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.'"

Comments

Why fix what ain't broken

[SuperKendall]

You call naturally awakening early "straight", I call it pagan witchcraft. I'm fine with staying up late thanks.

Re:Why fix what ain't broken

[gl4ss]

also.. try doing this in Finland. in the summer or in the winter. natural clock..

Re:Why fix what ain't broken

[Immerman]

So let go of the Puritan work ethic - just because you wake up early doesn't mean you have to go to work right away - I can't remember the last time I didn't spend an hour or three enjoying a leisurely morning or working on my own projects before going to work.

Try having a child

[ControlFreal]

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.

Re:Try having a child

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Get yourself checked out at a sleep clinic for sleep apnea. I'm not kidding, nor trolling. I have the condition myself. You're MUCH better off to get treated early than end up nearly losing your job or killing yourself driving because you can't stay awake anymore. Perhaps you don't have it. But the kind of headache you describe should have been an early warning sign for me, had I known what to look for.

Hope you're healthy.

Re:Try having a child

[jaseuk]

Or caffeine withdrawal.

Re:Try having a child

[girlintraining]

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.

Of course, this doesn't work for everyone. Like any definition of "normal" it fails to notice that variation in the population may be an evolutionary strategy with benefits to the whole, while perhaps sub-optimal for the individual. Or that there's simply not sufficient selection pressure for homogenization. Or even that certain 'mutations' confer an evolutionary advantage (though most result in death or disability, true enough!).

In this case, having the occasional night owl might be useful to a tribe to keep watch for predators, who often hunt at night. Having them nodding off because they're not really night owls while everyone else sleeps wouldn't just affect the individual's reproductive success... but the entire tribe's.

In other news, being a night owl is a bona fide medical condition with a genetic basis and high comorbidity with certain other disorders. And as we gain better understanding, we're finding a significant fraction of the population isn't just a "lifestyle change" away from a cure. The only reason it's classified as a disorder is because of society's narrow views on what is normal and useful; Not because it's unnatural or needs to be "fixed". For some things, it's society that needs to adapt, not the individual.

Is camping necessary?

[rolfwind]

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.

Re:Turn off the god damn sun so I can get some sle

[hurwak-feg]

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.

Normal sleep cycle????

[Jeepster77]

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.

Re:Surprise

[greggman]

I'm calling BS. Which day are we talking about? A day at the equator? A day at the North Pole in summer? The length of sunlight varies all over the planet so it seems bs to claim that one specific daylight / night duration is special