Holistic Beauty from the Inside Out (9 page)

Various studies suggest that shift work that is completely out of tune with the human body clock increases risk of developing cardiovascular and gastrointestinal disorders, some types of cancer
including cancers of colon, breast, and prostate, and mental disorders including depression and anxiety. In fact, the International Agency on Research on Cancer (IARC) has recently classified “shift work that involves circadian disruption” as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” and calls artificial light during the daily dark period (biological night) as a human carcinogen.
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Electric light in the evening messes up our circadian rhythm. Thankfully, the usual lighting in most homes is not enough to severely mess up our inner body clock. But if your lights in the house have a blue tint—such as, for example, fluorescent lights in the kitchen—the damage to your circadian rhythm may be higher. Also, light coming from above has greater impact on our body clock than light coming from the ground up. This is because our brain associates the light from above with a bright sunny day and light from below with a sunset. After dark, dim lamplights kept on low surfaces are best.

When we hear from our grandparents about how they had to get up at four o’clock in the morning to feed the cattle, we reel in horror. But we forget that people who live in tune with nature have the most perfectly set body clock. They fall asleep shortly after the sun goes down. They may get up shortly before the sun goes up, but only during the winter. Such luxury is nonexistent in the civilized world. We go to bed and wake up in disagreement with the natural human circadian rhythm. No wonder we have so much trouble sleeping.

HOW MUCH SLEEP DO WE REALLY NEED?

Sleep deprivation today is almost fashionable. We all know we must get our proverbial eight glasses of water a day, but when it comes to required eight hours of sleep, we give ourselves an enormous amount of slack.

Seven to nine hours of uninterrupted sleep is a classical recommendation when it comes to a healthy sleep. Eight hours of sleep has long been considered the gold standard for pillow time.

But how many of us can honestly say we sleep more than six hours every night? With our relentless online socializing and the availability of late night TV, sleep seems just so boring. Not to mention those lucky individuals who have more exciting things to do at night besides tweeting, chatting, and browsing. And we are not even talking about sleep-deprived new mothers for whom puffy eyes and pallid complexion are not a misery but a badge of honor.

Keep this number in your head: six hours is the minimum you should allow yourself to sleep every day. Anything less than that is just as devastating for your health as smoking, binge drinking, and surviving solely on fast food.

MELATONIN TO THE RESCUE

The quality of our sleep and the rhythmical function of our body clock are governed by the hormone melatonin. Known as the “hormone of darkness,” melatonin is a powerful antioxidant, reportedly six to ten times more effective than vitamin E. Lack of melatonin is linked to Alzheimer’s
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and Parkinson’s diseases;
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glaucoma;
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depressive disorder;
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breast,
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prostate,
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liver,
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ovarian,
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and colorectal cancers;
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and melanoma.
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As a natural antioxidant with immunity-enhancing properties, this cancer scavenger protects skin cells and mitochondrial DNA and
stimulates the release of anti-inflammatory substances such as interleukins and interferon, according to the findings by scientists from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York.
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Lack of sleep, nighttime work, frequent wakefulness, and sleeping with a light source in the bedroom all disrupt normal circadian rhythms and may increase the risk of developing cancer. Even a dim light in the bedroom can seep through eyelids and disrupt melatonin release.
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It has been suspected that women who sleep with a light source in their bedrooms have an increased risk for breast cancer.
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As a hormone, melatonin counteracts the effects of estrogens. Low levels of melatonin during the night automatically mean higher levels of reproductive hormones fluctuating in the woman’s body during the day. As a result, sleep-deprived women or those who must work during the night have higher risk of breast and other hormone dependent cancers.

Melatonin appears to protect our youthful looks as well. Melatonin helps protect our skin from UV skin damage and also helps the skin to produce another powerful protective substance, vitamin D.

There are several natural ways to preserve melatonin levels. Thankfully, these healthy lifestyle changes also help boost your mood and improve sleep.

Increase your daytime and especially morning sunlight exposure. If the sky is overcast for many days in a row, invest in a light therapy device. You can even get an alarm clock with a built in light therapy device such as Philips Wake-Up Light, which simulates sunrise to wake you up naturally and pleasantly in the dark mornings.

Eliminate all sources of light in your bedroom. Keep your bedroom dark and quiet. Get rid of night lights, alarm clocks with visible digits, and plug off all electric appliances to avoid those red and green LED lights shining from the corners. If you must keep one alarm clock, turn it toward the wall so less light
escapes. Place a towel under the door if the outside light is creeping into your bedroom.

Invest in a high quality blinds to prevent the “visual noise” from the street lights entering your bedroom. Roller “blackout blinds” that completely block the light from the outside are very helpful. Your bedroom should be so dark, you should not be able to see your fingers if you stretch your arm. If you have trouble finding your way in complete darkness (for example, if you need to get out of the room in emergency), paint decorative footsteps leading to the door on the floor with a fine glow-in-the-dark marker. You can also lightly trace furniture edges to avoid bumping into them in the darkness.

BLUE LIGHT EQUALS SLEEPLESS NIGHT

If you are feeling blue, it may mean that your life is overloaded with sneaking blue light. Modern technology emits blue rays from numerous sources: screens of computers, laptops, and phones are all major sources of melatonin-disrupting blue light.
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Blue light-enriched overhead lights have been shown to increase worker alertness, and are often installed in offices.

