Wake Up to Better Sleep: The Morning Routine That Transforms Your Nights

Research shows that exposure to sunlight in the morning helps you sleep better that night.

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Research has shown that exposure to sunlight in the morning can improve the quality of sleep that night. [사진=게티이미지뱅크]

Research has shown that exposure to sunlight in the morning can improve the quality of sleep that night. The researchers explained that the results suggest that taking a ‘sunshine shower’ in the morning can help regulate circadian rhythm.

Sunlight, which helps regulate circadian rhythms and melatonin production, has already been shown to be related to sleep. However, research on how daily sunlight exposure, especially timing, affects sleep is limited, so they wanted to determine whether there was a correlation between sunlight exposure and sleep quality depending on the time of day, the researchers said in the background of the study.

This study was conducted by researchers at the University of Mississippi on 103 adults living in the United States for 70 days. The participants were recruited online and ranged in age from 18 to 80, and were evenly distributed across gender and age groups.

Each participant completed daily questionnaires about sun exposure and sleep quality. This included information on how much time was spent outdoors in direct sunlight and at what time of day the person was exposed, such as morning, midday, or afternoon. Sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index in various aspects such as total sleep time, time taken to fall asleep, and subjective sleep quality.

The researchers used a multilevel model analysis method to control for factors that can affect sleep, such as age, health status, and whether it was a weekend or weekday. Through this, the researchers were able to see how an individual’s sleep patterns change over time and how a day’s exposure to sunlight affects sleep that night.

The analysis showed that people who exposed themselves to sunlight in the morning had better sleep quality that night. They reported falling asleep faster, sleeping longer, and waking up fewer times during the night. Sleep efficiency (actual sleep time compared to time spent lying down) was also higher. These results held even after controlling for other variables, such as quality of sleep the night before.

How many hours of sunlight per day did not significantly affect sleep quality. These results suggest that the timing of sun exposure, rather than the total sun exposure time, plays an important role in improving sleep quality. The researchers explained that exposure to sunlight in the morning can improve sleep by helping to synchronize with the body’s internal clock, circadian rhythm, which regulates the sleep-wake cycle. On the other hand, no consistent association was observed between midday or afternoon sun exposure and sleep quality.

Meanwhile, the researchers acknowledged that this study had some limitations. The evaluation may be subjective because it was self-reported by participants, and it did not take into account certain variables that may affect sleep, such as sunlight intensity, weather conditions, or exposure to artificial light.

The results of this study were published in the Journal of Health Psychology as ‘Does sunlight exposure predict next-night sleep? It was published under the title ‘A daily diary study among US adults’.

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