up the phone again. Get used to the environment with natural light.”
So what about artificial light? We are surrounded by light bulbs of every kind, from LEDs to CFLs to smart bulbs that glow in every color, from blue and green to 5 shades of white.
Interior architect and architectural designer Megan Afifi began studying the results of coloured light on mood as a student at Pepperdine University. What she found was that lighting in warm tones (e.g. yellows) and funky tones (blues) can have a dramatic impact on mood and the results on cognitive performance are task dependent. Reaction times are faster in warm light, but creative intelligence is higher in cool light, she says. And extremes – “a very super warm or very super cool environment” – make people feel uncomfortable.
Afifi prefers smart light bulbs whose color and warmth could be adjusted bulb by bulb via your phone and which may, for instance, imitate the morning light or sunset or harmonize with the inside design.
“Dusk and dawn are very warm, golden sunlight,” she says. “That’s why sunlight is so helpful for getting going in the morning.”
image credit : www.mercurynews.com