Lights and Sleep

(Image courtesy of Lisa Risager)

Tossing and turning at night is frustrating. There are a number of different reasons that we may not be getting the sleep we need when then sun is down. Reasons such as sleeping with your phone, procrastinating at bedtime or sleeping next to a serial snorer can be enough to ruin a good REM cycle for the night.

If you've tried everything to get your snooze on and nothing's working, the secret may be in the amount of sunlight you're exposed to during the day. Writer, Carrie McBride, from Apartment Therapy examines how moving your work space closer to the window can actually help you fall asleep at night. Keep reading to see what she has to say.

Researchers found a measurable difference in the length nighttime sleep between two sets of office workers: one seated near windows and the other seated far from windows or in windowless rooms. Subjects wore a device on their wrists that measured both daytime light exposure and sleep activity. The lucky workers near the windows were exposed to 173% more light during the workday and slept about 46 more minutes each night than their window-poor counterparts.

The study co-author called light "the most important synchronizing agent for the brain and body" and stressed the health benefits of daytime light exposure. So, if you have a home office, try to situate it near a window. If you can't, at least eat your lunch or take some calls near a window and take a walk in the sun if you can.

If your out-of-home office setting is too dark, try to get your co-workers on board to rearrange the office, change the shades or invest in some full-spectrum artificial light.

Fiat lux!

• Impact of windows and daylight exposure on overall health and sleep quality of office workers: a case-control pilot study. Ivy Cheung et al. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. June 2014 (must be a subscriber to read the full article).
• A good summary: You're Losing Sleep Just by Working in a Windowless Cubicle by Belinda Lanks on Bloomberg Business News.