Shine and rise

June 4th, 2009

No one likes being jolted out of bed by an alarm clock — the memory of the shrill BEEP BEEP BEEP that used to rouse me from my nighttime slumber at 6 am for high school still makes me shudder. As it turns out, our hormonal systems don’t like it either.

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about how essential a good night’s sleep is for health, which is something our grandmothers took as fact but many in modern America seem to have forgotten, guzzling Red Bull at all hours and staying up past midnight watching TV. Sleep deprivation on a regular basis — and in scientific terms, that means getting less than seven or eight hours a night — raises the risk for a number of diseases, including cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.

But sleeping seven or eight hours alone isn’t enough; the darkness of the room we sleep in, as well as how we wake in the morning, also impacts our health. Circadian rhythm, or our internal biological clock, is regulated by external cues, one of them being daylight. Before the advent of electricity, people went to sleep soon after sunset and woke with the sunrise. In this natural cycle, the early morning light signals the adrenal glands to release cortisol, our body’s accelerator, responsible for the functioning of nearly every part of the body; as the day goes on, cortisol decreases, and melatonin, the hormone that tells us it’s time for bed, begins to rise.

Following this natural cycle — sleeping in absolute darkness, waking with the sun — encourages a strong circadian rhythm, which helps keep the body running like a well oiled machine. But mimicking this natural process is a particular challenge for city dwellers. We recently added blackout curtains to block out the floodlights on the building next door that point directly into our bedroom, and the quality of my sleep improved almost immediately. The only problem now is that I’m sleeping almost too soundly; our bedroom is so dark that were it not for my alarm, I probably wouldn’t wake till almost noon. And while I’m sleeping better, I feel way groggier in the morning than I used to. Until we move to that house in the country I’ve been fantasizing about, what’s an urbanite to do?

Enter the dawn simulator, which was originally designed to help treat seasonal affective disorder, but can be used to wake you in the morning like a natural sunrise. Here’s how it works: You set the alarm on the dawn simulator for the time you’d like to wake up, and the device times the light in the bedroom to gradually increase in brightness, typically over a period of 30 minutes to two hours. When used properly, the simulator allows the user to sleep through the “dawn” and wake with ease when the light reaches full brightness. (For those concerned about not waking in time for work or that morning test, many dawn simulators come with a backup alarm sound.)

Proponents say that using a dawn simulator as a silent alarm clock helps them feel more refreshed in the morning, and improves overall mood as well. My family doctor suggested one as a way to help alleviate that morning haze, and says it’s an effective remedy for shift workers with odd schedules as well as insomnia, since it helps to put hormones back on track. While dawn simulators typically are fairly expensive — the Philips Apollo Health Daybreak Duo I have my eye on retails for $159 (although it’s on sale right now on TrueSun.com for $99) — you can also rig your own out of a lamp with a full spectrum light bulb and a timer.

Since June gloom seems to have firmly planted itself over Los Angeles, I think it’s time for me to finally test one out. Stay tuned for the results.