There are good news when it comes to sleep optimization: when you are ready to adjust your wake-sleep-dream-life to your inner and non-alterable clock, with necessary discipline and persistence it takes about 21 days until gradually the proper rhythm arrives again.
Example: Free-Nature-Camping
It is no doubt, most of us are out of their natural rhythm. That it is much easier to even out than one would have thought, is shown by an investigation conducted by the University of Colorado, Boulder.
The motto was: “Free-Nature-Camping!” More sunlight, less electric light. With this simple recipe, sleep disturbances and their consequences for health can easily be mitigated, like US-scientists prove. Their study has shown that it can be reached with just one week of camping vacation in the nature. Above all, when camping, the abundant sun- and day-light is quickly adapting the inner clock of the human being to the natural day-night-rhythm again.
First, Kenneth Wright and his team of the University of Colorado, Boulder, recorded1 the sleep- and night-rhythm of eight grown-ups for one week while they were living their normal life. The worked, studied, went out in the evening and decided for themselves when they slept for how long. Following, the group spent one week with camping in the Rockies. The participants had no electric light and mobiles, torches or other electrical devices were not allowed.
In the beginning, the sleep behavior was not surprising: During the first week, the test persons went to bed late on average –- after midnight –- and got up later –- around eight o’clock in the morning. Like expected, they got less sunlight during the first week but more than usual in nature after sunset.
What was surprising were the consequences: the inner clock of the test persons went two hours late in electric lit surroundings. This was visible in the level of the sleeping hormone Melatonin. This hormone participates in the regulation of the day-night-rhythm. The level is rising on the onset of darkness and it makes us sleepy, light slows down the production of the hormone in the morning and rings in waking up. During the first testing-week the Melatonin level rose in the late evening, about two hours before onset of sleeping. In the morning, the level diminished only when waking up at about eight o’clock. This also explains, why a lot of people in our modern society are feeling weak and tired in the morning. The biological night — characterized by a higher Melatonin level –- is reaching into the day, so to say.
Already after one week of camping, the clock adjusted to the natural day-night-rhythm. The Melatonin level began to rise at about sunset. In the morning, it decreased right after sunrise, even before the test persons woke up.
Under natural light, even the chronobiological “owls” got to early “larks”. The sleeping time total stayed the same in both weeks. The adaptation to the natural rhythm automatically led to a healthier and above all more recreational sleep!
1: Original Paper of the Scientists: Kenneth Wright (University of Colorado, Boulder) et al.: Current Biology, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.06.039
Leave a Reply