Is Artificial Light Keeping You Up At Night?

It's easy to sleep with your cell phone next to your face or the light from your television buzzing in the background. However, it's probably not all that healthy for you.

New findings published in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B show us that preponderance of inadequate exposure to natural light during the day and overexposure to artificial light at night can actually mess up our circadian rhythm.

"It's become clear that typical lighting is affecting our physiology," said University of Connecticut, Farmington, Conn. cancer epidemiologist Richard Stevens, in a news release. "But lighting can be improved. We're learning that better lighting can reduce these physiological effects. By that we mean dimmer and longer wavelengths in the evening, and avoiding the bright blue of e-readers, tablets and smart phones."

These devices that we've grown so accostumed to emit enough blue light when used in the evening to actually suppress the sleep-inducing hormone that's otherwise known as melatonin and disrupt our natural clock or the biological system that enables us to get restful sleep.

"It's a new analysis and synthesis of what we know up to now on the effect of lighting on our health," Stevens added. "We don't know for certain, but there's growing evidence that the long-term implications of this have ties to breast cancer, obesity, diabetes, and depression, and possibly other cancers."

Furthermore, Stevens referenced a recent study that clearly distinguished the difference between those who read with their e-reader at night and those who read regular books. In other words, the e-readers had a delayed melatonin onset.

"It's about how much light you're getting in the evening," Stevens concluded. "It doesn't mean you have to turn all the lights off at 8 every night, it just means if you have a choice between an e-reader and a book, the book is less disruptive to your body clock. At night, the better, more circadian-friendly light is dimmer and, believe it or not, redder, like an incandescent bulb."