Health News

The Effects of Office Lighting on Productivity, Sleep and Your Circadian Rhythm

There was a time when people lived by the rising and setting of the sun. Now, many people in the West live by the alarm clock and the punch of a time card. Between punches, we are left beneath the glow of artificial office lighting. While we all long for that corner office, many are left in the central cubicle. Why do we all covet the office with huge windows? More importantly, what effect does exposure to constant bright artificial office light have on our circadian rhythm?

Sunlight vs. Office Lighting

Humans evolved under the light of the sun by day—and the lack thereof at night. It is deeply ingrained in us to be active while the sun shines and then to settle down to sleep when dusk hits. However, now the lines have blurred. For most of us, the cold glare of fluorescent lights dominates our lives. Not only are we trapped under bright lights all day, but we are chained to smartphones and other devices that emit artificial light as well.

How does this affect human health? According to a new study, the effects may be subtle and insidious. Researchers set out to study people who were exposed to natural light compared with those who spent their days under artificial lights. In a nutshell, it was found that people who have little exposure to natural light throughout the day have a lower quality of life in general.

How do we know that these cubicle workers have a lower quality of life? Researchers studied groups who worked in offices lit by windows and compared them to those who work in areas without windows. People who live without natural light rate their sleep quality and even their quality of life lower. There is a good reason people fight for that corner office; it improves their physical and mental health.

The Grim Reality of Office Lighting

In nature, light changes in tone and color throughout the day. This change in color is registered by your brain and used as information to guide your circadian rhythm. On the other hand, artificial light remains the same all day. This may affect our circadian rhythms in ways we previously did not know. Your body has a harder time sensing whether it should be preparing to be alert or preparing for a nap. While constant artificial light can have an adverse effect on your health, there are ways you can mitigate the effects of working in a cubicle. Experts recommend that people with low exposure to daytime light make an effort to get outdoors, sit near a window and otherwise expose themselves to the healthy benefits of natural sunlight.

Is a Daytime Nap the Answer?

For many cubicle workers, early afternoon comes with a decrease in energy and alertness. Taking a short nap could increase your productivity in ways we previously did not realize. The circadian rhythm takes a short dip in the afternoon, an effect that is more noticeable in people without natural light exposure. Taking a nap when the urge strikes you could increase alertness and creativity in the hours before you clock out.

In fact, some of the world’s most productive employers encourage taking naps when the urge strikes. With over a third of American workers not getting enough sleep, even a short nap can make work more productive and more bearable. In fact, there is a coordinated effort to make nap time part of the American workplace due to the pervasive sleep deprivation that can make it difficult to be productive during this dip in the circadian rhythm.

Old Bodies in a New World

While we now live under bright lights, this is not how we evolved. If you are looking for ways to be more productive in your day, it might be time to get in touch with your evolved self. Find ways to be more active. Seek light during the day and darkness at night. In short, try to live as our ancestors did as much as possible. These simple lifestyle changes often allow us to walk the fine line between the demands of our biology and the demands of modern life.

Many people live without natural light in their days. However, there are ways to mitigate the damage to your circadian rhythm. By seeking sunlight wherever possible and taking naps when needed you will likely be able to walk the line.

Artificial Light Could Be Making You Sick

Aug 17 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Life on earth evolved in the presence of light. We depend on the sun to provide energy for the plants we eat, to warm our planet to a safe temperature and to regulate our sleep-wake cycles. However, most life also requires a similar ratio of dark. Humans in ancient times sought the shade at midday and enjoyed long hours of dark at night. However, times have has changed. We now live in a world of perpetual artificial light, which is not just constantly present but also a different wavelength than natural light. New research suggests that this may be harming our health in more ways than previously realized.

The Dangers of Artificial Light

Artificial light does not produce the same frequencies of light as light from the sun. It is usually brighter, a higher color temperature and higher intensity than light found in our natural environment. How does this affect our health? According to researchers, it can have a huge effect on the circadian rhythm. Our retinas sense light and pass signals to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus, which in turn regulates our circadian rhythm and a variety of biochemical and cellular processes.

The effects of disrupting the circadian rhythm extend far beyond sleep. People who have a disrupted circadian rhythm from artificial light suffer from an increase in a variety of health risks including inflammation, immune overreaction and even bone and muscle loss. An out-of-sync circadian rhythm can also cause dermatological disorders and autoimmune disease.

Light and Aging

While constant artificial light has long been known to affect health in a variety of ways, new research suggests that it may affect us in a much more visible way as well. Artificial light appears to accelerate aging, both externally and internally. Animal studies suggest that not only may people exposed to high levels of man-made light develop fine lines and wrinkles more quickly, they may also have accelerated aging of their bones, muscles and organs. In studies, the mice exposed to artificial light 24 hours a day aged much more quickly.

