Trouble Falling Asleep at Night? Daytime Light Exposure May Be Key

 The importance of getting outside during the day, even when it's cloudy, has been demonstrated by measuring the sleep patterns of University of Washington students. These measurements have revealed some surprising information about how and when our bodies tell us to sleep.




The study, which was published online on December 7 in the Journal of Pineal Research, found that, of all seasons, winter, when there are few daylight hours and the skies are notoriously overcast on the UW's Seattle campus, UW students fell asleep later and woke up later.


The research team believes there is a reason for it: According to the data, students saw less light during the day in the winter. According to other studies, not having enough light during the day causes issues at night when it's time to go to bed.


Horacio de la L G L-E S-I-A, a senior author and a biology professor at the University of Washington, stated, "Our bodies have a natural circadian clock that tells us when to go to sleep at night." When the sun shines, you don't get enough light exposure during the day, which "delays" your clock and makes it harder to fall asleep at night.


From 2015 to 2018, 507 undergraduate students at the University of Washington had their light exposure and sleep patterns monitored with wrist monitors. Students were getting roughly the same amount of sleep each night, according to the data, regardless of the season. However, students were waking up 27 minutes later and going to bed 35 minutes later on winter school days than they were on summer school days.


The team was surprised by this finding because Seattle is a high-latitude city that gets nearly 16 hours of sunlight on the summer solstice, which gives people plenty of time to socialize in the evening. On the winter solstice, Seattle gets just over 8 hours of sunlight.


According to de la L G L-E S-I-A, "We were anticipating that in the summer students would be up later due to all the light that is available during that season". 


The researchers hypothesized, based on student sleep data, that something in the winter was "pushing back" the students' circadian rhythms. The innate circadian cycle that controls when we are awake and asleep lasts about 24 hours and 20 minutes for most people, including college students, and it is "calibrated" every day by our environment. According to the study's sleep data, UW students' circadian cycles started up to 40 minutes later in the winter than in the summer.


As a potential explanation for this winter delay, the team focused on light. However, the effects of light on circadian rhythms vary depending on the time of day


De la L G L-E S-I-A stated, "Light exposure during the day, particularly in the morning, advances your clock, causing you to become tired earlier in the evening". However, light exposure late in the day or early at night will delay your clock, causing you to become tired earlier.


In the end, the push and pull of these opposite effects of light exposure at different times of the day determines when you fall asleep. In the UW study, data showed that daytime light exposure was more important than evening light exposure. According to de la L G L-E S-I-A, exposure to outdoor light on cloudy or overcast Seattle winter days had this effect because that light is still significantly brighter than artificial indoor lighting.


The circadian rhythms were delayed by 15 minutes for each hour of evening light, which came from indoor sources like computers and lamps. Our findings indicate that students' circadian clocks were delayed compared to summer because they did not receive enough daytime light exposure. The study provides lessons for students of all ages

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