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Daylight robbery: how lack of sunlight is keeping us awake
Lack of sleep is hitting Britain's economic productivity...
According to Anoosh Chakelian of the New Statesman, lack of sleep is hitting Britain’s economic productivity:
But what’s keeping us awake?
Our screen addiction often get the blame: by flooding our eyes with bluish light at night, we’re messing with our circadian rhythms.
But there’s another part of the picture that gets ignored – which is that we’re getting too little light during the day. The science is explained by Linda Geddes in an extract on Literary Hub from her book Chasing the Sun:
Researchers found significant impacts:
Unsurprisingly, the effects were particularly pronounced during winter when it’s much easier to miss out on daylight.
Modern architecture was meant to compensate for our troglodytic indoor lives – plateglass buildings supposedly brightening our days. But if you’ve ever been in an open-plan office during a power cut, you realise that natural light doesn’t penetrate very far into our 21st century caves.
One day we might realise that the comforts and efficiencies of modernity come at a price – and not solely a spiritual one. The impact of comprehensively de-naturalising our lives can be measured in terms of physical well-being and even economic productivity.
One doesn’t have to believe that we should ‘go back to nature’ to see that we need more room for it in our lives.
Today on UnHerd:
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