While this is bad news for many modern people, there is good news as well. The mice in the studies partially recovered from the effects of the accelerated aging within two weeks of being returned to a normal sleep-wake cycle. If you are feeling over-tired and generally older than you should feel, you may be able to improve your appearance and health by reducing light exposure and stabilizing your circadian rhythm.

Is It Possible to Escape Artificial Light?

The problem for many modern people is that reducing light exposure can be a difficult task. We have televisions and devices that can be turned off, but these are not the only contributors to an increasingly light world. Many streetlights are high color temperature LED lights, which cause a huge range of negative health effects. In fact, the American Medical Association has warned communities not to use high color temperature streetlights, although many areas continue to do so.

In addition, light pollution is a major issue in many parts of the world. Even if you turn off your own sources of artificial light, the world is simply lighter and brighter than ever before. Sometimes there is no escaping this pervasive light.

Restoring Your Own Natural Rhythm

Even if you cannot completely escape ambient light in the environment, there are a few ways that you can encourage a healthy circadian rhythm. Turn off lights in your house at night, including devices and electronics that produce light. Go to sleep and wake at roughly the same time so your body can develop a set sleep pattern. Close your curtains and blinds to keep light pollution outside. You can also take a melatonin supplement in the evening to help your body prepare for a good night of restful sleep.

Artificial light is everywhere and may present a danger to the public health. However, there are ways to reduce and compensate for the negative health effects of this light. Getting your circadian rhythm on track is the first step to living a healthier and happier life.

The Health Benefits of Prebiotics

Aug 15 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Many Americans make an effort to eat probiotic foods or take a supplement containing these important gut bacteria. The health benefits of maintaining a healthy gut biome, as supported by probiotic supplements, are undeniable. However, there is another less-known supplement that may help your GI tract work at its best: prebiotics. Researchers are just beginning to realize the health benefits of prebiotics for whole-body health.

The Gut-Brain Connection

A well-functioning gastrointestinal system is essential to our health. Our body needs to break food down into the smallest building blocks and absorb these building blocks in order to survive. In addition, gut health has been found to have an effect on our overall health in a variety of ways. Our intestines are a major site of serotonin production, a neurotransmitter which can affect our mood and cognitive function. What’s more, the enteric nervous system located in our gut appears to be a major player in endocrine (hormone) regulation. Almost every week brings a new discovery about how important our GI tracts are to our health and well-being.

However, many people in the modern world struggle to achieve healthy digestion, absorption, and elimination, including 60 to 70 million people in the United States alone. Our modern diets don’t incorporate enough of the fruits, vegetables and whole grains needed to keep our gut moving at a steady pace. In addition, we are exposed to antibiotics when we are ill, when we clean with antimicrobial cleaners and even in our water. These antibiotics kill gut bacteria, which can compromise our own health.

What Are Prebiotics?

The gut microbiome is an important key to good gastrointestinal function. In our guts live millions of helpful bacteria that perform a variety of essential roles. They help digest food, produce essential vitamins, and contribute to healthy immune function. New research suggests that gut health may be even more important than previously thought, linking the health of our digestive system to healthy weight and even cancer risk.

Probiotics are the “good” bacteria that have been shown to create the best environment when living in our guts. It is important to take a probiotic supplement, but supplementation alone does not guarantee that these beneficial bacteria will thrive. This is where prebiotics come in. Prebiotics function as food for these beneficial bacteria and help to make the intestines a better place for them to live. Prebiotics are indigestible, which means that they are not absorbed into our GI tracts. They are easily fermented by bacteria for energy, ensuring that your probiotic bacteria have the ingredients they need to thrive and help you thrive as well. While most of us eat prebiotics in whole foods such as banana, leeks, onion and garlic, many people do not get enough in their diet and can benefit from a supplement.

The Health Benefits of Prebiotics

New research is showing that the health benefits of prebiotics may extend beyond our gastrointestinal tracts. People who supplement with prebiotics have healthier digestion and are even less likely to be overweight or obese. In addition, prebiotics appear to promote a healthy inflammatory response, helping to lessen the symptoms of a variety of conditions such as asthma. In fact, a recent study found that people who take a prebiotic supplement have lower levels of inflammatory markers in their blood, suggesting significantly less immune overreaction. Other studies have found that prebiotics may promote cardiovascular health and healthy cholesterol levels within normal ranges.

Getting Prebiotics in Your Diet

There are a few ways that you can get more prebiotics in your diet. First, you can choose foods that are rich in these indigestible starches. Second, you can switch from a probiotic supplement to one that provides both prebiotics and probiotics. Many people prefer these supplements because it makes sense to swallow the bacteria’s “food” along with the bacteria. In addition, taking a single supplement is just simpler.

