Posted on 02/02/2017 3:04:23 PM PST by nickcarraway
It's tempting to keep the computer running late and promise yourself an extra 30 minutes of bed rest in the morning. It's tempting to do it again the next night, too. But sleep inevitably loses out to getting up early for school or work.
There's a simple way to combat this: End all artificial lights at night for at least a weekend and drench your eyes in natural morning light, says Kenneth Wright, a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado, Boulder and senior author on a study on resetting sleep cycles. The most straightforward way of doing this is to forbid any electronics on a camping trip.
In the study, published Thursday in Current Biology, Wright reports on the latest of a series of experiments where he sent people out camping in Colorado parks to reset their biological clocks. Small groups of people set out for a week during the summer, an experiment published in Current Biology in 2013.
This most recent study shows the results of camping a week in winter and once over a winter weekend. Others stayed at home to live their life. Along with sleep, Wright kept track of people's circadian rhythms by measuring their levels of the hormone melatonin, which regulates wakefulness and sleep.
Before each camping trip, Wright says that he noticed something odd about the study participants' melatonin levels.
Many Grouchy, Error-Prone Workers Just Need More Sleep SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS Many Grouchy, Error-Prone Workers Just Need More Sleep In general, melatonin makes us feel tired. Levels of the hormone rise a couple of hours before we sleep, and they fall right when we wake up. "In the modern environment, those melatonin levels fall back down a couple of hours after we wake up," Wright says. "Our brains say we should be sleeping several hours after we wake up." The participants' sleep and wake times were slightly out of step with their internal clocks, like constantly being a little jet lagged.
But after people got back from a week-long camping trip, the jet lag was gone.
"[Melatonin] would go down at sunrise and right when people woke up," Wright says. And people's entire sleep schedules had shifted earlier so that they were going to bed and rising two or more hours earlier than they had been before camping. Those who had gone camping for just a weekend had their sleep schedules shifted by a little less than an hour and a half.
Why this happens probably has to do with how drastically different an environment lit by light bulbs and laptops is from one of sun and starlight.
Up Late? Looks Like Our Paleo Ancestors Didn't Sleep Much Either SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS Up Late? Looks Like Our Paleo Ancestors Didn't Sleep Much Either Outside, "you are pretty constrained by natural light-dark cycles and the intensity and light spectrum that you see in nature," says Dr. Phyllis Zee, director for the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University who was not involved with the study. Natural light, particularly morning sunshine, which is enriched with blue light, has a very powerful influence on setting internal clocks.
That bright light can affect our circadian rhythm is nothing new, Zee says. But this collection of studies make very clear how an artificially lit environment at night can push our sleep timing further back, while bright, blue-rich light can train our circadian rhythms to sync earlier in a way that is actionable. Sleep doctors will often suggest that people use a light box indoors in the morning to simulate dawn, but's not always as effective as real dawn.
"I actually have used that [summer camping] study to treat some of my patients," Zee says. "We see people who can't fall asleep until 4 am. It can be very difficult to use this light box in the morning and avoid light at night. So you say, okay, there's this camping thing."
Sleep's Link To Learning And Memory Traced To Brain Chemistry SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS Sleep's Link To Learning And Memory Traced To Brain Chemistry If camping is not your thing, Zee suggests trying to copy a natural light-dark cycle, at least on the weekend. "Over 60 percent of the shift can happen over a weekend. It's pretty amazing," she says. "We can on weekends or days off go out or sit by the window and just expose ourselves to a natural light-dark cycle."
And in a perfect world, homes, schools and offices would have artificial light that could mimic the spectrum and the intensity of natural light. "As a new design philosophy, think about light as important as having clean air," Zee says. "It's possible. It's totally possible."
Got all the camping I’ll ever need during my time I the Army. Thanks anyway.
MY brothers and their friends use to take a Feb. canoeing trip down the streams here in South Jersey. The last one they damn near froze to death.
Just before bed, I roll up the bedroom shades open the drapes The morning light gradually wakes me. I haven’t used an alarm clock, except for early morning flights or similar deviations from the norm, in almost 20 years. I sleep better and deeper and I greet the day in a much netter mood.
I go camping during the winter,just camped out Monday night.I bought a surplus army crew tent and use a woodburning stove.I’m warm,comfortable,and it’s very quiet and peaceful.
("The Campers Handbook", 1908)
Oh all right, I am not quite that bad. But I do require a bed and a indoor toilet. I am not sleeping on the ground and I am not hunting for a flashlight when I need to go at night.
Light? In the winter?
What's that?
Yea, it was all good until one of the canoes tipped over.
Thank God that no one died.
They pulled up their canoes and made camp.
I often get the urge to sleep outside, even when I can’t do a full fledged camping trip. I wonder if my body is trying to
telling me something?
I love winter camping. Went a few weeks ago. Our Trail Life USA troop has what we call the Year Round camping Award for sleeping out one night a month for a year. Our former BSA troop had it too. My two sons have amassed about 14 awards.
I’ve done it once myself.
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