Time to stop being afraid of the DARK

...for the sake of our health, mood and waistbands, says a startling new Scandi bestselling book

Ever since I was a little girl, I have been afraid of the dark. Which is strange because I live in Norway, the land of the polar night.

For eight years I lived in Svalbard, an archipelago midway between Norway and the North Pole. Here, it is pitchblack 24 hours a day in the middle of winter. There isn’t any twilight. No blue hour. No grey. It’s just as dark in the middle of the day as at night, and this lasts for eight weeks.

I dread the darkness so much that I can feel the pain in my chest and down in my feet. even the word gives me a kind of jolt. It has connotations of grief and illness and night and the colour black.

Humankind has always struggled with both metaphorical and literal darkness. It is an enemy, like the cold; it is unsafe — whereas light is associated with truth and knowledge and what is good.

Of course, we need light, but are we now getting too much?

There are stories about people who went mad in Svalbard, but it wasn’t during the polar night — it was when light returned in spring. The midnight sun hangs in the sky 24 hours a day, as early as April 19. We smeared washingup liquid on the windows and put up aluminium foil, so we could sleep.

Sleep is so important. It gives our bodies the peace they need to carry out their other functions, such as repair tissue, flush and rebuild brain cells, store memories, forget things that don’t matter, and get rid of waste.

If we don’t get enough, we become more susceptible to conditions such as type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Night shifts, which can lead to less sleep and a disrupted circadian rhythm, have been linked to strokes, heart attacks and some forms of cancer.

THHIRTY per cent of us sometimes have trouble sleeping, while ten per cent always do, and this figure seems to be increasing. It is a global epidemic. Of course, sleeplessness has many causes, but might it have something to do with all the artificial light we are now exposed to?

It was only after 1950 that most Norwegian homes had electric lights. When the incandescent bulb was introduced, our sleep time was reduced by 90 minutes, on average. The eU banned these in 2012.

As LeD bulbs are more energyefficient, there are lights on everywhere now. More electricity was used in Norway in 2017 than ever before. And it’s not just here: pictures taken by Nasa show a dramatic increase in light pollution in the past 20 years worldwide. Sleep disorders are on the rise, too.

The key to the problem is melatonin, the ‘ darkness’ hormone produced by our pineal gland when the photoreceptors in our eyes register that it’s getting dark.

It readies us for sleep by making us tired, but artificial light can interfere with its production — especially the blue light used by LeDs. (The red and yellow light emitted by incandescent bulbs is far more calming.)

Unfortunately, LeDs dominate not only street lights and outdoor lighting, but also all the screens we use: iPads, computers, mobile phones.

As well as having a different temperature and shorter wavelength, blue light also has a different frequency. It flickers instead of flowing.

Some people think that the temperature is the biggest problem; others believe it is the frequency. Whichever it is, studies show artificial light can have a negative effect on our health. There is a higher risk of morbid obesity, breast cancer, diabetes and depression. It can also cause early puberty.

The use of light for therapeutic purposes is old news, but the world is finally opening its eyes to the concept of dark therapy, too. We are discovering that orange glasses can block out blue light, ensuring that melatonin production doesn’t stop despite all the artificial light we are exposed to.

In a study at valen Hospital in Norway, researchers reported astonishing results on bipolar patients and people with sleep disorders. They’d been trying to treat them for months with medication, but after only a week of wearing the glasses the patients greatly improved.

If they used them from 6pm, their manic hyperactivity disappeared and they slept better.

The Norwegian doctor who worked on this, Tone elise Gjotterud Henriksen, thinks the glasses might help shift workers, adults with ADHD, young people who stay up gaming, those with postnatal depression and people working late.

Tone’s husband and two sons, 13 and 15, put on their orange glasses two hours before bed to shut out blue light.

I now do the same and find I can sleep more easily; the brand I use is Melamedic ( melamedic.

dk) but they are widely available online. Tone thinks this is a return to the way things were before screens and LeDs.

‘In an artificially lit existence, there is relatively little difference between night and day, and this has a negative impact on us,’ she says. ‘ It’s unnatural and can cause trouble in our bodies.’

If, for example, you wake up and check your phone, it only takes a second for the blue light to reach the receptors in your eyes. These send a signal to the alarm centres in your brain, which wakes you up properly — stopping the secretion of the darkness hormone.

In Israel, research has shown that the amount of light you are exposed to at night is a contributing factor to breast cancer. It has been proven that nurses who work at night are at greater risk of it, too.

Tone says that there is too little research on psychiatric conditions, but darkness therapy has been very effective so far.

She and other researchers want to equip us with a new concept: light hygiene. Imagine what it would be like if everyone was a bit more conscious of their exposure to darkness and light.

Not only could we save resources, we could also mitigate a lot of suffering.

We need to realise how much unnecessary artificial light we are surrounded by, and how much harm it’s doing.

I’ve started introducing routines at home: all screens must be switched off at least an hour before bed. I’ve bought an old alarm clock so my phone can stay switched off in the kitchen. I also avoid turning the lights on in the twilight ‘blue hour’, letting the darkness embrace me.

And, whenever I can, I go out to look at the night sky. I try to see the Big Dipper, North Star and constellation Cassiopeia.

The universe is mankind’s greatest mystery, and when we hide the night sky behind too much light we deprive ourselves of infinite knowledge.

We all need natural darkness. I’m still afraid of the dark, but now I know darkness can be as kind as light.

ADAPTED BY RACHEL CARLYLE from an ode To Darkness by Sigri Sandberg and Sian Mackie (£12.99, Sphere) © Sigri Sandberg and Sian Mackie 2019. To order a copy for £10.39 (offer valid to october 21; P&P free), visit mailshop.co.uk or call 01603 648155.