How would I light a bedroom at night?
The short answer is ‘in no way’. Exposure to light while sleeping may be a source of numerous diseases, such as:
- depression
- insomnia
- obesity
- diabetes
- cancer.
So, specialists advise you to think twice before setting up a night lamp on a nightstand of your or your kid’s bedroom.
Insomnia and Depression
A human organism is arranged in such a way that when you stop seeing light, it starts producing melatonin, a hormone that promotes sleep. When you are lit, your sleep worsens dramatically. And since anything that have a negative impact on production of melatonin may well be detrimental for your mood and cause depression. In fact, even starry night sky on the scene can be harmful for you circadian cycle, because the stars’ and the moon’s glare can make its way through eyelids.
Cancer
Firstly, melatonin serves as natural antioxidant that keeps cancer at bay. Secondly, it reduces estrogen level, which in its turn decreases risk of estrogen-related cancer, e.g. breast cancer.
Obesity and Diabetes
If you are prone to night raids into a freezer, there’s a bad news for you. It is possible that your metabolism got broken and makes your organism think that it’s time to eat when in fact it’s time to sleep.
This is how it works: your personalized biological clock is adjusted with light and when there’s no darkness around you neither at day- nor nighttime, the clock starts malfunctioning and distunes your metabolism, which forces you to eat more and gain weight. This abnormal surge in appetite may result in glucose level increase and, consequently, raise the diabetes development risk.
Color
If you still haven’t changed your mind about night light, you should at least know which color of light is less detrimental. Remember that the cold colors, like white and blue, are especially disturbing, whereas warm red color is the best for your night lamp.
