Bright light may lower depression symptoms by promoting better sleep

Why would possibly extra time within the solar increase an individual’s temper? A brand new research led by investigators at Brigham and Girls’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass Basic Brigham well being care system, means that sleep might maintain the important thing. The research, which included greater than 6,600 members, discovered that members who spent extra time in shiny gentle had extra common sleep, and extra common sleep was related to decrease despair signs and decrease odds of gentle or extreme despair. Outcomes are revealed in JAMA Community Open.

“Getting constant, common sleep has broad ranging results on our well being,” mentioned co-author Susan Redline, MD, MPH, a senior doctor within the Brigham’s Division of Sleep and Circadian Problems. “Future research inspecting shiny gentle remedy shouldn’t overlook the function sleep regularity could also be enjoying in influencing temper and despair signs.”

The research, which was led by first writer Danielle A. Wallace, MPH, Ph.D., additionally of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Problems, used knowledge collected from 2011 to 2014 from the Nationwide Well being and Vitamin Examination Survey. The group investigated whether or not shiny gentle publicity (at a degree typically equal to sunlight publicity) was related to despair signs, and, if that’s the case, whether or not the sleep regularity index (a measure of the consistency of day-to-day sleep schedules) defined this affiliation. Brilliant gentle and sleep regularity have been measured utilizing a wrist-worn gadget.

“We discovered that larger time spent in shiny gentle was modestly related to decrease despair signs and that sleep regularity partly defined this affiliation,” mentioned Wallace. “Larger Vitamin D was additionally related to larger shiny gentle publicity and larger sleep regularity, however not with despair signs.”

The authors observe that the findings are restricted by the cross-sectional nature of the info, and subsequently causality can’t be decided. For instance, despair signs might affect time spent outside and shiny gentle publicity. Future analysis ought to observe members over time to guage the function of sleep regularity within the relationship between gentle publicity and temper.