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Camping Helps Set Circadian Clocks Straight
cold fjord writes "Counsel & Heal reports, 'Many people are stuck in the vicious cycle of late nights and late mornings. However, a new study reveals that a week of camping in the great outdoors may help people set their clocks straight. A new study, published in the journal Current Biology, reveals that if given a chance, our body's internal biological clocks will tightly synchronize to a natural, midsummer light-dark cycle. The study found that a week of exposure to true dawn and dusk with no artificial lights had a significant effect on people who might otherwise describe themselves as night owls. Researchers found that under those conditions, night owls quickly become early birds. "By increasing our exposure to sunlight and reducing our exposure to electrical lighting at night, we can turn our internal clock and sleep times back and likely make it easier to awaken and be alert in the morning," Kenneth Wright of the University of Colorado Boulder said in a news release.'"
You call naturally awakening early "straight", I call it pagan witchcraft. I'm fine with staying up late thanks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A week in a tent had exactly that effect on me. I woke at the crack of dawn and got sleepy when dusk set in. Hiking some 20 km a day helped, too. Recommended to all other night owls.
It does the same thing, for years on end, without having to take vacation days. The funny thing is that you do actually get used to it; I was a night owl, but not anymore. Now, if I do sleep in, I actually wake up with a headache.
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Anyone who has been camping should have experienced this. It's really nice to be in sync with the day again, makes one happy. With computers (blue lights destroys Melatonin and thus makes you less sleepy), days last longer and longer.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I wonder if this works in Northern Latitudes, and if so at what time of year.
Obviously, sleeping closer to stars and waking up to chickens is going to set you straight. After all, there are no blinds to pull over the dawn. If all else fails, that badger in your sleeping bag will make sure you don't oversleep and miss brunch.
How much money was invested to realize what was innate for someone who grew up in a rural area? What's the point of this? "Scientific" studies are being made to discover why you shouldn't scratch, itch, or not blink. Maybe we'll hear about why bathing is good for us? Dumb monkeys. Can we stop this era of bullshit?
This makes want to stick my eye with a syringe full of mercury. Maybe I'll catch something like a cold or invent calculus.
This is so stupid I ruined my britches.
There is certainly some merit to this research. However, be careful where you go camping. After my recent two-week camping trip to Iceland, my internal clocks are set to this insane there-is-no-night-and-your-are-never-gonna-sleep-again mode. It's been two weeks since I got back and still can't get enough sleep.
I must be quite sensitive to light. In winter, I used to have huge trouble waking up, and in summer I wouldn't get enough sleep.
Ultimately, I blacked out my windows and bought a wake up light. It's been fantastic. No more trouble waking up in winter, and my SAD is greatly reduced. In summer, I no longer suffer lack of sleep and I feel overall much better.
I probably should move to the tropics and have equally long days all year long.
When hiking through Europe ( I once walked from Amsterdam to Rome ), it was the same for me: as long as I slept outside, in a tent, I would wake up with sunrise and get sleepy shortly after sunset. As soon as I would begin sleeping in hotels, monasteries etc. etc., I would turn into a night-owl again...
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Camping to reset my circadian cycle sounds all nice and that, but where do I get power for my gadgets, and where do I get 4G Internet connectivity out in the boondocks?
If you've ever been camping, you know there's a completely different reason for that. Most tents turn in greenhouses within about one hour after sunrise. It's really uncomfortable to stay in, let alone sleep. Sleep patterns will shift quickly under such conditions, unless you're quite resistant to sleep deprivation.
On the other hand, if you sleep outside or in an open, shaded structure, you can keep sleeping late.
The melatonin/sunlight interpretation the researchers gave is pretty close to unadulterated bullshit, taking consequence for causation, but that's usual with studies on that topic.
Feel free to attempt this in the summertime Finland, beneath the midnight sun.
Being an 'early bird' has no positives... The whole world runs on that schedual.
Traffic is bad. Every place is packed. Kids are awake and being stupid during the day. It's around 90-100 here too.
Being awake overnight has only one problem. There's nothing on tv but infomercials. But i don't watch tv.
