Natural Sleeping Patterns

A new study has discovered that camping can reset a person’s body clock. Our bodies sleep patterns can be disrupted because use of electrical light and less of the natural light. A study took place in a midsummer light-dark cycle in Colorado. 14 hours and 40 minutes of light, 9 hours and 20 minutes of darkness in a 24 hour period. We rely on electrical light after sunset, which contributes to our sleeping patterns. Dr. Kenneth Wright, along with his colleagues from the University of Colorado discovered that more exposure to sunlight compared to mainly relying on electric light, changed the internal clock earlier. For two weeks, six men and two women with the mean age of 30.3 years participated.

The participants were told to continue their normal daily routines for the first week. The second week, the participants camped outside in tents and only used the natural light and campfires. Torches or any other electronic devices were banned. Their internal circadian timing was recorded and compared for both weeks. A week’s worth of exposure to only natural light, our bodies start to align with solar time. “After exposure to natural light, we found the timing of the circadian clock to be approximately two hours earlier and [sleep-promoting hormone] melatonin offset to occur more than 50 minutes prior to wake time, suggesting that if human circadian and sleep timing was in synchrony with the natural light-dark cycle, the circadian low point in brain arousal would move to before the end of the sleep episode, making it easier to awaken in the morning,” the researchers found.