Just a night or two of exposure to faint light is enough to raise your pulse and increase insulin resistance — factors that increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, researchers find.
Turning off the lights and closing the curtains isn't exactly a catchy, new sleep hygiene hack, but this common sense advice is gaining even more scientific credibility.
, senior author of the new study and director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University.in a variety of ways and could predispose people to chronic diseases.conducted by Zee and her team at Northwestern was designed to measure the physiological effects of 100 lux of artificial light on healthy adults while they were sleeping.
Unlike those who spent both nights in the dark, the group exposed to the light had elevated heart rates throughout the night. They also had increased insulin resistance in the morning, meaning they had more trouble getting their blood sugar into a normal range.Zee says there are multiple potential ways that being exposed to light at night could disturb our metabolism.
"That probably means that the light level that was getting through the eyes was not really bright enough to suppress melatonin," says Zee. "There's a lot of coordinated actions that have to occur in order for us to get a good night's sleep and the autonomic nervous system balance regulates that," says Colwell.
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