Why not just open the blinds before bedtime and turn off the lights progressively at night... or whatever the magic is... that does this?
I assume most whacked out rythms are just either from work schedules or start from bad self-discipline keeping on watching TV or hanging on the computer way past tired. In the latter situation, with smartphones, that means not even most accessible camping is going to help.
I love camping, but having worked nightshift for the last 30 years and most likely will do the same for the rest of my carreer, this explains why I feel so out of sorts whenever I go.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Call it bullshit, but even things that you consider innate should still be held to the standard of peer review publishing. Remember, it was once innate that the earth is flat. People studying "scratch, itch, or not blink" and not too long ago smoking figure out things about health effects of all sorts of things that are innately harmless because there is no immediate affect. Asbestos, lead, and smoking come to mind.
Attacking science, no matter what popular opinion of it is, is dangerous. You didn't die of some terrible disease because scientists figured out vaccines. Engineers using what scientists figured out about electricity, magnetism, and mathematics built the computer you are using to read about this "bullshit". We already have enough anti-intellectualism in this world. There are morons in congress (and people who vote for them) that want to take a religious, "common sense", or tough guy approach to problems even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Considering sleep quality and quantity is vital to a persons mental and physical health, sleep research is important. There might be some people reading this that have never lived in a rural area and have never been camping that might just have sleep problems that could benefit from this.
So what research or expertise do you have to support the claim that "The melatonin/sunlight interpretation the researchers gave is pretty close to unadulterated bullshit"?
If you are in the wilderness this works after some time. However, 'owls' get up later than 'early birds' because of different internal clock implementations. Some are faster than earth rotations and others are slower. The clock calibration with sunlight works perfect in the summer or in equatorial regions, but not in winter. In addition, I cannot work in an area where there is no artificial light and no modern civilization around. Therefore, setting the clock right once a year will not help for long. It will just be like another jet lag.
This is a great tool for everybody who sits at a computer later in the evening. It definitely helps me to fall asleep much faster after using the computer for hours compared to the normal daylight setting with color temperatures of over 5000K.
I worked 7am-3pm for 2 months, 3 years ago. Other than that, either 11pm-7am or 7pm-3am, or random hours on call, for the last 24 years. I get all messed up on vacation or out of work for some reason. Normal circadian rhythms do not exist in my world, since when I was working on call I lived a 20 hour day for most of the week... work 8, off 12, work 8 off 12. I'm still amazed that only a very few of my co-workers have died from falling asleep behind the wheel before, during, or after work. The days of working during the day and sleeping at night are long gone.
I 'naturally' fall into night-owl patterns very easily. I don't wear it as some badge of honour - it's something I've always struggled with.
I've definitely noticed the effect of camping, and I think it has more to do with the mind relaxing. Little stressors and whirring thoughts start to fade away, due to the different environment. I'm more in the moment, happy with a full belly at the end of the day, and the satisfaction of being physically tired. I'm sure a good dose of natural lighting helps too, but the physical side is far and away the most important. It's why I go running at least every other day. The more intense I make it, the more relaxed I feel at night. The other thing is keeping electronics, laptops, TV, etc., away from the bed.
Unfortunately, the Ashes have fucked this up - but that's the price of admission when watching on the other side of the world:(
Studies show that me picking a fight with, oh, just about anyone, will get my clock cleaned, a hunderd percent guarantee.
And who doesn't love a clean clock?
Right. Then the person gets back from his/her happy little camping trip and back into his/her normal life and three days later he/she is back on the same stupid schedule. I've done this many times and camping is not necessary—any outside influence that causes one to rise earlier will do. I didn't read the article but it sounds really stupid to me, so I won't.
If you've ever worked a job that involves wacky schedules, you would know that any method of adhering to a sleep/wake schedule makes it feel somewhat natural pretty fast. In this case it's just naturally enforced light and dark cycles.
Bill Clinton.
Sometimes I just can't help myself. Most times. All the time.
I've been tested to have a natural 3AM - 11AM (standard time) sleep cycle. I've done quite a bit of camping, for week+ periods, and it never changed that cycle. I'd still be up 'til well past midnight and totally ass-dragging 'til lunch. Saw a LOT of stars in the woods, desert, shore, though.
