Sleep is an important and essential function of the human body. It creates the human mind recharge, refreshes physical fitness, and enables the body to repair and fit ready for another day. The brain cannot function properly without enough sleep. In accordance with research, human sleep may be more than light affecting our circadian rhythms and maybe the color of the lighting that really makes a difference. The light color can be created by nature in the sky, or from various electronic devices or even from light bulbs.
These days, people even look for the night light for feeding babies to ensure a sound and peaceful sleep for their babies. So you need to know what is the best color light for sleeping.
We will be discussing and explaining the best color light for sleeping in this article, which might help you find all the necessary questions of demand.
Best Color Light for Sleeping
How does light help you with sleep?
Obviously, light is an important external factor to help you to sleep. While darkness in the surrounding area naturally people feel to sleep as nothing is seen. The link between light and sleep goes much deeper. Health experts opined light plays a vital role in regulating cardigan rhythm (24-hour internal clock).
Naturally, there is an internal clock of the body which silently signals when to be vigilant and when to rest or sleep. Light also affects the production of melatonin, an essential sleep-promoting hormone.
Melatonin is a hormone that the brain produces in response to darkness. It always helps with the timing of the circadian rhythms and with sleep. As per the review, human biology progressed with sleep following the daily patterns of sunlight and darkness, ubiquitous electricity that makes 24/7 illumination possible.
Exposure of everyday light, including the type of light as well as when and how long the light-exposed, has a critical impact on sleeping. To know about the complex links between light and sleep allows you to set up your bedroom to be more conducive to consistent, high-quality sleep.
There are some reasons that light dramatically helps and affects sleep as circadian rhythm, melatonin production, and sleep cycles.
Circadian Rhythm
Circadian is one of the main systems in the physical substance of the human organism, especially for sleep. It is a 24 hour internal clock that coordinates a wide range of processes in the human body. This rhythm is controlled by a small part of the brain, which is known as the circadian pacemaker, that is powerfully influenced by light exposure.
When exposed to only natural light, a person’s circadian rhythm becomes closely synchronized with sunrise and sun sets, staying awake during the day and sleeping when it’s dark. In modern society, though, electricity creates an abundance of light sources that affect the brain’s circadian pacemaker.
The way light alters circadian rhythm depends on the timing of light exposure. When light is perceived early in the morning, it pushes the sleep schedule earlier. Light exposure in the evening pushes the sleep cycle backward toward a later bedtime.
Melatonin
Melatonin is a counterpart to cortisol that helps you fall asleep and stay asleep. Your body usually starts producing melatonin in the early evening, when you’re starting to wind down and get closer to sleep.
Bright light, especially bright blue light from phones and computers, has been shown to disrupt melatonin production. The bottom line is that the kind of light you’re exposed to closely affects your sleep hormones and your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep at the right times.
Sleep Cycles
There are different characteristics of sleep. Normally a per goes sleep through four to six sleep cycles and each of which lasts from 70 to 120 minutes. The cycles are made up of multiple stages of sleep with both rapid eye movement and non-rapid eye movement sleep.
Light exposure at night can hinder transitions between sleep cycles and may reduce the quality of sleep. Enough light can cause repeated awakenings, interrupting the sleep cycle and reducing time spent in deeper and more restorative sleep states.
Why is red color light the best for sleep?
30 minutes of red light exposure improved sleep and melatonin levels as a study in the Journal of Athletic Training found this result. Several research studies suggest that red light therapy could have a positive effect on sleep. The basis of the theory that is still undergoing trials. It does not mean that it is poorly done or incorrect.
As per a group of Chinese research found that controlled red light exposure appeared to improve sleep quality. This is a sample study on athletes. The Chinese women’s basketball team supported this result as a red light for thirty minutes before sleeping and this was continued for 14 days. The control group was properly maintained and did not expose any light.
Tracking on 20 female athletes of the age group between 15 and 22, the researcher argued that red-light irradiation before bed was able to successfully improve sleep quality.
According to American Author Marika Sboros, “Red is a color often associated with passion, power, aggression, anger, even fear. Not so when it comes to your health in body and mind. Scientific research suggests that bathing your body in red light at night could help you sleep better, and reduce your risk of chronic disease.”
Also, US scientists have another vision altogether. They say red light at night is more beneficial for your health than commonly used blue or white lighting; and the more time you bathe your body in red light, the better. There is enough logic on the research supporting that Red-Light is better for sleep.
The important reason is specialized photosensitive cells called ip RGC’s are located in the retina of our eyes. These cells are able to detect any light and send messages to a part of the brain that helps regulate the body’s circadian clock. This is the body’s master clock that helps determine when people feel sleepy and awake. These ipRGC cells are most sensitive to blue wavelengths of light and least sensitive to red wavelengths.
Other Light Colors That Help You Sleep Better
Color is such a wonderful thing, which can affect human minds psychologically, including the ability to sleep. There are other colors that may evoke relaxation, while others stimulate the human mind and make them more awake. As per the review, colors like blue, green, and yellow may offer the most benefits of sleep.
Sometimes people do not like red color lighting. In that case, they may use other light colors instead, such as light yellow, pink or other colors leaning to red, but total darkness is best for sleep.
For people who are afraid of darkness and must have the lights on when sleeping, it may be better to have one that gives off a reddish light rather than white light.
Bottom Line
Sleep plays an important role in human physical health. It involved peaceful sleep in the healing and repair of the heart and blood vessels. It related continuing sleep deficiency to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
Nowadays, people are not getting enough sleep in our society. They habituate to less priority on sleep other than the irrelevant things. But if people understand how important adequate sleep is, and how to sleep better, the best color light can help for better sleeping.