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Sleeping in rooms with even a little light can increase risk of depression

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Re: Sleeping in rooms with even a little light can increase risk of depression

#11

Post by cup-of-tea »

GoToRO wrote: post #7

What I don't like are the "solutions" they propose: noise? use earplugs, light? use curtains. Well I will not be able to sleep if I have something in my ears and if you pull the curtains then you can no longer wake up naturally with the Sun. How about changing your lifestyle so that you can have silence and dark during the night and light in the morning without any "devices". You might have to quit your job :)

I doubt that you wake up naturally with the Sun. Where I live the difference between Winter sunrise and Summer sunrise is about 6 hours. Most people keep more regular hours throughout the year.

Re: Sleeping in rooms with even a little light can increase risk of depression

#12

Post by cup-of-tea »

icebraining wrote: post #9
GoToRO wrote: post #7

What I don't like are the "solutions" they propose: noise? use earplugs, light? use curtains. Well I will not be able to sleep if I have something in my ears and if you pull the curtains then you can no longer wake up naturally with the Sun. How about changing your lifestyle so that you can have silence and dark during the night and light in the morning without any "devices". You might have to quit your job :)

So other people should change their jobs because you can't sleep with earplugs? Seems like a curious way to see the world. Regarding light, if you want morning sunlight, motorized curtains with a timer are cheaper than moving.

He didn't say that other people should change their jobs for him. He said they should change their jobs instead of having to sleep with earplugs or curtains. But I think he fails to realise that many people live in very different environments to him.

Re: Sleeping in rooms with even a little light can increase risk of depression

#13

Post by WingH »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #11
GoToRO wrote: post #7

What I don't like are the "solutions" they propose: noise? use earplugs, light? use curtains. Well I will not be able to sleep if I have something in my ears and if you pull the curtains then you can no longer wake up naturally with the Sun. How about changing your lifestyle so that you can have silence and dark during the night and light in the morning without any "devices". You might have to quit your job :)

I doubt that you wake up naturally with the Sun. Where I live the difference between Winter sunrise and Summer sunrise is about 6 hours. Most people keep more regular hours throughout the year.

Me too. I always tend to wake up the exact same time (right down to the minute) every single morning, no matter how early or late I sleep. And I don’t set an alarm clock and use blackout curtain.

Re: Sleeping in rooms with even a little light can increase risk of depression

#15

Post by exodust »

> those exposed to more than five “lux” of light each night had higher rates of depression

Light can be measured, depression cannot. It barely even has a definition, let alone quantifiable rate. I'd sooner believe that auto-playing videos had a stronger link to depression than lux.

Random theory... Maybe depressed people are highly sensitive to the world's problems/suffering both in immediate and wider environment, their antennae picks up this instability that manifests as internal trauma, anxiety etc. Someone should do an experiment to see if isolation for a few weeks influences depression rate; avoidance of all news, no phone, no internet, no people. Get ready for "Study finds extreme boredom effective anti-depressant".

Re: Sleeping in rooms with even a little light can increase risk of depression

#16

Post by computator »

navjack27 wrote: post #14

So does my body itself need to be protected from seeing light or just my face/eyes? I'll just get a sleep mask.

Skimming the original study, it talks about subjects opening and closing their eyes, so I would very much assume that it's entirely related to seeing light (and not about absorbing light through the face or body).

If you get a sleep mask, be sure to look for one designed to not put pressure on your eyes, which are not hard to find if you seek it out. The cheap ones you get at pharmacies and dollar stores put direct pressure on the eyeballs and it's a wonder that anyone can tolerate them and are perhaps even harmful.

Re: Sleeping in rooms with even a little light can increase risk of depression

#17

Post by muzani »

computator wrote: post #16
navjack27 wrote: post #14

So does my body itself need to be protected from seeing light or just my face/eyes? I'll just get a sleep mask.

Skimming the original study, it talks about subjects opening and closing their eyes, so I would very much assume that it's entirely related to seeing light (and not about absorbing light through the face or body). If you get a sleep mask, be sure to look for one designed to not put pressure on your eyes, which are not hard to find if you seek it out. The cheap ones you get at pharmacies and dollar stores put direct p…

Any brands you'd suggest?

Re: Sleeping in rooms with even a little light can increase risk of depression

#19

Post by mrfusion »

icebraining wrote: post #10
mrfusion wrote: post #8

It seems like a study like this could have actually modified the light levels and measured the changes.

Actually, they didn't touch the lights at all, they only measured the lights that people already were exposed to. They write that "an interventional method, such as a randomized controlled trial using a LAN exposure, is not possible because of ethical concerns".

I can’t imagine minor adjustments to light levels could ever be considered unethical. Is it unethical when a city installs a new street light?

Re: Sleeping in rooms with even a little light can increase risk of depression

#20

Post by noname120 »

icebraining wrote: post #10
mrfusion wrote: post #8

It seems like a study like this could have actually modified the light levels and measured the changes.

Actually, they didn't touch the lights at all, they only measured the lights that people already were exposed to. They write that "an interventional method, such as a randomized controlled trial using a LAN exposure, is not possible because of ethical concerns".

> Actually, they didn't touch the lights at all, they only measured the lights that people already were exposed to.

But isn't it a flaw of the study? It only shows correlation without causality. What if being exposed to light is correlated to some other factor that is responsible for increased depression? In this case, decreasing the amount of light won't decrease depression.

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