Body clock hormones

Hello HIW,

Thank you for another interesting read this month! I was reading about our internal body clocks and I was wondering, if you have blackout curtains do you feel more tired in the mornings as melatonin hasn’t stopped with morning light? Looking foward to the next read! Thank you!

Amy

Thank you for your email, Amy. You’re right, melatonin is an important hormone that regulates our sleep cycles and its production is dependent on light. We rely on this hormone to fall asleep. During the day, light activates a part of your brain that tells the pineal gland to decrease production, but in the evenings, without light, melatonin production increases.

However, though it can be helpful to open your curtains as soon as you wake up to lower the amount of melatonin, another hormone called cortisol has a larger role to play in the process of waking up.

Cortisol acts like a wake-up signal as it dips before bedtime and increases throughout the night, peaking just before you wake up.