How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

JanJardin — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:40:15 GMT

According to "Lights Out," you should use only red lights at night, because it is more like the natural light at dusk. So, use a red night light and a red lens flashlight to find your way around. If you (or your spouse) has to have the lights or TV on, wear goggles with red lenses. Also, there are special sleep masks that are raised or cushioned over the eyes to keep the fabric off your eyes.

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

Annetta7424 — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:25:45 GMT

A few years ago, there was a study that suggested that childred sleeping with a light on were more likely to need glasses in the early years. My own eyes RAPIDly got much worse in the last 6 years, since I moved to an apartment that faces the street, with the bright light of the street lamps pouring in. True, I am over 40, but I never wore glasses, then had 1.00 readers for a few years, then when I moved had to keep getting stronger lenses every few months, now am using 2.50. Hopefully they won't get any weaker. I will try to use the sleep mask more consistently. Any one else out there have a similar experience? ps, my daughter got tired of using her sleep mask so I got dark colored curtains (maroon) for my her room and it helps a lot. She still does not need glasses at age 12.

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

Annetta7424 — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:07:21 GMT

I always sleep through the night when I wear my sleep mask. When I don't wear it, I wake up for the bathroom, or just flip around all night. Conversely, when I get a good dose of direct sunshine during the day (outside, no eyeglasses on, as glass I believe filters uv rays) I get sleepy closer to 12 am than 3am, sleep deeper and wake easier and more refreshed. So try it on yourself. Get out of the office at lunchtime and walk around for as long as possible, try for an hour. Even a cloudy day is better than nothing.

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

Julieanne — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:52:40 GMT

I agree there is too much light pollution. Next year I will be moving into an ecovillage in the hills in Western Australia. We have all agreed there will be no street lighting in the village, so we don't add to this.

FYI

www.somervilleecovillage.com.au

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

Wizdum — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:47:19 GMT

There was a new book out on this with scientific studies. I not sure about the name, right now, maybe it was "Lights out", by ??? but anyway the conclusions were: GET PLENTY OF BLACK! Our cells are all photoelectric and need blackout time to heal every night. THE BLACKER THE BETTER. And if you get sick, stay out of the hospital as they have no clue about light pollution.

Some speculate that there are really no ailments that cannot be healed with "light" or radiation, as "light" can ultimately produce all levels of physicality and the body uses all these levels. Our bodies are nothing but energy in the end. This was the premise of the Royal Rife machine. Still a good idea that the establishment hates and fears.

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

cowgirl7 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:18:23 GMT

Our house is in the middle of the borreal forest with my closest neighbour out of site a half mile away. I have no curtains on our bedroom and no electronic stuff on. Some nights it's pitch dark while others it is quite light. Either way it's natural!

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

Ross Walter — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:07:36 GMT

Over the last couple of years I've not been able to sleep deeply at night, until recently... when I read an article similar to the above suggesting that we need at least 10-30 mins of sunlight (preferably the less harsh morning light) to produce enough melatonin in order to help with your sleep.

What isn't normally mentioned is that the wearing of sunglasses prevents enough sunlight from entering your eyes to produce enough melatonin.

I used to put my sunglasses on as soon as I leave my house in the morning to go to work. As soon as I read about the need to get enough sunlight without sunglasses, I removed them for the first 30-60 mins each morning. Now I have the deepest sleeps I've ever had! This is a massive improvement for me in such a short time and with such a simple solution!

good health to you!

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

curious7 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:36:39 GMT

I can believe this, because at night if there is reason to turn on a light in the middle of the night one has a hard time going to sleep once again. I have heard that there is a certain blue light which should be used as a nightlight if necessary.

Anybody know what this light is called?

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

Elphaba — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:38:19 GMT

I have to wonder about this too, like the first comment said, between the stars and the moon it is not nearly pitch black.

My thinking may be flawed though, I wish Dr. Mercola would address the stars and the moon factor.

