You Should Switch Off Lights before Going to Bed: Study

If you prefer to keep the lights off, of the room while sleeping at night?  Then you must stop doing it right away as you might be unknowingly risking your health.

Experts advise sleeping in a pitched dark room as light can affect the quality of your slumber. Sleeping in the dark room helps your body to rest by sending a signal to your brain. However, exposure to light keeps your mind and body alert and awake even at night; it interferes with your body's circadian rhythm.

The body’s internal sleep clock gets alters while you sleep in a bright room at night. In addition to this, a recent study also suggests that doing this can increase the risk of developing diabetes.

Conducted by Northwestern University, the study was published in the journal Sleep indicates that sleeping in a bright room can make you prone to diabetes.

20 healthy adults between ages 18 to 40 were volunteered for the research. On the first night, the volunteers were asked to sleep in a pitch dark room. While on the second night, they asked half of the volunteers to sleep in the same dark room and the second half on a bright room.

The experts observed the vital sign, brain wave activity, leg, and eye movements of all the volunteers while they were sleeping.

The researchers also collected blood samples every hour to measure the melatonin (a hormone that helps to control your internal clock) content of the volunteers in their sleep. While in the morning the researchers managed a glucose tolerance test on all the volunteers.

It was observed that sleeping under bright light can increase insulin resistance in a person, which can lead to diabetes. It also came into light that poor quality of sleep can also increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, and obesity. Although, this research is just preliminary, but is enough to indicate that sleeping in a dark room can add in some of the sleep remedies.