How Much Sunshine Is Enough?

This is probably the most important factor in the concept of sleep therapy. The amount of sunlight that enters your eyes has a great impact on your sleep rhythm.

•     Exposure to high intensity light increases our body temperature. Rise in our body temperature decreases out melatonin levels.
• When exposed to natural sunlight, our body delays the temperature drop, thus allowing us to be awake and aware for longer times.
•   Lack of enough natural sunlight results in more melatonin level leading to lower temperature levels, sleepiness and tiredness.

 Not going out in the sun creates a flat line effect on our body temperature rhythms. Our body temperature will not rise high enough during the day and as a result will not fall enough during the night. This will result in sleep problems and you will be deprived of deep sleep most of the time. Most of us who complain of lack of sleep simply do not get enough sunlight.

 Going back in time, man has always been an outdoor animal, out in the sunlight all through the day and sheltered at night only because of the cold. This continued for so many million years and suddenly we are looking at changing sleeping habits and avoiding sunlight by cars, sunglasses, sheltered offices in the past 100 years. Is it so easy to change a million year legacy in 100 years. Your sleep clock will not change so fast.

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Posted by Core Entertainment Director on 10:26 AM. Filed under Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.