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

heykapo — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:58:38 GMT

"Lights Out" is a fascinating read, and covers much more than light avoidance. Before the invention of electric light (and electric light pervaded cities only as far back as 1925), people slept when it got dark, and rose near dawn. In the winter, this could add up to 14 hours of darkness. Subjects usually slept for 9 hours, and spent the remaining five hours in a meditative state, with corresponding high endorphin levels. As for hormones, a short night increases insulin, prolactin,and cortisol, all of which conspire to make you dull in the head and hungry for carbohydrates. A long bath in melatonin, brought on by long and lightless winter nights, increases immunity by enhancing "production of T cells and NK (natural killer) cells. These are the first lines of defense against cancer. Since there is no cancer in nature among other species except our pets, you...won't have cancer either, if you sleep 14 hours a night in dormant periods." But 8 hours of sleep is universally recommended, and we easily achieve that goal by keeping the lights on all the time, and the television, and the computer, and so on. We ignore dormancy at our peril. I have often wondered why I felt so happy camping for weeks at a time. This book explains why that would be. We ate at 5 pm, were in bed by 8, spent timeless hours sleeping and lying there in a sweet meditative state,

and there always seemed to be time for all our work.

So I'm giving this a try here at home. It took about 3 days to gain the rhythm of it. I can report that I am much less harassed by the go-go-go character of modern life, that I'm much less bedevilled by Seasonal Affective Disorder, which was hard on me. There seems to be time for everything, even though I'm on my feet less.

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

LoriSmi — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:07:46 GMT

I agree that few people live in total darkness as there are always moon and star light to use on most nights. I find noise pollution to be more prevalent where I live (in a small city, pop. 50,000), as there is car traffic and other noises not natural for sleep. Being a light sleeper often hampers my sleep patterns. When Hurricane Ike decided to invade Ohio a couple of months ago, we lost power for one week. We used a generator for 12 hours a day (from 10am-10pm) to keep our freezer and fridge cold, but we relied on candle power and oil lamps at night. No problem. But I did not sleep well all week. I heard the cars and trucks (especially the deisels) as they drove up and down our street (usually fairly busy but became major thoroughfare as downed trees and lines made many roads impassable), people walking up and down our street at all hours talking and laughing, etc. Since it was still warm, we had our windows open and could not shut out the noise. The first night we had the power on, I turned on a fan to shut out the noise and slept like one dead that first night to catch up on some very needed sleep! I had been sleep-deprived all week as I would awaken to all of those noises I couldn't control. My husband could sleep through an earthquake, but as the mother of 8 kids, I learned to listen in sleep for the slightest of noises and sleep very lightly.It is not something I can control. Noise pollution is bad.

I like a dark room and don't use night lights (never did), but as someone posted~you can see in the dark so it is never totally black. I often roam the house at night without lighting and can see well enough without turning on the lights. The first thing my husband does is switch on lights. I have never used lights to go to the bathroom at night, to change diapers or nurse babies, or to find my way downstairs to the kitchen for a drink. There is enough natural light coming in from the moon, stars, and even from the neighbors who often leave their lights on.

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

Rivkah_203 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:47:31 GMT

So if blind women have such a reduced risk of cancer, what about the seeing wearing sleep masks at night? Would this greatly cut down a seeing person's risk?

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

snowfallinchina — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:20:07 GMT

I believe that one of our main connections with the universe is through light. Artificial light is empty of universal information. Artificial light may be one of the reasons for our disconnect with the natural forces that animals and groups like the Aboriginees use every day.

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

beht — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:03:14 GMT

I'm kind of with the idea that total darkness is not necessarily what our ancestors went through. My lights are off at night time, no night light, curtains closed, but if I get up to go to the bathroom, I can see my way there! Not being able to see my hand in front of my face seems a bit ludicrous. In fact, whenever I end up taking a 30 minute nap during the day, I like to lay on my couch, right beside the window, with the sun shining in, and close my eyes and fall asleep with the sun shining on me.

re: How Light Pollution is Ruining Your Health

Mr.AK — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:57:05 GMT

Just because primitive humans did something does not make it a wise thing to emulate. Cavemen did some pretty stupid things, I'll bet, that you would not want to repeat. As for darkening your bedroom, try wearing a blindfold - cheap and totally effective.