How light affects your sleep and how to get better nights sleep

Most people have problems with sleep at some point in their lives. Having problems with getting to sleep, staying asleep, feeling refreshed when you wake. The problem comes when it becomes a pattern of poor sleep.

I'm going to share some fascinating neurobiology to help you understand the impact of light on sleep patterns and how you can use this to get a better night's sleep. Light has a bigger impact on quality of sleep than exercise and diet so its the first place to start when making changes.

The science behind light and sleep

have neurons in our eyes!?- Now that was a surprise to me, I knew about neurons in our brain but not in our eyes!?

neurons react to low light which has more yellow and blue light rays

# This low?light sends signals to our body around wakefulness or sleepiness?

# This is known as our circadian rhythm and it regulates physiological and psychological processes

# Low light in early morning triggers a little burst of cortisol to get us up

# Low evening light triggers melatonin which helps prepare for sleep

# Bright light between 11pm and 4am inhibits dopamine. This is important when we have been on our phones/ social media a lot all day as we use up dopamine and the time that our body resets and creates more is when we are asleep. Low dopamine is known to make us flatter, less happy and more disappointed during the day

So, what does this mean for us?

Our eyes react to the low light of the morning sunrise with that short burst of cortisol waking us up and making us alert. The light at sends the signal (melatonin) for sleepiness later on. This dusk time light also helps protect us against the negative affect of too much light from our devices later in the day.

If we just have around 2-10 mins of outdoors light around two hours after sunrise and around two hours before dusk it gives us the anchors we need.

The exposure to light needs to be experienced outside as through a window it is around 50 times less effective.?

The longer we are awake the more sensitive our eyes become to light so we need low (in placement and intensity) soft light from around 8pm.?

We don't want to be looking at screens or having bright lights between 11pm and 4am as it has a negative affect beyond the lack of sleep.

Whats the link with somatic coaching?

Knowing about how our bodies are wired gives us options to fully live our lives with the advantages of technology

Somatic coaching is a doorway to integrating all of our intelligences and making a difference in the world. That includes taking care of our bodies with little changes which build our capacity for enjoying life.

What difference has this made for my clients?

Having followed this advice consistently over five days my clients have found that having reset their circadian clock they are sleeping so much better. Waking up rested feeling jaded or exhausted in the daytime. Knowing the neuroscience makes this easier to integrate into their routine.??

They have played around with finding the right shifts for them to reset their body clock and help with sleep patterns?e.g. making small changes such as?

-?taking a cup of tea outside first thing when getting up

-?going for a 10 min walk latter in the day

- switching off overhead lights after 8pm ?

- having less screen time after 8pm

Other sleep tips and why they work

• take out the tech from your room and dont use in the hour before bed. This is because using it stimulates you so that you are not sleepy and often leads to snacking and then having to digest that food whilst asleep
• keep your room cool as our core body temperature needs to drop by 1 degrees centigrade
• keep it dark in the last few hours before sleep. Try putting your lights on low in the hour before you go to bed
• our body has a 24 hour circadian clock so it likes a regular time to go to bed and get up
• If you cant sleep then after around 30 mins get up and do something easy like reading and go back to bed when tired. This will retrain your body to know that bed equals sleep

Want to find out more?

I recommend Hubermans podcasts in particular Master Your Sleep & Be More Alert When Awake | Episode 2

So why is this important?

Sleep has a huge impact on all aspects of our health and light has the biggest impact on our sleep. We can make small changes to have better sleep which leads to better health.

Do Comment below?- is light having a positive or negative impact on your sleep?

Do you want to work with me and access all of your intelligences to build your energy and passion??

Contact me on LinkedIn or through my website?https://coach.quaifeassociates.com/