FIGHT THE LIGHT
When were you last truly in the dark? For the sake of sleep, it’s time to go back to black.
The hour is approaching midnight, but my bedroom is not properly dark. A horizontal slither of dim yellow light spills over the tops of the curtains. Even with my eyes shut, I still see it. The window overlooks suburban back gardens that are bathed throughout the night in the warm electric glow of the street lamps. Several neighbouring houses are still partially lit by bulbs that will stay on until morning. They are keeping the darkness at bay.
Like many people, I have always found comfort in artificial light, particularly at this time of year. But when was the last time I saw the night sky in all its glorious, unpolluted darkness? In Italy, in the summer, high up in the Ligurian hills, we gazed at a tapestry of stars above our rented holiday house, scattered across an unadulterated expanse of black.
There’s a magic in that, which the writer Sigri Sandberg captures beautifully in her book An Ode to Darkness. Already a bestseller in her native Norway, it muses lyrically on our intimate relationship with the dark and “why the ever-encroaching light is damaging our well-being.”
Sandberg travels from her tower block in Oslo to Finse, deep in the countryside, which, during its dark polar night, is “the best place I know to see the stars,” she writes.
Boarding a train to polar regions to escape the light pollution to which so many of us are constantly exposed sounds romantic, but it’s not an option available to most.
Even many rural areas now suffer from light pollution as our nights become ever brighter. A study by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geoscience between 2012 and 2016 found that Earth’s artificially lit outdoor area grew by two per cent a year in that time, along with nighttime brightness.
Scientists and environmentalists alike are growing increasingly concerned. Earlier this year, National Geographic reported on how “the excess light we dump into our environments is endangering ecosystems by harming animals whose life cycles depend on dark.”
It also warned: “We’re endangering ourselves by altering the biochemical rhythms that normally ebb and flow with natural light levels.”
Some 80 per cent of the world’s population reportedly now lives under light-polluted skies. One of the key problems is that melatonin, the hormone that regulates human sleep patterns, is affected by disruptions of the day-night cycle caused by light pollution. Sleep experts agree it’s a worrying change that does indeed have an impact on sleep and, in turn, human health.
“It is (a problem),” says Dr. Neil Stanley, who has been involved in sleep research for more than 37 years and runs a sleep consultancy. “Light and dark are key to our circadian rhythm (body clock) and therefore our sleep. As the sun sets, we release melatonin and, somewhere between one to three hours after that, is the time we go to sleep, or we would do. We are exquisitely sensitive to the dark night cycle. The problem is we now have the ability to have artificial light that can allow us to conquer the night.”
This happens both outside and inside the home. Street lamps combine with electric light bulbs, LED displays, the standby lights on our televisions and the melatonin-suppressing blue light emitted by the smartphones we routinely take into our bedrooms.
“People who are using screens before bedtime will take longer to get to sleep, not sleep as well and feel more sleepy the next day,” says Stanley.
“The advice for a bedroom is it needs to be dark, and by dark we mean pitch black.”
Poor sleep has been linked to everything from lower productivity and more days lost to sickness, to obesity, impaired memory and worse mental health.
“People say we have a sleepiness epidemic, but we do it to ourselves,” Stanley adds. “We are paying the price.”
Many children are now growing up without ever seeing the night in full darkness; never seeing the sky full of stars.
I ask Sandberg what else can be done.
“A lot of things,” she says. “Both in your own home, and also by talking to the authorities and your neighbourhood about the outdoor lightning. At home you could take the evening and the night seriously. You could use the curtains to not be disturbed by the outdoor light. Turn out/down your main light, switch off your screens at least one hour before you go to bed. Turn off your phone at night.”
Stanley suggests sticking gaffer tape over the light on your television, swapping curtains for blackout blinds, wearing an eye mask when sleeping, and cutting out screens for 40 minutes before bed time.
Sandberg ’s hope, meanwhile, is that we open our eyes to natural darkness.
“One researcher I have been talking to said, ‘Imagine what it would be like if everyone thought a bit more about, and was a bit more conscious of, their exposure to darkness and light. If that were the case, I think we could save a lot of resources and mitigate a lot of suffering.’”
London Daily Telegraph