Here are some other easy steps to reduce the flow of blue light in your life: Install a free program called F.lux (
www .flux.com
) on your computer. When enabled, F.lux adapts the hues on your computer to the ambient light, and reduces blue light emissions. Use candles more often. Candles as sources of light are extremely beneficial for your health. The light of candle flames contains virtually no blue light, so there’s little damage to your circadian rhythms. Late night TV browsing will dramatically worsen your sleep. If you think that spending a quiet evening in front of the telly will soothe your nerves, reconsider. More likely, it will numb your brain and suppress your melatonin levels thanks to excessive emission of blue rays. Read a book, enjoy a hobby, or meditate instead of wasting your time in front of the TV. Avoid blue, green, or red tinted night-lights. Instead, stick to a dim
yellow light for nighttime emergencies. My daughter’s favorite night-light is an LED-lighted yellow rubber duck that emits just enough yellow light to soothe and comfort her if she wakes up.

DELICIOUS SLEEPING CURES

The traditional sleep remedy, a cup of warm milk at bedtime, has a lot of scientific studies proving its worth. Milk contains tryptophan, an essential amino acid, which is a precursor of sleep improving neurotransmitter serotonin. Foods that contain tryptophan and increase serotonin levels include turkey, fish, chicken, cheese, nuts, eggs, and beans. Complex carbohydrates, such as a scoop of brown rice, a handful of nuts, or a few tablespoons of legumes, are essential to helping your brain properly process the tryptophan in protein.

Zinc and magnesium are great not just for your skin and hair condition; these minerals are important for healthy sleep. Magnesium supplements can be used for sleep support. Buckwheat, tomato paste, artichokes, spinach, almonds, cashews, and pumpkin seeds are rich in magnesium, while shellfish (especially oysters), beef, dairy, beans, and oats are excellent sources of zinc. Combine them creatively and eat them at dinner for an easier drift into sleepiness.

Eat a lot of cherries in all forms: fresh, dried, frozen, or as a juice. Cherries are believed to be one of the most concentrated sources of melatonin. Melatonin from food enters the bloodstream and binds to sites in the brain where it helps restore the body’s natural levels of melatonin, which can help enhance the natural sleep process. Bananas, corn, and oats also contain melatonin, but in considerably smaller amounts.

CAN LIGHT AT NIGHT CAUSE SKIN CANCER?

The lack of sleep can wreak havoc on your health, but can it actually cause skin cancer? Epidemiologists from Institut Gustave
Roussy in Villejuif, France, suspect that some melanomas may be caused by artificial light.
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Here’s why.

Melanoma rates have been increasing faster than that of any other cancer in recent decades. The main risk factors for skin cancer such as exposure to sunlight, skin tags (nevus) count, phototype (your skin tone), and family history of melanoma may not always explain why this skin cancer is so widespread today. Our sleep patterns, or, to be exact, the lack of sleep patterns may hold the key to the melanoma epidemic.

Studies across the world acknowledge the fact that the increasing use of artificial light-at-night contributed to the increasing breast cancer incidence.
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As described briefly above, artificial light suppresses the secretion of melatonin, a hormone produced in the dark and inhibited by light, which regulates circadian rhythms. As we already know, melatonin has antioxidant and anticarcinogenic effects that protect the human DNA from mutations. But it also regulates the release of skin pigment melanin in skin cells. Melanin is a natural UV screen inside our skin. The more melatonin is released, the more melanin is produced in our skin, and more natural UV protection from rays we obtain.

People who have skin cancer, especially melanoma, have lower levels of melatonin in their bodies. This could explain why melanoma is common in pilots and aircrews, with increased risk for those traveling with higher exposure to UV rays at higher altitudes. At the same time, office workers exposed to fluorescent lighting also have high risks of melanoma.
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In this case, blue-tinted fluorescent light that promotes alertness also halts melatonin production. In women, melatonin inhibition increases the risk of melanoma by increasing estrogen levels.

Despite all the supporting evidence, the light-at-night hypothesis has never been directly tested for melanoma. Until the science knows more, your best ally in skin health may not be your sunscreen after all, but your dark, quiet bedroom and regular sleeping hours.

HOW SLEEP HELPS YOU LOSE WEIGHT

Sleep more, weigh less? It could be the perfect slogan for the weight-loss campaign. According to several studies, women who sleep five hours or less per night weigh more on average than those who sleep seven hours. The study found that women who slept for five hours per night were 32 percent more likely to experience major weight gain—gaining 33 pounds or more. But women who slept more are only 15 percent more likely to become obese over the course of the famous sixteen-year Nurses’ Health Study that included 68,183 middle-aged women.
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On average, women who slept five hours or less per night weighed 5.4 pounds more at the beginning of the study than those sleeping seven hours and gained an additional Ⅰ.6 pounds more over the next ten years.

“That may not sound like much, but it is an average amount—some women gained much more than that, and even a small difference in weight can increase a person’s risk of health problems such as diabetes and hypertension,” says lead researcher Sanjay Patel, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

The combination of chronic stress and high-fat, high-sugar diet causes more weight gain than an unhealthy diet would do on its own, according to the research. A brain chemical called neuropeptide-Y (NPY) stimulates appetite and contributes to weight gain. The combination of chronic stress and a high-calorie diet increases the amounts of this neuropeptide in abdominal fat which in turn promotes the growth of new fat cells all over the body. Scientists found that a low-calorie low-glycemic diet that would incorporate daily stress-relieving techniques would help people lose weight more efficiently than would a traditional calorie-restricted weight loss plan.
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