Bright street lights don't help you too much at night when you snuggle in for sleep, according to a new study.
"Our world has become a 24/7 society. We use outdoor lighting, such a street lights, to be more active at night and to increase our safety and security," said study author Maurice Ohayon, MD, DSC, PhD, of Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. "The concern is that we have reduced our exposure to darkness and it could be affecting our sleep."
The study had researchers interview about 15,863 people over the phone for eight years, and they were evaluated for their sleep habits and quality of their shut-eye, as well as medical and psychiatric disorders. Working on information gathered at night from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, the research team examined how much light that the people who were interviewed got exposed to at night.
The team explains that those who lived in cities with a population of 500,000 or more got exposed to street lights that were three to six times "more intense" than those who resided in smaller towns and villages.
As a result, those who lived in the brighter regions seemed to be six percent more inclined to sleep less than six hours every night than others who lived in the dimmer regions. Citizens of the bright regions tended to be more dissatisfied with the quantity and quality of their sleep compared to people living in less intensely lit areas, and 29 percent were found to be "dissatisfied" compared to 16 percent.
About nine percent of those who slept less also experienced more fatigue compared to seven percent of the other participants. Those who got exposed to brighter lights tended to get more confused in the night, undergo extreme sleepiness and skewed physical functioning compared to those who did not. About 19 percent underwent the muddle-headedness compared to 13 percent.
"Light pollution can be found in any sizable city in the world. Yet, excessive exposure to light at night may affect how we function during the day and increase the risks of excessive sleepiness," Ohayon said. "If this association is confirmed by other studies, people may want to consider room darkening shades, sleep masks or other options to reduce their exposure."
The study was supported by the John Arrillaga Foundation, the Peter Bing Foundation and the Philip Stein Foundation, and it will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 68th Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, from April 15 to 21, 2016. This month being the National Sleep Awareness Month, you can learn a lot more about sleep through their website.
