Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam. Here in this heady era of peak efficiency and productivity, when apps and software promise you the fastest path to personal or professional organization, you might even want to regulate the amount of time that you spend dozing. Between excessive screen time and longer working hours, you might be desperate for a more natural and probably
earlier bedtime, but setting a sleep schedule is no small matter. However, a study published in Current Biology shows that there might be a rather simple solution. A weekend of camping could be the path to an earlier bedtime. And no, that's not because of exhaustion from constant grizzly vigilance, although that can't hurt. It's because we rely on electrical light at night and get too little exposure to daylight. So are
circadian rhythms push for a later bedtime? Our circadian rhythms are our twenty four hour cycle of behavioral responses to light in darkness, and that controls are biological clocks. The researchers studied campers for a week in the winter and a weekend in the summer to test seasonal and environmental circadian changes. During the winter, the campers used no electronic light at all. The study found that after spending time in natural light and darkness, the participants adapted to the
natural light dark cycle. They slept longer and went to bed earlier than they would in electrical environments, a whole two and a half hours earlier for the winter group. Notably, the research shows that even around the winter solstice, when nights are long, folks enjoyed an earlier bedtime After being
out in nature for a few days. Melatonin levels, which regulate wakefulness and sleep, rose at night and fell right when the campers got up the typical cycle, but before they tromped through the wilderness, their melatonin levels were slightly off, falling hours after they got up, meaning their bodies still desperately wanted to sleep. Camping is particularly advantageous on the weekend, the research also shows, because that's when we usually waken,
sleep later and have circadian delays. Even more benefits might come from knowing humans respond to seasonal lights so strongly. Kenneth Wright, a co author of the study, points out that workplaces with more natural light could lead to more rested and productive workers, so it is possible to reset our biological clocks. Just like a lot of animals, we adapt seasonal light changes, and by simply enjoying more natural and less electric light during the day, we can be
primed for better sleep at night. Today's episode was written by Kate Kirshner and produced by Tyler Klang. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radios has Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of other productive topics, visit our home planet has to Works dot com and for more podcasts from my Heart radiocasit, the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your face it shows