6 Tips To Hack Light To Sleep Better (Find The Eight Episode #6)

Have you ever noticed that your sleep gets better when you’re camping, at summer camp, at a cottage, or when you have a job that’s outdoors?

In all of these scenarios, the increase in time outdoors gives your body clock natural light and dark cues at the right time.

This can be a big contrast from what happens in our day-to-day modern lives, in which the timing of when we get light and dark has been completely disrupted by our constant access to artificial lights and screens.

In this article, we talked about how a body clock that is out-of-sync is a big barrier to sleeping well and we talked about how the wake-up time is really crucial in setting your clock at the right time. 

In this article, we’re going to talk about how light impacts the timing of your body clock and we’re going to go over 6 tips to get light working for you instead of against you.

LIGHT AND THE CLOCK

To sync our body clocks properly, ideally, you want to have lots of bright light during the day, dimmer conditions in the evening, and pitch black conditions overnight.

Unfortunately, it’s really common to get the opposite.

We're inside in dim conditions during the day and saturated with light in the evening and at nighttime because we have access to light 24/7 with artificial lights and screens.

Often, there’s no clear differentiation light-wise between day and night, making it very easy for the body clock to get very out of sync.

Think about what you’re doing during daytime hours.

Are you inside most of the time? How much sunlight do you get?  

Now think about how much light you get in the evening. Is there much difference?  

This takes us to tip #1.

TIP #1: INCREASE MORNING AND DAYTIME BRIGHT LIGHT

Light in the morning cues your clock that the day has started and acts as an anchor, keeping your clock from drifting later. 

Getting a big dose of light during the day not only helps keep your clock more in sync, but it also reduces the impact of the light in the evening. Your body remembers the amount of light it gets during the day and compares it with how much light it receives in the evening.

This means that if you are outside all day in the sun, being on your phone in the evening is still going to affect your sleep, but the impact will be reduced.

Sunlight contains a lot of the blue light that you want in the morning and during the day and that you want to avoid in the evening and overnight.

In the morning, make sure that you open up the blinds right away or get a light wake-up alarm.  

If you're using your phone in the morning, manually crank up the brightness of your screen.

Sit by a window where you can get natural sunlight or step outside for 5-10 minutes.

In the morning and during the day, avoid dim or dark environments. This is often problematic if you have a basement room.

Don’t use things like blue light blocking glasses and sunglasses during the day and especially in the morning.

During the day, get outside as much as you can. Make plans or find work outdoors.

Some of these tips may sound familiar if read 6 Tips To Make Waking Up Less Painful because, in addition to syncing your clock properly, morning/daytime bright light also helps you feel less groggy and more alert.

Daytime light also has a significant impact on mood which is why light therapy is sometimes used in the treatment of depression.

EVENING LIGHT

Just increasing light in the morning and during the day isn’t enough.

To sync your clock and to sleep well, you also have to be careful of how much light you’re getting in the evening and overnight.

Light in the evening and overnight signals to your brain that it is daytime and time to be awake. It does this partly by its effect on melatonin, the sleepiness hormone.  

Ideally, melatonin is made by your brain in response to a drop in light, triggering sleep 3-5 hours later.  

Even small amount of light–including the light from artificial light and screens—reduce melatonin production and this can really impact both your ability to get sleepy, your ability to fall asleep as well as your sleep quality.

And because the impact of light on sleep lingers for a few hours, you can’t expect to be able to get sleepy and sleep well immediately after putting away your phone.

And to top it all off, teens are thought to be more sensitive to the impact of light in the evening. 

So what can you do?

Ideally, we’d all cut out screens and be in a dim environment a few hours before you intend to sleep but it’s pretty unrealistic for most people. It’s not easy to avoid light in the evening--modern life is just not set up this way.

Instead, to reduce the dose of light you are getting in the evening and overnight as much as possible. This brings me to tips #2 through #6. 

TIP #2: TURN OFF OR DIM LIGHTS IN THE 3-5 HOURS BEFORE SLEEP

In the evening, turn off unnecessary lights.

Bright white LED lights are better for the environment but, unfortunately, they give you a lot of the harmful, blue light.

Instead use lights with incandescent light bulbs and dim them if possible.

Install dimmer switches in areas where you spend a lot of time in the evening.

TIP #3: REDUCE LIGHT THAT YOU OBTAIN FROM SCREENS IN THE 3-5 HOURS BEFORE SLEEP 

Use blue-light filters on all of your electronics starting 3-5 hours before your intended sleep time. For most people this means after 7 or 8pm.

