Cure:Insomnia

Disrupting Your Natural Sleep Rhythm

We already looked at the mechanism that regulates your sleep and energy, your biological clock of sleep. This internal sleep clock is a very delicate physiological system—it is very sensitive and its natural rhythm is easily thrown out of balance by a number of internal and external factors. In other words, insomnia or impaired daytime functioning is often a symptom of the way you live your life and the way you think. It is critically important that you consciously identify and understand the issues that are messing up your natural sleep rhythm. In this part, we will be looking at these specific issues and providing you with a deeper understanding.

The Circadian Daredevil

 Like many of you, Frenchman Michel Siffre also rejoiced in a New Year’s celebration in 2000. Yet unlike most of you, Michel’s celebration took place three days late! Michel Siffre, a then 61-year-old cave explorer, descended 2,970 feet into a cave located in southern

Sunlight

You may be asking yourself, “How is this relevant?” I’m not living in a cave or planning a trip to the moon anytime soon. Okay, you don’t need to convince me of that, but the fact is that ordinary home lighting is a very poor substitute for natural sunlight. As far as your body is concerned staying in a office or in your home most of the day with no or very little exposure to natural light is the equivalent of living in a cave—and as you have probably figured, human beings weren’t designed to spend most of their time in a cave.

If you think that there is plenty of light in your home or at work, you are not quite right. You see, an ordinary light bulb emits around 200-500 luxes (a measure of illumination) of light. This is an inadequate amount of light especially when you consider that the light at sunrise produces around 10,000 luxes and at noon around 100,000 luxes. This should make it painfully clear that most indoor lighting is insufficient for our purposes. This is the reason why sunlight is so important. When bright sunlight enters your eyes it causes melatonin levels to decrease which stimulates wakefulness. The more luxes, the more melatonin production is inhibited. Conversely, when you are primarily exposed to indoor lighting during the day, melatonin levels increase since this type of light contains too few luxes and thereby your sleep system doesn’t understand it is getting light (isn’t adequately fueled). It thinks you’re in near-darkness and you will start to experience feelings of fatigue and tiredness. We can tell from this that exposure to bright light is required in order to make your body tell the difference between day and night. It is also crucial because if you stay out of natural light the entire day, you are flattening your circadian rhythm curve. This means that your body temperature doesn’t rise very much, which means that you are not giving your body a cue to start its natural rhythm. When your body temperature doesn’t rise very much, logic tells us that the ensuing drop in temperature will only be very small as well. This means that you are making it harder for your body to decipher the clues it needs to tell whether it is time to be awake or sleep. An irregular and limited exposure to sunlight “flattens” your body temperature curve. If you are not exposed to natural light until later in the day, you are delaying your body temperature curve. We can probably agree that moving to a cave is just a bit out of the ordinary, some might even call it crazy, but it isn’t one bit crazier than depriving yourself of natural light! That’s exactly what you’re doing if you’re not getting sunlight in the morning and throughout the day. It is often when people fail to expose themselves to sunlight as soon as they get out of bed and during the day that their natural sleep system becomes disrupted. In that case, you are giving your body a good reason to think that it’s time to sleep. The inevitable result is that you will be feeling drowsy and likely to fall asleep during the day. Further, the onset of night is not as a strong cue for your body that it is time for rest, because your body doesn’t have a clear distinction of day and night. The result is that your body and its natural rhythms become confused.

The Bottom Line on Circadian Rhythms

You need sunlight – by exposing yourself to sunlight you are communicating with your body in terms that your body can understand. Exposure to sunlight in the morning tells your body that another day has started and that the time for sleeping has ended. You also need darkness. When you are in a completely darkened room, you are telling your body that it is time to sleep.

Failure to expose ourselves to daylight is only one of the many ways that we are interfering with the inner sleep clock. We also engage in a variety of additional activities that only further disrupt the inner sleep system. It’s important to remember that it’s exposure to natural full-spectrum light (sunlight) that affects melatonin levels and body temperature—the sleep clock’s thermostat.