![]() ![]() "It points to some simple, cost-free tools that can shift everything in the right direction." Using sunlight to help set the sleep clock "is grounded in a lot of peer-reviewed, published science in humans and animals," he added. "The more of these cues to the time of day and night you can give your body, the better off you'll be." "We were designed to get a lot of ultraviolet light on our eyes during the day and little during the night," he said. Evening light has been shown to help anchor our clocks and encourage the correct level of melatonin, the sleep-inducing hormone. It's like jet lag: "If you're looking at your phone at 1 a.m., you might as well have flown to Abu Dhabi."įinally, while morning sunlight is key, he noted that it helps to get some sunlight in the late afternoon or evening. The eye and brain clocks are very sensitive at night, he said, and the light signals to the body that it's still daytime, which can alter your sleep for several days. Keep the overhead lights dim, go for amber light over blue light and place lamps physically low in the room.Īvoid checking your phone in the middle of the night. "You don't have to turn your house into a cave," he contends. Huberman has a few more tips for accessing better sleep during the pandemic: Turn lights down after 10 p.m. "Depriving someone of sleep is one of the quickest ways to pull them apart." What you can do in the evening Lack of sleep is linked to many physiological and psychological problems, such as poor memory, mood disorders, lowered immunity and disrupted blood sugar regulation, Huberman said. (Of course, never stare at any light so bright it hurts.)Īrtificial light, including the kind that emanates from phone, television or computer screens, is not the same as sunlight and does not have the same effect, especially in the morning, he noted. For the same reason, you'll want to leave the sunglasses behind. Going outside for the light is better than sitting by a window because glass filters out some of the ultraviolet light that assist the clock setting. It doesn't matter whether you're a night owl or a mourning dove, he noted - the important thing is to get some sun for at least a few minutes soon after getting out of bed. Huberman explained it to me this way: If sunlight reaches your eyes soon after you wake, it triggers a neural circuit that controls the timing of the hormones cortisol and melatonin, which affect sleep. "In higher latitudes in the depths of winter, it may be too dark, but in most places most of the time, there's still plenty of light energy." When it comes to sleep, he told me, the important thing is to get sunlight on your eyes upon waking: "Even when it's cloudy, that sets your biological clock," he said. If taking an outdoor trek isn't safe, he added, moving around indoors can also create optic flow. "The actual movement of objects past us as we walk quiets some of the circuits that are responsible for stress," Huberman said. ![]() That routine may well be the reason I'm sleeping fine and feeling little stress while sheltering in place, said Andrew Huberman, PhD, associate professor of neurobiology and of ophthalmology.įirst, that morning walk calms me through something called optic flow. My Chihuahua-Jack Russell mix insists that I walk him around the neighborhood for at least 45 minutes after breakfast. I've been working from home since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early March, but I still leave the house every morning. ![]()
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