Embrace the Night: Why Darkness is Good for You

by | Read time: 5 minutes

We hear a lot about lack of light making us sad and sluggish when winter hits and days shorten.

But darkness isn’t always bad, and artificial light, indoors or outdoors, is worse for you than you think. You need darkness for your health. So do animals and insects.

In fact, you, and all living beings, can’t survive without darkness.

Woman Meditating at Beach Before Full Moon to Represent Concept of Benefits of Darkness

The benefits of darkness

What’s key is following the natural rhythm of light and dark, the 24-hour cycle of day and night. (Exceptions for those who live in far northern or southern locales and have excessive darkness during winter.)

A heavy body of research shows that nocturnal light alters circadian rhythms and sleep. Your body needs the dark to wind down for nightly slumber.

The natural marker of fading light encourages your body to produce melatonin, the so-called sleep hormone. This happens through task-specific cells in your eyes that sense light. Those cells tell mission control for your internal clock, the suprachiasmatic nuclei, whether it’s day or night — and if you’re feeding them artificial light they don’t know the difference.

Your master clock is also important for hormone regulation, blood sugar levels and a bunch of other physiological matters. Wacko cycles can lead to everything from depression and mental health troubles to weight gain, cardiovascular disease and death. Yes: So important is sleep and the regulation of your internal systems that without it you’re on a faster track to death.

The situation is just as dire for insects and animals, which rely on darkness to know whether it’s night or day, where to fly and how to get there — to literally know what to do. Bugs swarming around outdoor lights at night is a simple, tragic example of how improper lighting harms living creatures.

Not a fan of insects? Consider this instead: An obliterated night sky means that migrating birds can’t see Polaris, the North Star around which other stars rotate. Want those cute hummingbirds to freeze because they can’t find their way to warmer climes ahead of winter? I didn’t think so.

But darkness benefits your health and wellness for less tragic reasons too.

Darkness encourages introspection and mental quiet.

Daylight invigorates you, makes you alert. Bright lights do too — that’s why man-made places that want your attention are brightly lit: schools, stores, gyms, the office.

Darkness calms you, obviously (melatonin — hello). That’s why you instinctively dim the lights to usher kiddos into bedtime.

When you’re calm, your mind is calm. Mental stillness means you have space to reflect and give your amped up insides a rest.

A dark night sky puts life in perspective.

We are less than a speck in the galaxy, let alone the universe. But you’d never know it, our siloed challenges and desires feeling outsize because we can barely see beyond the earth, stars muted in the night sky.

When a 1994 earthquake knocked out power in Los Angeles, startled residents called emergency centers — not because of injuries from errant candles or tumbles down dark stairwells. Instead, they panicked about “a giant, silvery cloud” in the night sky.

“What they were really seeing — for the first time — was the Milky Way, long obliterated by the urban sky glow,” researchers noted in a 2009 Environmental Health Perspectives journal article.

Darkness can boost creativity.

Darkness softens our inhibitions, so it’s no surprise it might help us think outside the box.

In fact, studies in a 2013 issue of the Journal of Environmental Psychology “revealed that darkness increases freedom from constraints, which in turn promotes creativity.”

The research also showed that darkness “triggers a risky, explorative processing style.”

Darkness is good for your wallet and the planet.

Everyone likes to save money. If you have solar power, good for you. Most of us don’t, so making outdoor lights scarce at night when they aren’t needed saves money. Our lower fossil-fuel consumption translates into a healthier earth too.

Smart ways to enjoy more darkness

Wonder how to keep lighting to a smart minimum? Read on.

Be smart about indoor lighting.

Wattage matters as far as brightness, but it’s not the only factor.

At night, before bed, use dim warmer tones in yellow to orange or amber hues that are under 2,000 on the Kelvin scale (lamps are better than overhead lights later at night too). You also want low intensity, or lumens: under 300.

If you’ve never heard of this stuff, fret not: It’s on bulb boxes.

Use appropriate outdoor lighting.

Light pollution — artificial light that alters natural nighttime darkness — is a growing problem. But it’s easily remedied.

Point shielded lights down: Be sure your lights illuminate only what needs to be illuminated, a footpath, for example. Glow that casts up and out does not make an area safer, research has shown. It also blinds you, and if you can’t see, that’s not helping your safety.

Use warm tones: Blue-toned daylight bulbs are for daytime, not nighttime. Use light bulbs under 3,000 on the Kelvin scale that come in lumens under 300.

Lobby local lawmakers for dark-sky best practices.

Letting darkness unfold naturally outside saves taxpayers money in the long run. And, again, it’s important for health — enough for the American Medical Association to make a case for it.

DarkSky International, the nonprofit organization formerly known as International Dark Sky Association, is the expert and arbiter in dark sky matters. Becoming a designated dark sky community is no small feat. It requires adhering to specific practices that respect the night sky, and local government has to codify the regulations.

Regardless, communities can develop simple best practices that prevent light from being wasted. For example, if the field your kid plays football in is lit all night long, that’s wasted light (and wasted taxpayer money). Those lights should be off when the field isn’t in use.

Other best practices include reducing blue-rich lights and making sure they are properly shielded and pointing down, same as in your own yard.

Mitra Malek writes about wellness. She’s married to a dedicated amateur astronomer, so she hears about light pollution regularly.

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