Dimming the lights in the evening and getting plenty of daylight during the day is good for your mental health. Australian scientists show this in a new study published in the journal Nature Mental Health. The study is the largest of its kind to date, with 87,000 people participating.
Researchers have been concerned for some time about disruptions to people’s ingenious biological clock. It increasingly appears that problems arise due to the disruption of that refined system. For example, long-term exposure to artificial light in the evening and night is associated with an increased risk of a number of psychological disorders. Anyone who continues to live in the full light of lamps and screens when it is dark outside has an increased risk of depression, tension complaints and post-traumatic stress disorder. Conversely, abundant exposure to natural daylight, for example, reduces the risk of depression by as much as 20 percent.
This is the conclusion of researchers from Australia’s Monash University. Not for the first time, the importance of the day-night rhythm for mental health has been demonstrated, but this study is of serious scale: 87,000 people participated. They wore a wristband for a week that recorded the level of light exposure. This allowed the researchers to rule out that the results were influenced by work in evening shifts, poor sleep, the difference between urban and rural areas and the heart health of the people studied.
The Australian study is the largest of its kind to date and measures light exposure with objective data. Those are strong points. But what is difficult is that the study cannot rule out that a disturbed day-night rhythm is actually a consequence of mental illness, rather than a cause. Additional research therefore remains necessary. Yet it is clear that day-night rhythm plays an important role in mental health. And the researchers emphasize that this is a cheap and simple way for everyone to influence mental well-being: take in enough bright light during the day, and cherish the dark evening and night.
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