I doubt that they had real biological (genetic alleles) in that test, or true larks, for that matter.
... sleeping on the ground outdoors isn't really comfortable.
When I camp, I stay up all night. Camping requires patience and time, you have to wait until the n00bs come to you.
Oh, you mean IRL camping? Why would I want to do that?
You're really going to claim that your personal anecdotes trump the scientific method? Did you read the paper and find specific fault with their methods? Maybe your tent just sucks.
That really depends where you are camping and the quality of your tents, I find that I wake up closer to sunrise and feel tried closer to sunset when camping irrelevant of the time of year (including winter in reasonably cold conditions where it is far more comfortable in the tent).
Also I am sure they actually measured the melatonin levels.
null
Typically you also are biking/hiking/fishing/swimming. By the end of the day a tin of beans or instant pasta is delicious, and when you've had a tin of coffee and it's pitch black, you're well exhausted. Pretty much anything that breaks up your sedentary cycle every couple/few months is guaranteed to nudge you into a better lifestyle.
Disclaimer: I broke the sedentary cycle some years ago, and do 'difficult' grade hikes with full packs 3-4 times per year. And lost 14 kilos in the process.
Get a better tent, with proper ventilation.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Visit Montreal or Toronto if you need to reset your Canadian rhythms. Vancouver, even.
Unless you camp like a sissy with lots of fancy equipment nature won't help you a bit in South Florida. First the heat will kill you. The insects will drive you mad as a March hatter. You will be miserable. Snakes, alligators and human psychopaths are more than a tiny issue and to make it worse we have wild boar that will kill you in the blink of an eye. One long weekend in our natural environment and you'll drop on the first air conditioned concrete slab you come to and sleep like a rock. You will feel like a victim of torture and may never be the same again for your entire life. You will most likely gain religion as much of your camping experience will be spent begging Jesus for the misery to let up.
I used to experience something similar, but basically this boils down to either your tent getting way too hot way too early, simply having nothing to do at night and therefore going to bed early or actually using your body during the day (as opposed to sitting in a chair all day), causing it to actually be tired for a change.
I have recently acquired a new obsession - night photography. Now camping fucks up my circadian clock even more:)
0x or or snor perron?!
While I think there's likely some truth in the studies' conclusion, I don't think it controls for the environmental changes and attributes it all to avoiding unnatural light, and I don't think this is necessarily an accurate assessment.
One of the things that happens when you camp and hike is that you eat less and burn more calories. One of the things that keeps us up is our high calorie diets coupled with our sedentary lifestyles, causing our bodies to burn off excess calories through stupid things like nervous twitches. You can see the same circadian fix as the one the study proposes by working out for an hour and a half a day or doing heavy physical labor.
Couple that with how much easier it is to sleep when you're bored, and the fact that there's not much you can do in the woods at night compared to day, and you get a natural gravitation towards sleeping during the dark hours of the day. Hiking may regulate our sleep, but I think there's more factors here at play.
The concept of a flat earth was never "innate", at least in Western cultures over the past 2200 years.
According to the wiki, as early as 1604, smoking was considered unhealthy, which is pretty soon given that tobacco became known after the discovery of America. Only the tobacco industry was actively trying to play down the risks of smoking.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
This has more to do with people being bored and not having the normal technical gadgets distracting them or keeping them up rather then 'nature doing it's work'. If people are bored or have nothing to do, they'll go to bed at 10 or whatever once all the social interaction dies out. That's really the only thing that happens while camping. You walk around and do stuff during the day, and talk to people at night or simply go to sleep. It's pretty binary.
You could do the same thing simply by going to bed early or turning off your phone or other electronics that keep you up or occupied.
Duh? Isn't this pretty obvious?
I work night shift You insensitive clods!
Tell me, is a positive longitude east or west? I assume that positive latitude is north.
Go to Google Maps and zoom in on your location. The city itself should be enough. Click on the Link button and copy the link. Open that link in a new tab, and you should get the lat/long coords of your map's center to show up in the search field.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I find that even without light, sound and temp also helps regulate sleep. In the spring/summer/fall when nights are 50-68F (10-20c) I open windows at night. I find that both the coolness of the morning combined with birds chirping, and to a lesser extent people leaving for work constantly, help me to feel more alert when waking up regardless of when I went to sleep.
