SLEEP & LIGHT
Common sleep problems include snoring and obstructive sleep apnoea, prolonged delay getting off to sleep, waking through the night, waking unrefreshed and daytime sleepiness. Adults need around 7-8 hours or so sleep a night. In contrast, children and adoelscents need closer to 10 hours while the brain is till developing and maturing.
Our body is constantly receiving signals from our environment. One of the most important, yet often overlooked, signals is that of light (blue light) or the lack thereof. If we go back to the year 1878, before Thomas Edison had invented the light bulb, our light sources were limited to fire (candles) and the moon once the sun went down. There were no TVs, no smart phones, no digital alarm clocks, and not even a blinking LED from a smoke detector! The body’s exposure to light past sundown was extremely low.
Our bodies lived in light and dark cycles and are still programmed to function in this light-dark cycle. Sleep is therefor entrained by the light-dark cycle and also by the timing of our eating/feeding behaviours in relation to the circadian sleep-wake cycle, exercise (type, amount and timing), coffee and alcohol (amount and timing) and other substance use/abuse.
Alcohol and other substances commonly overused or abused disrupt the sleep clock and other biological processes involved in circadian sleep-wake regulation. Many medications including those prescribed/taken for sleep actually disrupt sleep – for instance the sedatives like benzodiazepines sedate but abnormalise sleep.