Turn off filters at the time you have to wake up because you want more blue light during the day.

These filters a build into iPhones and androids. F.lux is a free filter for your computer. For instructions on how to set up filters, take a look at these articles on setting up filters on a phone and on a PC/Mac.

Remember that these filters reduce but don’t take away the impact of light altogether--they may cut the impact of light by about half.

And, unfortunately, these filters will not make what you’re looking at online any less interesting or addictive.

In addition to filters, it’s good practice to also manually dim the brightness on your screen as much as you can tolerate in the evening.

If you want to watch something, it’s generally better to watch something on a screen that is further away because the impact of the light reduces the further away you are from the light source. Watching on a TV is better than watching something on your phone or tablet or computer.

Having said that, the default settings on TV screens can be really, really bright. Go into the display settings and reduce the brightness of the screen and the back lighting as much as you can if you are watching TV in the few hours before sleep.

Many TVs will allow you to save this dimmer setting so that you can easily switch between the brighter setting for the day and the dimmer setting for the evening.

TIP #4: INVEST IN A FEW PRODUCTS TO REDUCE EVENING LIGHT 

There are various products that can help you get closer to the light/dark cues you would receive without artificial light and screens.

You can purchase special light bulbs that emit less blue light.

You can also consider smart lights that you can set on a timer give you the right type and intensity of light at the right times.

It’s a good idea to invest in these bulbs for places where you spend your time in the evening and at night.

To avoid brighter reading lamps or overhead lighting, there are portable reading lights that are dimmer and emit an amber-tinted light.

Finally, you can also consider getting blue light blocking glasses. Look for ones that have amber tinted lenses to filter out more of the blue light.  

Blue light blocking glasses are commonly being marketed now for eye strain and many of the ones you’ll find have clear, colourless lenses. These glasses don’t filter out as much of the blue light--though because they are less awkward if you have to be on video calls in the evening.

I use the clear ones if I have to be on an evening Zoom call and will otherwise use the amber-tinted pair if I watch any TV or have to look at something on my phone after 8 or 9pm.

Remember, don’t wear these glasses—in particular the amber-tinted lens glasses--during the day as you want blue light then.

TIP #5: CREATE BLACKOUT CONDITION AT NIGHT

Make sure that your sleep environment is as dark as possible.

Install blackout curtains or use an eye mask.

Cover up an small lights in the room with blackout stickers.

Have dim nightlights in the hallways and bathrooms so you don’t have to turn on lights overnight.

If you wake up and can’t sleep, use the dimmer amber-coloured reading lights instead of turning on a bright lamp or overhead lighting.

TIP #6: GET THE HOUSEHOLD INVOLVED

Finally, get the rest of your household involved and on the same page. If others in your house are still watching TV on a bright screen or have all the lights on full blast, it's pretty hard for you to avoid.

ACTION:

Choose one tip that you’d like to act on and take the first bite sized step to get the ball rolling.

Maybe this is setting up blue light filters to start a 3-5 hours before sleep all your devices.

Or texting a parent to ask them to discuss how to set up your light environment better.

To get acting on the other recommendations that we talked about in this episode, there is a free printable cheatsheet that can be found here.

SUMMARY: 

If you want to avoid falling into this trap of incorrectly timed light and you want to be able to sleep more easily, have a better quality of sleep and feel better during the day, here are the 6 strategies to try:

1. Increase bright light in the morning as much as possible.

2. Reduce or dim lights in the evening.

3. Cut out or reduce the light you obtain from electronics in the evening.

4. Invest in a few products to reduce evening light.

5. Create blackout conditions at nighttime.

6. Get the household involved

The great thing about addressing light is that it's a pretty easy fix.  

You can see results really quickly and, once things are set up, you don’t have to continue to expend energy or thought or willpower to have this stuff working for you.

NEXT EPISODE: 

What To Do When Your Mind Is Keeping You Awake

LINKS: 

• Options for a light wake-up alarm

• 6 Tips To Make Waking Up Less Painful

• How to install blue-light filters on a phone and on a PC/Mac

• Dimmer, amber coloured portable reading lights

• Blue light blocking glasses with amber tinted lenses that filter our more blue light

• Blue light block glasses with clear lenses that filter out less blue light but may be more socially acceptable

• How to make your sleep environment as dark as possible

• Blackout stickers

• Dim nightlights