By letting in more light, homes with large windows help align circadian rhythms and improve sleep.
- Prolonged exposure to natural light helps align circadian rhythms and promotes good quality sleep.
- The reason: natural light boosts the production of melatonin, the hormone that triggers drowsiness in the evening.
Our sleep-wake cycle is one of the major circadian rhythms that responds to light and dark, day and night. This means that we must sleep in the dark, and if possible without prior exposure to blue light, but also that we must take advantage of natural light when it is day, since this favors the alignment of our biological clock. internal.
But our modern lifestyles, with more and more hours spent indoors, can sometimes get in the way of this biological clock. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the US Department of Labor, 65% of people spent their waking hours at home in 2020, up from 50% in 2019. And that impacted their sleep.
More regular and better quality sleep
Based on this observation, researchers followed 20 residents living in apartments in Reston, Virginia. Their windows were equipped for a week with electrochromic glass. Also called smart windows, they dynamically tint based on the location of the sun. Residents spent another week with standard windows with blinds. They also wore sleep-tracking devices, completed questionnaires about their health and well-being, and provided saliva samples every 30 minutes for five o’clock in the evening to measure their levels of melatonin, a hormone that increases in the evening and triggers drowsiness.
The researchers then found that in just one week, melatonin production in the body was delayed by 15 minutes when residents used their blinds, causing them to fall asleep 22 minutes later and sleep 16 minutes less. each night. On the other hand, regular and quality sleep in the case of smart windows led to an increase in vitality during the day, an 11% reduction in anxiety and a 9% reduction in stress.
Choose your accommodation well
“When it comes to choosing a place to live, access to daylight and quality of views are essential characteristics for potential tenants, explains lead author Piers MacNaughton. This study shows that daylight and views are not just desirable amenities, but have fundamental impacts on our health and even our hormones.”
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