That said with out any kind of alarm and in a controlled environment with zero stimuli, I'll sleep almost exactly 8 hours.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
I've used 2-3 day backpacking trips to reset my clock for years. Typically, after moving for 10-15 miles in a day under the sun with 25-50lbs on my pack and then making camp, I'm ready for bed at sundown anyway. I actually have to force myself to stay up til 9 or 10pm. For the last few years, though, I've used this to reset my kids summer schedules. Typically by mid-August they're going to bed at 2-3am and getting up around 12-1pm each day. So the last week of summer for the last 3 years we've gone camping. Nothing special no grueling backpacking trips. Just camping at a campsite with tents and a fire and day hikes, etc. After a week of this they're on a sun-up to sun-down sleep schedule and ready for the new school year.
"9 PM is the hiker's midnight"
I am sure that my generous company will approve of employees taking off just 1 week to get ourselves well adjusted. /end sarcasm
While I haven't been camping much, I now have a small (27') sailboat. The one thing I notice is that event though there are lights in the cabin, I'm usually nodding off at around sunset. I do wish I could stay up longer, as in many of these places the stars truly are spectacular (as is the phosphorescence) but alas. :)
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The concept of a flat earth was never "innate", at least in Western cultures over the past 2200 years.
But 2201 years ago it was. The GP didn't use the "in Columbus' day" line.
As for smoking, at various times and places they also thought that masturbation or eating uncooked fruit was bad for you. Scientific study showed they were wrong in 2 out of 3 cases.
Depends on where you live - in the sunbelt, it never really cools off. The low tonight in Phoenix will be 86f/30c. Charleston, SC will be 79/26. And humid.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's fun living in this day and age of "political correctness" and "acceptance" because something like this comes along blatantly telling a large portion of people that their lifestyle is wrong and no one has a problem with it. I'd like to see the reaction if they did a study which resulted in saying that a specific sexuality "naturally corrected itself." Haha...Oh the flame wars would be beautiful.
I found, that when moving to countryside during summer, even if for several days, I quickly shift to natural following of daylight cycle. Not necessary that good with morning part, but definitely getting into bed soon after light is out. Which changes the quality of rest significantly. Being there, I tend to use electricity only in utmost necessity. Radio before the night has way different effect, than usual check-in into computer and hours burned at it. I believe, that major cut from electric devices would have very similar effect, as camping is said to do.
Servant of karma
I've replaced my alarm with a Philips Wake-up light, ie an alarm that includes a lamp. 20-40 minutes before the alarm time, the lamp starts a simulation of sunrise, switching on at low intensity and becoming increasingly brighter.
My old alarm would yank me from deep sleep in one second flat with its blaring noise, making me feel like my night's rest was incomplete. Worse, if I woke up in the middle of the night, I'd be unable to get back to sleep because I'd lie waiting for the bloody noise.
The new alarm has made my waking up feel much more natural and gradual. I don't dread the morning so much anymore.
I like night. Sun is evil. People out during the day are fools.
It's also quieter, and cooler in the summer.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm posting this from the camp site of OHM 2013, and I cannot confirm the results of this study...
Ok... two observations:
1. Ain't nobody got time for that!
2. Who, reading this article on slashdot, would not find a way to plugin and use their electronics while camping for an entire week?
daylight savings time
I agree with your message but its lacking in rationale. Beliefs and thoughts about our origin is not comparable to "camping sets your clock straight". Everyone knows this *innately* as living beings. Or are professors and scholars less living than others and not in tune with their innate needs?
Really, are you backing this as a legitimate study? Sure, they may have followed scientific method; but there are no results. The best outcome of such a study gives a foundation for someone else to work upon -- unlikely since there is nothing to work off of. The worst case scenario, is that you make the scientific community look like apes throwing their own feces and wasting resources.
The scientific method is just a method and isn't an end all to truth. Truth can also be discovered in other means and methods.
This study is soft science at best. It's bullshit and idiotic.