If you seek optimal health both in your GI tract and the rest of your body, taking a prebiotic supplement may be beneficial. It makes sense to feed the bacteria that help your body to thrive in so many diverse ways.

Benefits of Astaxanthin: The Carotenoid With Powerful Protective Properties

Aug 07 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Aging affects all of us eventually, both inside and out. Our skin begins to sag and fine lines appear; our arteries and joints degenerate in ways that affect mobility and disease risk. Eyesight begins to decline along with memory and cognitive function. What if there were a natural way to help protect against some of these deleterious effects of time? According to new research, the colorful carotenoid astaxanthin may be the key.

How Do We Age?

Scientific studies have indicated that damage from free radicals are responsible for many of the changes that we associate with aging. Oxygen is necessary for us to live, but it also can have a negative effect on cells. Oxygen is inhaled as a bonded molecule made of two oxygen atoms, which is why it is referred to as O2. However, it is split into two oxygen atoms as part of cell metabolism. This process creates oxygen radicals, which are destructive to many components of our cells, especially DNA.

Our bodies make an enzyme called superoxide dismutase that removes oxygen free radicals, binding them to other molecules so they cannot cause damage. As we age, our bodies do not create this important enzyme as effectively. The result is that our cells suffer small amounts of damage that lead to the physical symptoms and increased health risks associated with growing old. For centuries, ancient explorers searched fruitlessly for the “Fountain of Youth,” but we are still left with no real way to slow down aging, let alone prevent or reverse it.

What Is Astaxanthin?

Astaxanthin is a carotenoid, aka substances that typically have a red-orange tint. It is found in a variety of plant and animal foods, including select plants and algae, as well as certain marine fish such as salmon. It is present in high amounts in krill oil as well. While this compound is plentiful throughout nature, most people who live in the United States and Western Europe need to take a supplement to get the health benefits of astaxanthin. Our diets simply do not contain many foods that are rich in this super-vitamin.

Astaxanthin was recently discovered to have powerful antioxidant properties, potentially protecting against some of the external and internal changes associated with aging. Not only may it protect against the visible symptoms of aging, such as fine lines and wrinkles, but other benefits of astaxanthin include helping to maintain healthy vision, cardiovascular health and a variety of other positive effects. Astaxanthin appears to work by influencing the amount of free radicals in our cells, in effect helping to protect against some of the damage associated with aging.

The Health Benefits of Astaxanthin

Several studies have found positive effects from taking astaxanthin as a daily supplement. Astaxanthin helps protect against the oxidation of fatty acids, which may benefit cardiovascular health and help maintain good health in other parts of your body. Astaxanthin has also been found to support brain health, helping to maintain healthy cognition and brain function by helping to protect against oxidative damage to the delicate tissues of the brain. It can also help maintain healthy vision, which is not surprising considering it is very similar on a molecular level to the sight-protecting nutrient beta carotene. Some other benefits of astaxanthin include supporting healthy fertility and decreasing recovery time after strenuous exercise.

Astaxanthin helps protect against a diverse range of health concerns and helps promote healthy aging by protecting against the root cause: free radicals. While it has not been studied long enough to know if it has long-term benefits or side effects, astaxanthin is likely a safe way to support healthy aging. While it is important to speak with your physician before beginning any new supplement, the health benefits of astaxanthin may make it the top healthy aging supplement of our time.

Nighttime Awakening: Are Two Sleeps Better Than One?

Aug 03 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Most modern people accept that the “correct” way to sleep is to go to bed at night and stay asleep until morning. In fact, waking at night and being unable to go back to sleep is often considered a sleep disorder. However, there is evidence that humans did not always consider a full night of uninterrupted sleep ideal. Choosing to engage in “two sleeps” may be a common pattern in human history—and a healthy pattern as well.

Bimodal Sleep in Human History

Bimodal, or segmented, sleep appears to have been the way that many of our ancestors slept. Ancient physicians, as well as authors such as Charles Dickens and Chaucer, refer to a first and second sleep in their writings, with the time between the two sleeps spent engaged in quiet activities. Historians believe that this habit disappeared some time around the turn of the twentieth century when electrical light became common.

Just 200 years ago, people routinely woke at night to socialize, pray, read, have sex and otherwise enjoy some quiet time. Most people stayed in bed during this time, although some got up for short periods. The practice of two sleeps appears to have been especially common among the working classes, who were too worn out to be productive immediately after arriving home from a day of manual labor. Doctors even recommended the period between the first and second sleep as the best time to conceive a child.

The Problem of Middle-of-the-Night Insomnia

The very sleep pattern that our ancestors viewed as normal is now often considered a sleep disorder. Sleep maintenance, or middle-of-the-night insomnia, is the most common type of insomnia in the United States. While this disorder can be caused by GERD, anxiety and other health disorders, many people who experience it appear to have no physical cause. Doctors recommend that people who wake at night and cannot get back to sleep do some type of sedentary activity in low light and go back to sleep when they are able, which is strikingly similar to how our ancestors once passed midnight hours.

