If you noticepermanently tired and lacking energy, the fault could be the artificial lighting. And it could be solved with a week of camping in the open air, according to a study carried out by Kenneth Wright, of the University of Colorado (USA), and published by the magazineCurrent Biology. According to Wright, modern life has increased surveillance times and exposure to artificial light, while reducing the amount of sunlight we expose to. And all this upsets our internal clock, causing abundant populationsleep disorders.
To see if this problem is reversible, Wright and his colleagues studied the circadian rhythms of 8 participants during a normal week of routine work, social activities, and usual leisure activities. They were then taken on a trip to a campsite in a mountain area, where they were only allowed to expose themselves to sunlight and the light of bonfires, forbidding them to use any device that produced artificial light (such as telephones and flashlights). The analyzes showed that en the urban environment in which they lived there was a mean delay of the circadian clock of two hours, because I knowdelayed the synthesis of the hormone melatonin, which induces sleep, causing levels to rise after midnight and fall two hours after waking up, causing drowsiness during the early hours of the morning. However,after exclusive exposure to natural light for a week of camping, the subjects’ internal clocks were synchronized, and they began to feel alert and alert during the morning, as well as to fall asleep more easily after nightfall.
“We can avoid sleep disturbances if we don’t abuse electricity late at night andwe expose ourselves to sunlight during the day“, concludes Wright, who in addition to going camping recommends taking morning walks, going out to lunch outdoors and turning off before midnight both computers and tablets as well as the television or any other screen.
