Sleeping in a dark room may prevent depression

In the 1930s, people slept on average nine hours per night. Today, many of us struggle to sleep seven hours without any interruption. The constant over-stimulation, the long working hours and the information overload have left us often cranky and permanently exhausted.

To bring ourselves back into sync with the Earth’s natural rhythms, we need to realise that good quality sleep comes with a slower-paced and more natural lifestyle. By integrating the Good Sleep Principles into your lifestyle typical symptoms like forgetfulness, headaches, neck and back tension and lack of focus often disappear.

We almost consider these to be the norm. And one could argue that it is indicative of our times that if we don’t see the immediate "cause and effect" we tend to dismiss the risk, or at least not worry about it. Unfortunately, it’s only when the minor symptoms persist and seriously start to affect the quality of our lives that we sit up and take notice.

We literally need to wake up to the fact that a consistent lack of sleep, as a result of poor lifestyle choices, is considered a significant factor to increasing our chances of suffering from degenerative diseases, like cancer.

To improve the quality and duration of your sleep these are the "Good Sleep Principles" to follow:
Exercise on a daily basis - Some type of exercise or physical activity during the day will generally help you to sleep better at night. It`s best to avoid doing intense levels of exercise, particularly cardio, late in the evening, as that can raise cortisol levels making it hard to get to sleep.

Minimise your exposure to bright lights - Brightness from overhead lights, computer and TV screens will over stimulate your brain, convincing it that it is still day time. If you have dimmer switches, try turning the lights down low in the two hours before bedtime. Otherwise, you may want to try some candles or low-wattage bulbs instead.

Avoid stimulants after 12:00 hours - Ideally, you should avoid stimulants such as coffee, sugar and cigarettes in the afternoon and evening. Caffeine, in particular, has a half-life of about six hours so chances are you’ll still have some of it in your system when you’re trying to get to sleep.

Drink plenty of water - If you are dehydrated, which is fairly easy to do (especially in this heat) then your body will produce stress hormones and this type of hormone will wake you up.

Get to sleep by 22:30 hours - This doesn’t mean being in bed by 22:30. It actually means being asleep by this time. Your body will start to produce more growth and repair hormones from 18:00 onwards. At 22:00 hours, physical repair will start and from 02:00 psychological repair will begin. For this to be really effective, you need to be fast asleep.

Unplug any electrical appliances in the bedroom before going to sleep. - Electrical appliances generally stimulate the body and brain, be it through light, heat or radiation waves. So if possible, avoid keeping things like laptops, mobile phones, TVs and bright alarm clocks in the bedroom. If not, then at least unplug the devices.

Herbal remedies - These types of remedies have become very popular, as those suffering with insomnia want to avoid the toxicity that comes with the typical sleep medication. Remedies such as Valerian Root, Passion flower and Hops are definitely worth trying for a short period.

Sleep in a room that is completely dark - This is worth doing particularly if you live in a built up urban area. A good rule of thumb when it comes to the level of darkness is to determine whether or not you can see your hand in the dark. If you can see your hand then the room is too light. Bearing this in mind, it might be worth it to invest in some black out curtains.

Regarding this point, I’d like to bring your attention to a new study published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research, where they found that sleeping in a dark room may actually prevent depression!

The Ohio State University research involved 24 male laboratory mice. Half were housed in light for 16 hours a day and darkness for 8 hours, while the others lived in a lighted area 24 hours a day. Half of each group of lab animals had opaque tubes in their cages where they could escape the light at any time. The other half had tubes that were clear and did not offer any respite from the light.

After three weeks, the researchers used a series of tests to measure depression and anxiety in the rodents (including several tests used by drug companies to test anti-depressive and anti-anxiety drugs on animals before they are tried on people). For example, mice usually like to drink sugar-laced water. But if they have symptoms of depression, they don't drink as much. Researchers assume this is because they don't get the pleasure they would normally get from the sweet water due to depressive symptoms. In all the tests, the mice who had to live and sleep in constant light with no chance of spending time in darkness showed more depressive-like symptoms than the animals with normal light-dark cycles.

"The ability to escape light seemed to quell the depressive effects," Laura Fonken, lead author of the study and a graduate student in psychology at Ohio State University, said in a statement to the media. "But constant light with no chance of escape increased depressive symptoms."

The scientists concluded that the use of artificial light at night may have harmful effects on human health. "This is important for people who work night shifts, and for children and others who watch TV late into the night, disrupting their usual light-dark cycle," Fonken said.

The researchers also added that the implications could impact healthcare, too. Bright lights are often kept on all night long in many intensive care units (ICUs) and that could increase health problems of these patients. It has also been research showing that artificial light may disrupt premature infants' biological clocks and result in depression in later life

If the above Good Sleep Principles don’t work then it’s wise to check for any hormonal imbalances, parasites or high toxicity levels you may have. These are all likely to disrupt your sleep patterns. To that end, consider contacting a qualified practitioner to find out more about detoxifying your colon and liver. Sleep tight!




Source : www.zambiapost.com