Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam. Here in this heady era
Speaker 1: of peak efficiency and productivity, when apps and software promise
Speaker 1: you the fastest path to personal or professional organization, you
Speaker 1: might even want to regulate the amount of time that
Speaker 1: you spend dozing. Between excessive screen time and longer working hours,
Speaker 1: you might be desperate for a more natural and probably
Speaker 1: earlier bedtime, but setting a sleep schedule is no small matter. However,
Speaker 1: a study published in Current Biology shows that there might
Speaker 1: be a rather simple solution. A weekend of camping could
Speaker 1: be the path to an earlier bedtime. And no, that's
Speaker 1: not because of exhaustion from constant grizzly vigilance, although that
Speaker 1: can't hurt. It's because we rely on electrical light at
Speaker 1: night and get too little exposure to daylight. So are
Speaker 1: circadian rhythms push for a later bedtime? Our circadian rhythms
Speaker 1: are our twenty four hour cycle of behavioral responses to
Speaker 1: light in darkness, and that controls are biological clocks. The
Speaker 1: researchers studied campers for a week in the winter and
Speaker 1: a weekend in the summer to test seasonal and environmental
Speaker 1: circadian changes. During the winter, the campers used no electronic
Speaker 1: light at all. The study found that after spending time
Speaker 1: in natural light and darkness, the participants adapted to the
Speaker 1: natural light dark cycle. They slept longer and went to
Speaker 1: bed earlier than they would in electrical environments, a whole
Speaker 1: two and a half hours earlier for the winter group. Notably,
Speaker 1: the research shows that even around the winter solstice, when
Speaker 1: nights are long, folks enjoyed an earlier bedtime After being
Speaker 1: out in nature for a few days. Melatonin levels, which
Speaker 1: regulate wakefulness and sleep, rose at night and fell right
Speaker 1: when the campers got up the typical cycle, but before
Speaker 1: they tromped through the wilderness, their melatonin levels were slightly off,
Speaker 1: falling hours after they got up, meaning their bodies still
Speaker 1: desperately wanted to sleep. Camping is particularly advantageous on the weekend,
Speaker 1: the research also shows, because that's when we usually waken,
Speaker 1: sleep later and have circadian delays. Even more benefits might
Speaker 1: come from knowing humans respond to seasonal lights so strongly.
Speaker 1: Kenneth Wright, a co author of the study, points out
Speaker 1: that workplaces with more natural light could lead to more
Speaker 1: rested and productive workers, so it is possible to reset
Speaker 1: our biological clocks. Just like a lot of animals, we
Speaker 1: adapt seasonal light changes, and by simply enjoying more natural
Speaker 1: and less electric light during the day, we can be
Speaker 1: primed for better sleep at night. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Kate Kirshner and produced by Tyler Klang. Brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is production of I Heart Radios has Stuff Works. For
Speaker 1: more in this and lots of other productive topics, visit
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