Middle-of-the-night insomnia may be common because it is a normal human sleep pattern. Could it be that some people who believe they have a sleep disorder may in fact just need to rearrange their evening and night time schedules to allow two sleeps?

Are Two Sleeps Really Better Than One?

Researchers believe that ancient humans tended to sleep around three-and-a-half hours in each sleep cycle, with around two hours between the first and second sleep. Melatonin levels remain high throughout both sleeps and the quiet wakeful phase in between, while the sleepiness preceding the second sleep is caused by a surge in the sex hormone progesterone. Choline levels also differ in people who follow the practice of segmented sleeps. This means that the second sleep has more cholinergic REM phases, which causes more restful slumber and more lucid dreams.

For many people, it could be that middle-of-the-night insomnia is not so much a sleep disorder as a sign that they need two sleeps rather than one. That nighttime period of wakefulness may be the most creative time, while the second sleep appears to be more restful than a normal continuous seven-hour sleep.

Why Did We Start Sleeping in One Block?

If sleeping in two blocks is healthy, why did people stop? There are a few suggested reasons. First, electric light made it possible for people to stay up later at night, making it difficult to get in two full blocks of sleep plus a rest period. Second, the world began to focus more on efficiency. Suddenly, laying in bed and being relatively unproductive for several hours every night was viewed as a waste of time.

While most people have adapted to the practice of sleeping in one seven to eight-hour block, some still struggle. Sleep maintenance insomnia may merely be a return to old ways, which explains why it is so hard to treat. If you have trouble with waking in the middle of the night, it may be time to see if segmented sleep, or engaging in two sleeps, works better for your body.

Proven: Napping Boosts Productivity and Improves Mental Health

Jul 29 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Have you ever snuck a nap in the middle of the day? Modern schedules tend to favor people who are up at dawn and steadily working until sundown. Benjamin Franklin and other fathers of our nation praised those who worked tirelessly, eschewing sleep until nightfall. Our society is set up to support this behavior; jobs begin early and lunch breaks are nonexistent or too short for more than a quick bite to eat. People who sleep a bit in the early afternoon are even considered lazy by many. However, the disdain for the afternoon siesta may be counterproductive. There are several benefits of napping that we are missing out on by pushing through the day rather than pausing to get the rest we need.

The National Deficit of Sleep

Americans are not skipping their daily siesta because they get enough sleep at night. Quite the contrary; sleeplessness is reaching epidemic levels. Researchers estimate that 40 percent of adults and 70 percent of teens are sleep-deprived. The amount of sleep that we get has dropped by 20 percent in the past century. People are getting less sleep than ever in human history, which may be tied to rising rates of metabolic disease.

What can Americans do to improve our sleep, and thus national public health? Experts suggest that a good old-fashioned nap may be the answer. Not only can a nap add to your total sleep time, but it can help you be even more productive and creative once you wake.

The Proven Benefits of Napping

According to research conducted over the past decade, there are several important benefits of napping. People who nap have sharper minds and are able to solve complex cognitive tasks more quickly and correctly. Napping also reduces frustration levels and encourages good mental health. While many think of a nap as wasted time, it may actually make you more productive. After a nap, you think more creatively and work more quickly, making up for any time lost in sleep—and then some.

Can’t we just opt for an earlier bedtime? Is napping better than sleeping longer at night? The jury on this subject is still out, but evidence suggests that we are biologically primed for a short siesta. Hormones associated with alertness dip in the early afternoon, leaving many people feeling tired and duller mentally. If you are sleep-deprived, this afternoon dip in brain function has an even greater effect. This mid-day sleepiness can affect productivity immensely if people do not get the rest that they need to move on with the rest of their day.

How to Nap Like a Pro

If you are interested in making a quick nap part of your lifestyle, experts have a few suggestions for getting the most out of your sleep. First, nap at the same time every day, preferably the time when you are most prone to feeling sleepy. Be sure to limit this time so you do not get too deep into your sleep cycles to wake up quickly; experts recommend 20 to 60 minutes as the ideal nap length. Second, find a comfortable and quiet place so you can nod off quickly and get the most out of your sleep. If you plan to take only a 20-minute nap, drink a cup of coffee first. Although this may sound counterproductive, caffeine takes around this length of time to take effect so it will be kicking in right as you are waking up.

The benefits of napping are clear, so why don’t Westerners make it a national habit? If you’re suffering from an afternoon slump, taking a quick nap may be just what the scientists ordered. Even a short 20 minutes of sleep could leave you renewed, refreshed and ready to take on the rest of your day.