I’m going to say something controversial to start out this article….the best light for sleep is zero light!

In an ideal world, when the sunsets you have candle light or firelight for one to two hours before bed. Then you go to sleep in a completely blacked out bedroom.

If the sunsets for you at 4:45pm (like it does for us living here in Southern California in the Winter) then that means you go to sleep around 7pm. That sounds way too early to go to bed doesn’t it?

If you think about how mankind has lived for thousands of years, this was how we did it. When the sun goes down, it’s God’s way of saying, “your day is done and it’s time to sleep“.

But man in his desire to become god, created artificial light in the likeness of God, to his own peril. Although the invention of electricity and the lightbulb in 1879 changed many things for good, it was also the cause of ALL modern disease. I might write an entire article just on this topic alone.

If you think about it, lightbulbs are just mini suns. No other creature on earth can recreate their environment to mimic time.

When it’s nighttime, we mimic daytime.

It’s this ability to modify our environment that disconnects us from God, Nature and our internal circadian rhythms.

When we disconnect from the latter, because of the former, this sets the stage for chronic modern diseases like diabetes, cancer, strokes, cardiovascular disease and yes insomnia.

When you cannot sleep because you broke your circadian rhythm, you have now set the stage for modern health challenges.

It all comes back to sleep.

Sleep is tied to your circadian rhythm which is controlled by 24 hour light dark cycles.

How Light Impacts Sleep

Let’s talk about how light impacts sleep and circadian rhythms. The sun emits gamma rays, radio waves, x-rays, ultraviolet radiation (UV), visible light, infrared light (IR, this is how we feel the warmth of the sun) and microwaves.

The sun also emits different colors like red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo and violet. Each of these colors are actively changing minute by minute during the day, even if there are clouds.

When you’re watching the sunrise, you have more UVA frequency than UVB. This color temperature is going to activate cortisol to awaken you. It’s also going to create melanin in  your body through the Warburg effect. Melanin is like the screen inside a movie theatre. Your body concentrates melanin where biological functions are critical for survival.

You have high concentrations of melanin in your ears, eyes, brain (neuromelanin) and throughout your entire nervous system. The reason why dogs have a heightened sense of smell is because they have a higher concentration of melanin in their nasal cavity.

Here’s a pro tip, if you want to avoid a sunburn in the summertime, watch the sunrise to get UVA exposure. UVA also helps you create nitric oxide endogenously which is helpful for cardiovascular health and blood flow.

When these UVA frequencies of sun enter your eyes through the central retinal pathway, magic happens.

Here’s where the photons of light go when they enter your eye in the morning.

Note that the list below is for visual purposes.

Cornea → Pupil → Lens → Retina (Rods and Cones) → Optic Nerve → Optic Chiasm → Lateral Geniculate Nucleus → Primary Visual Cortex (V1) → Higher Visual Processing Areas

This list below is for non visual purposes.

Retina intrinsically photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells (ipRGCs) → Optic Nerve → Suprachiasmatic Nucleus – SCN (Hypothalamus) → Pineal Gland

Why would there be a non visual purpose for light?

Turns out your eyes are more of a clock than a camera. Seeing is great but through photons of light, our circadian rhythm is set. Hormones get released by at certain times of day that are critical in their timing.

For example if your light dark cycles are off, you could be spiking cortisol at 4am instead of 7am causing you to wake up and not be able to fall back asleep.

Why would your adrenal glands produce cortisol at the wrong time? A broken circadian rhythm.

How did that happen?

• You didn’t watch the sunrise (necessary for optimal sleep and clock timing)
• You didn’t get any sun into your naked eyes during the day (you wore sunglasses, reading glasses or contact lenses)
• You spent more time indoors than outdoors
• You didn’t open any windows when you were indoors
• Your didn’t wear yellow tinted blue blocking glasses during the day
• You didn’t wear orange blue blocking glasses after sunset
• You didn’t watch the sunset
• You didn’t wear red glasses 3 hours before bed
• Your indoor lighting is toxic

Those are just some of the reasons why your circadian rhythm is broken.

The SCN is the master clock in the body. Remember when you’d call a phone number back in the 80s to get the time? That would be an atomic clock coming from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Every cell runs on a 24 hour diurnal light dark cycle called a circadian rhythm. All cells through biphotonic light emitted by our mitochondria talk to the SCN every second of the day to know what to do at what time.

It’s critical you get this because if you don’t, you could do everything to improve your sleep and nothing will work. Light and dark cycles are the foundation for a healthy circadian rhythm.

What is the Best Light For Sleep

Like I mentioned before, the best light for sleep is no light at all. But that’s not practical. But it is something to work towards. Try dimming the light as much as you can or go with less and less light (no matter the color) after sunset.

Types of Lighting to Avoid

Here are the types of light you absolutely want to avoid in  your home or office. The reason is because these lights emit way too much of the blue spectrum with zero infrared light and little to no UVA and UVB. They also contain very little yellow, red and orange frequencies.

Here are some lights you want to get rid of immediately if you want to improve your sleep.

1. Fluorescent light
2. LED lights
3. Halogen
4. Neon
5. Cool white or daylight bulbs
6. Compact Fluorescent Lamps

Not only do these have colors that are way off, they also produce a flicker effect. Remember in the 80’s when you’d video tape your television screen? On the video the screen would have these lines going through it from bottom to top.

I would always wonder why I could see those lines in the video I took of the television but I could never see them in real life when watching the TV. The flickering is happening at such a fast rate that your vision does not detect it, but your nervous system does.

This is why if you work in an office under LED or fluorescent lights, you feel tired and not normal. These lights are draining your nervous system.

Colors Matter!

During the day the sun produces blue light in the correct proportion to the red, yellow and orange colors. The blue light from the sun has no flicker and it helps to create melatonin and set your circadian rhythm. God gives you the right color in the right proportion at the exact right time of day in order to promote optimal health and more tightly regulate biological rhythms that promote sleep.

After sunset, you want zero blue light. Light in any capacity after sunset is not natural. But we know that blue light disrupts melatonin (your natural antioxidant and anticancer hormone) prevents you from falling asleep.

If you are going to have a light on inside after sunset, I would recommend fire light or candle light if you can. Maybe if you live alone you can pull that off.

For most of us that’s not possible so I recommend only dim red light after sunset. Try to get by on as little light as possible because the irradiance and brightness of the red hue matters.

Lighting That Promotes Sleep

Here’s a list going from best to worst from top to bottom.

• Firelight or candlelight
• Zero flicker red light bulbs
• Orange light bulbs
• Yellow light bulbs
• NIR infrared lamps
• Incandescent bulbs
• LED bulbs
• Fluorescent bulbs

Conclusion

As you can see the best light for sleep is no light at all. But since that’s not practical you’ll want to try to get red or orange circadian bulbs that emit zero blue light. You’ll also want to wear blue blocking glasses AS WELL AS having these lights on in your home.

If you watch the sunrise and invest in these light bulbs in your home for 30 days and it will change your life. You’ll start sleeping again.

Questions

1. Do you watch the sunrise EVERY morning?
2. Do you wear sunglasses, reading glasses or contacts when outside?
3. What kinds of light do you have in your home or bedroom?
4. How do you block blue light from your cell phone or laptop?

Comment below!