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12/01/2022

Stop Falling Asleep With the Lights Illuminated

It's bad for your health, scientists say

At night, many of us are surrounded by light — from streetlights streaming through our windows to televisions and smartphones by our beds. And now research shows that exposure to light at night in the hours before bedtime and even during sleep can be detrimental to our health.

Light is a key regulator of our brain’s biological clock, known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus. "Light is powerful in that it can synchronize rhythms and, at the wrong time, it can desynchronize rhythms," said Phyllis Zee, neurologist and director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

In one 2022 study, Zee and her colleagues tested how light exposure would affect the biology of 20 young healthy adults as they slept.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.

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