Do you love being in the darkness? Unlike what most people believe, darkness is delightfully beautiful. Darkness helps you find answers, silence, calmness and peace. Darkness brings clarity to the mind. But there are many other practical benefits of darkness that can make us healthier and live better.
Darkness is peace
What does darkness mean to you? Is it something you are afraid of? Is it something that soothes your soul? Do you run away from all the unknown things that hide in the dark? Or do you hide from the big bad world in the comfort of darkness where you can finally be your genuine self? Darkness can mean different things to different people. For me, darkness is home.
Darkness allows me to be at peace with myself, my flaws, my insecurities and my imperfections. It allows me to shut down all the noise and drama of the world around me and focus on finding practical solutions to life’s problems and challenges. Darkness comforts me. It gives me the strength to get up and fight again the next day. Darkness doesn’t have to be about sadness, loneliness and depression. Darkness can be about inner peace, contentment, calmness and rejuvenation. Darkness can be about finding a new way to move forward.
Related: What is Nyctophobia: The Fear Of Darkness?
But beyond the emotional reasons, there are a lot of practical benefits of darkness. When you are in a dark room, you get exposed to minimal visual stimuli that allows you to focus on your thoughts, relax your mind and make calculated decisions. As you are unable to see anything, you don’t need to concentrate on anything specifically and you allow yourself and your mind to rest. As you feel more relaxed, it becomes easier for you to get better quality sleep, which undoubtedly has numerous physical and mental health benefits.
But is it good to stay in darkness? While a nyctophile, an individual who loves darkness, can point out numerous other reasons they prefer darkness, let us check out some common benefits of darkness that can be helpful for all of us.
Health benefits of darkness
Understanding the importance of darkness is crucial, especially if you are someone who is afraid of the dark, because darkness is good for your health. Let us explore some of the benefits of darkness that can help us understand why we need darkness in our lives –
1. Regulates sleep/wake cycles
Is it healthier to sleep in darkness? Darkness is crucial for maintaining our sleep-wake cycles, managing our circadian rhythm and improving sleep quality. Our sleep-wake cycle comprises the 24 hour daily sleep pattern that involves about 8 hours of sleep at night and 16 hours of wakefulness during the day. These waking and sleeping periods are regulated by two biological processes known as the sleep/wake homeostasis and the circadian biological clock (or body clock). Sleep/wake homeostasis helps our body sense how much sleep it needs based on how long we have been awake. Our circadian biological clock and circadian rhythms regulate the lows and highs of wakefulness and sleepiness during a 24 hour period. Darkness plays a vital role in this entire process. And this is one of the major benefits of darkness.
Related: How To Sleep Better When You Have Insomnia
When you stay in the light for a long period of time, for instance being in a well-lit room or being exposed to blue light of screens at night, artificial light will prevent your body’s biological clock from figuring out the actual time of the day. This will affect the quantity and quality of your sleep. When you get too much screen time before sleep, it can disrupt your sleep-wake cycle and make it harder for you to fall asleep.
Being in darkness helps to balance our circadian biological clock and keep it regular. This helps us sleep better, boost our mood, maintain body temperature, improves appetite and have energy to function normally during the day. When our body clock is in disharmony, you become vulnerable to developing various illnesses such as depression, hypertension, asthma and type 2 diabetes. The fact is, darkness benefits sleep and health equally.
2. Boosts melatonin levels
Our body can produce the hormone melatonin only when we are in darkness. Melatonin is released by the brain as a response to darkness which helps to keep your circadian rhythms regular and help us sleep. However, when we stay in the light even during nighttime, the production of melatonin is blocked which can negatively affect our sleep. But as melatonin is crucial for several other functions in our body, this can also affect our health adversely in the long run.
Related: Warning Night Owls: Is Staying Up Late At Night Bad For Your Mental Health?
Melatonin production is surely one of the most remarkable benefits of darkness. Melatonin helps to fight several diseases and it prevents cancer cells from spreading, reducing the chances of prostate and breast cancer. Being in darkness helps your body to fight off cancer cells but when there is light in your bedroom at night, your body is unable to produce melatonin. This is true even when you are using your computer, watching TV or scrolling through your smartphone.
3. Improves sleep
One of the benefits of darkness is that it helps you sleep better and faster. As both circadian rhythm and melatonin production are associated with sleep, being in a dark room helps you get better quality sleep and help you go through the different sleep stages without interruption. As the human brain is remarkably sensitive to light, darkness helps us to relax and produce the sleep-producing hormone melatonin. Experts claim that when you sleep in the dark, devoid of any artificial light, you will sleep better and longer.
Getting a good night’s sleep can help us feel re-energized and refreshed the next morning, improve our memory and concentration, boost our mood, and make us feel more physically active. Better sleep quality is also associated with better weight regulation and blood pressure. When you sleep in darkness, you become more active when awake during daytime. This is how darkness benefits health in humans and all other animals.
Related: How Screen Time Affects Quality Of Sleep And Overall Health of Young Adults
4. Manages hunger
One of the most significant benefits of darkness is that it helps to control our weight. When we stay in darkness, it helps to control our appetite by boosting the levels of the hormone called leptin, which regulates hunger. As high levels of leptin are released at night, we don’t feel hungry while we are sleeping or when it is dark outside. This also had an evolutionary advantage as our ancestors had limited or no scope of using artificial light during the night.
As hunting or foraging in the darkness of the night could be threatening to our survival and health, the increase in leptin levels reduces hunger and prevents us from putting ourselves in danger at night for food. As we go without food for hours during the night and while we sleep, it is considered a form of fasting. And that’s why the first meal we eat in the morning is known as ‘breakfast’.
When you are exposed to artificial light at night, stay up late or have disrupted sleep, you become hungry in the middle of the night which leads to unnecessary weight gain, diabetes and obesity.
Related: What Is Night Eating Syndrome?
Other benefits of darkness
Both light and dark have crucial roles to play in our lives. When the Sun sets and darkness takes over the land, melatonin starts to shoot up, our body temperature starts to fall and metabolism begins to slow down. We start to wind down and prepare to rest and sleep. Darkness is important to help us keep functioning normally and staying healthy.
Here are some other benefits of darkness and why you need to sleep in a dark room –
- It helps you sleep faster and easier
- It reduces your chances of developing type 2 diabetes and obesity
- It improves your overall physical, emotional and mental well-being
- It enhances your alertness and mental focus during the day when you are awake
- It allows your eyes to rest. It protects your eyes and provides necessary relief
- It makes your skin look younger even as you age by improving cellular regeneration during sleep
Related: Why Women Need More Sleep Than Men, According To Science
Now you know the benefits of sleeping in the dark and how it can help to improve your health.
Embrace the darkness
Darkness matters. For your mental, emotional and physical health. While darkness can be scary for some, it is undoubtedly highly beneficial for our health. Darkness is nature’s way of letting us heal and rest. It allows us to connect with our inner self, slow down our mind and get some much-needed rest so that we can function to the best of our abilities the next day.
So if you want to boost your health and get some good sleep, keep your bedroom dark when going to sleep at night to experience how it allows you to rest and rejuvenate yourself by getting some high-quality uninterrupted sleep. That’s the power of darkness.
Related: How Sleep affects Your Mental Health
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