Light All Night Not Alright

[Chemisse]

In a study presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, researchers found that mice that were exposed to light all night long showed signs of depression. Karen Hopkin reports

If you have access to electricity, you no doubt switch on a lamp, maybe even watch a little TV, after the sun goes down. But our bodies use cues about lightness and dark to regulate our hormones and of course our sleep cycles. So what might these extra photons be doing to our health?

To find out, scientists housed mice in a room where the lights were always on. After three weeks, they found that mice who lived in the spotlight showed symptoms of depression, more so than mice who enjoyed eight hours of darkness at night. Interestingly, mice who could escape the light by ducking into a dark tube also escaped the worst of the depression. The findings were presented on October 21st at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, and they’ll be published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research in December.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=light-all-night-not-alright-09-10-21

My husband actually had a near psychosis after being in the intensive care unit for 5 days. Apparently it is well known that the ICU's 24-hour lights on can cause mental health problems in patients.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I've thought about how prisons don't have complete "lights out" for security reasons and

that long term effect of constant light on a prisoner psychologically and physiologically.

[supernova]

2. Some of the best night nurses

I ever had always carried little flashlights. They could look at bandages, drips, monitors without turning on the lights. They might wake me temporarily, but it was never enough to really be disturbing.

[laughingliberal]

4. That's how I did it. Also could do quite a bit by the light from pt's bathroom

Especially in pediatric oncology I made efforts to leave the lights out so as to not wake the children.

[Chemisse]

3. This will be bad news for scared little toddlers :(

[HuckleB]

5. I spend a lot of time talking about the light issue with clients.

Both in terms of tuning down lights and screens earlier in the evening, as well as when they go to bed.

We have tuned out the reality that electric lights are very new, and evolution is not going to catch up to this change anytime soon.

I recommended this. I hope others do, too.

[Chemisse]

8. Clients? Do you mean people with mental health issues?

Or are you advising them about light for some other reason? (like maybe you treat people with allergies to light or sensitive eyes or vampires in training).

[imdjh]

11. Yeah, I had a roommate who claimed he had to go into dark and quiet mode 2 hours before bed.

He had to go.

[4_TN_TITANS]

12. "electric lights are very new"

but light after dark from fires, candles, or oil has been around for thousands of years. I'm one of those people who requires dark to be able to sleep, but I know many people who have 'evolved' to sleep just fine - light or not.

[conscious evolution]

6. No wonder I prefer sleeping with my

head under the covers.
The least little bit of light at night bugs the crap out of me.

[Chemisse]

7. LOL - me too - nt

[mopinko]

9. i often wondered about this with studies trying to prove that tv is bad.

they like to point to places where electricity, and hence teevee, is brought to a place and violence sky rockets. but i always thought sleep deprivation was a far, far more likely culprit.

sleep is something that we need way more research on.

[Patiod]

10. It may also increase risk of breast cancer

Realize these citations come from opponents of light pollution, but still, it's interesting preliminary research.

http://www.geocities.com/eric74382000/bc.htm

I did a little research a while back on Rozerem, which is the only sleep drug that works with the melatonin receptors, and is often prescribed to people who can't sleep because their work schedule has messed them up.

Back then, I read up on the problems with time-shifting, and it turns out we have evolved to sleep in the dark, and there are all sorts of negative health consequences when we screw around with that.