Architecture, Time, Light, Social Behavior, and Well-Being!

By now most of you know, I am trying to engage you in conversations on the role of built environment in our personal and collective health, wellbeing and ultimately happiness. So, feel free to express your thoughts and questions at will.

A few weeks ago I conducted an unscientific poll about participants sleep/ wake habits during the work days. About 120 people participated and we got a fairly good representative of professional sleep/ wake habits here that are consistent with measured averages around the world.

Here we take a look at the results and have a short discussion about these habits and what they signify. We will also discuss the role of built environment in this situation and at the end see how we can improve our environment and behavior to live healthier, happier and more productive lives.

Note: We will not be discussing sleep disorders here as they are complex and consequential problems which have to be first diagnosed and be treated by specialists in the relevant fields. And yes they are too numerous to be even named here.

First of all, I want to thank all of you who participated in the poll. I have to say that although our sample size is very small the results are very close to national and international averages regarding sleep/ wake rituals of professionals around the world. As you can see only about a third of participants wake up naturally on weekdays or workdays. The rest of us need an alarm to get us out of the comfort of our beds and into the world. Although use of alarm itself may not be an indicator fro sleep problems, it signals inability to wake up on time most likely because we are not getting sufficient sleep. In addition our results show that 94% of alarm users rely on snooze button which indicates they are having a hard time leaving the bed.

I want to introduce the concept of Social Jetlag before going into why we behave this way and whether there is a need for concern. The idea is attributed to Till Roenneberg, a renown chronobiologist and circadian scientist. Social Jetlag was first defined in a paper by Marc Wittmann et al. in 2006, titled, "Social Jetlag: Misalignment of Biological and Social Time". Here the authors defined it as the biological misalignment arising from the difference in our social schedules between our workdays and free days. Most of us like the 66% above go to bed consistently at a certain time at night and wake up with an alarm to be at work at a given time, during work days. Then comes the night before the free day(s) and we are sure to go to bed later and wake up without an alarm, late morning. Generally, sleeping less hours during each work day than we need and trying to compensate for it on the free days.

The Jetlag, in the phrase Social Jetlag alludes to similar mental and physiological stress that our body goes through when we experience jet lag by travelling across a few time zones. Our body and its natural rhythms must get in sync with the new environment which takes roughly a day for each one hour time zone we cross. This is why Olympic athletes, now, travel couple of weeks before the games to their destination to acclimate to the new environment and be able to perform at their peak. Social Jetlag is calculated by the difference between the mid point of sleep in workdays and free days. Example: You go to bet and sleep at 11:00 PM. and wake up, ideally, at 7:00 AM each workday (in this scenario you are part to the 34% who wake up naturally). Then on the night of the free day you go to bed at 2:00 AM and wake up at 10:00 AM. Here, you have slept 8 hours which is sufficient but let's calculate your Social Jetlag. The midpoint of your workday sleep is 4:00 AM, while midpoint of your free day sleep is 6:00 AM. The difference is two hours which equals two hours of Social Jetlag. This as I mentioned is like two hours of travel jet lag which makes your first workday extremely hard and low energy while cutting into your total sleep time.

Why do we behave this way? Here, we need to discuss time as a construct with multiple personality. Within us there are billions of clocks that regulate our physiological, hormonal, and behavioral daily rhythms which are called circadian rhythms. This constitutes the Biological Time. Then we have the Universal Time which is the time standard based on Earth's rotation around its axis. This is the time standard that has divided the globe into 24 time zones with one hour difference between the adjacent zones. The third concept of time, for our purpose, is Social Time. This is a societal agreed upon time of work and social interaction. This notion of time although appears to be more flexible than the other two it has become one of the hardest to manage especially since the advent of electrical grid and lighting.

For optimum health and wellness we need to have all of our three time types orchestrated and aligned. It turns out that our biological time has a automated timing system that can keep it in sync with the natural environment and the universal time, with minor difficulties. Light/ dark signals to the brain are the main synchronizing environmental cues. But synchronization with social time needs much more effort because this is a more arbitrary system without much appreciation or regards for our biology or natural environment. In other words, we can all benefit from reexamination of our social time and aligning it to environmental and biological times.

What role dose the built environment plays in this situation? We consistently get less sleep during the workdays because we have a set work or school schedule which we have to accommodate and our nights are filled with personal, familial, and other social or professional commitments which need to get done. In other words, we need more than 24 hours to get through our day. Add to this that most of us have circadian rhythms that are longer than 24 hours and the natural tendency to go to bed later is inevitable. Now what is the role of built environment in this, you ask? Evidence points to the fact that although interior light environments are bright enough for safely performing most vision dependent tasks, we do not receive sufficiently bright light for the synchronization of the our circadian rhythms. Furthermore, biologically speaking, we need near total darkness at night for the alignment of out biological and universal time. Be honest, when was the last time you turned the lights and all other screens off around 6:00 PM.? I said, be honest! Our behavior can be explained by the misalignment of the social and universal time with our biological timekeeping mechanisms due to the current light conditions of interior spaces we occupy.

Is this behavior by any means bad for us? I am so glad you asked. Yes it is! Lack of sufficient sleep and disruption of circadian rhythms are associated with a whole host of adverse effects and diseases, see here . Briefly, any chronic sleep and circadian rhythms disruption is taxing on our health and wellbeing, both mentally and physiologically. In addition it negatively impacts our cognitive performance, mood, focus, and energy throughout the day. What is sufficient sleep? The scientific consensus is that we all need somewhere between 7 to 9 hours of sleep with 8 hours being a happy medium. Now, I know most of you overachievers are saying "hey I can get by with much less", but the evidence says otherwise. And if you want to be at your peak performance mentally and physically you need to get enough sleep daily. Another question would be, can I make up for my daily sleep deprivation on the weekend? Unfortunately, you cannot. Sleep like other circadian rhythms follows a roughly 24 hours rhythm, so it is not possible to recover daily sleep loss.

What do I do to improve my sleep and perhaps even get up naturally on time? My first recommendation is to use your alarm to get to bed and sleep and not out of it. Let's start in the morning and go through the day to see what needs to be done.

Note: we are not discussing night shift here as it deserves its own dedicated article later.

1. Regardless of when you wake up, the earlier after sunrise the better, seek some physical activity in daylight. In central Europe, vertical illuminance at the eye level from the Sun can vary from 1,500 lux for an overcast sky to about 60,000 lux for a clear sky. This is 10 to 200 times what you would receive in an interior environment. Bright Light is necessary for the synchronization of our biological time with the natural environment.
2. Seek light during the early hours of the day. At work or at home office look for brightest spots and park yourself there, if possible. No amount of daylight would be bad for you, the more the better. If you are UV sensitive use UV blockers and not sunglasses which would reduce the amount of light.
3. Forget all you have heard about blocking the blue from your screen during the day, unless you have been diagnosed with medical problem regarding blue light. Blue or high energy visible light is a major part of daylight and most important part in the environmental synchronization or photoentrainment of our circadian rhythms.
4. Avoid alcohol a caffeinated beverages after 2:00 PM. This may vary for people but both alcohol and caffeine have shown to have adverse effect on sleep timing, duration, and quality. They also disrupt circadian regulation. I know! Who drinks alcohol before 2:00 PM.?
5. Reduce all light levels to less than 10 Lux at vertical level in the evening. I assure you that you can still see. Unless you have vision problems which demand more light for safety. But even then, make sure to have the dimmest light possible and block the blue light. Amber or red dim light at night is better than white or blue light. Block blue light at night. after 6:00 PM.
6. Keep all rooms darker in the evening and try to disengage from social media and television at least couple of hours before bedtime. If you can lecture the youngins about the harms of digital screens then you can take your own advice.
7. Keep your bedroom totally dark and couple of degrees cooler than other areas because at night your core body temperature needs to drop.
8. Eliminate any noise in your sleep environment which can potentially disturb your sleep and not allow you to reach deep sleep which is necessary for hormonal secretion and memory consolidation.
9. Schedule a regular and rigid sleep time and try to keep it up even during the free days.
10. Finally have well regulated daily eating and exercise routine. Although not as potent as light, exercise and meal timing are other important external cues for the regulation of the circadian rhythms.

Sufficient and timely sleep can improve your cognitive and physical performance, keep you in better mood, alert, focused, and productive throughout the day. In addition, by busting your immune system sleep can help you fight daily pathogens and remain healthier.

Looking forward to seeing your comments!