Now that the alarm wakes us less early, we can better keep to our natural rhythm. A positive change, says chronobiologist Roelof Hut. “It is much healthier to get up when you wake up automatically. The alarm clock shortens your sleep.”
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Water consumption
Before we started working from home, there was always a peak in water consumption around seven in the morning. Today, however, it is more than an hour later.
Source: Vitens
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Hut emphasizes the importance of getting enough sleep. “It is the way for the brain to recover. Your immune system also improves when you sleep. So it is not a waste of time, but a good investment to maintain your body. By getting enough sleep – according to your own biological clock – the chance of health complaints. “
Artificial light
Not only the alarm clock can disturb our biological clock; artificial light does that too. “This ensures that we go to bed later, and that is harmful. Thanks to foreign studies, we know that structurally twenty minutes of sleep deprivation per night leads to disruption of the biological clock and an increased risk of various cancers, depression and heart failure.”
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Hut recommends that home workers provide enough morning light. “First go for a walk in daylight. It is precisely that light that ensures that you wake up and fall asleep earlier in the evening.”
Near infrared
For people who simply have to go to work despite corona, special lamps may offer a solution in the future. “We started a study this month to see whether lamps with so-called near-infrared light can strengthen people’s immune system and improve our biological clock in a natural way”, researcher and chronobiologist Marijke Gordijn tells EditieNL.
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“We now know the positive effects of blue light on, for example, a winter depression. But not those of near infrared light. You cannot see or feel that light. It occurs in the air and in the sun, not in artificial light.”
Sleep better
The light would have a positive effect. “We think that this light penetrates the cells of your skin. They contain small energy factories (mitochondria) that are stimulated by it. That would improve your immune system and your day / night rhythm.”
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For the next four weeks, forty test subjects will sit in front of such a near-infrared light lamp for three hours a day. “We measure health effects for them by monitoring heart rate, melatonin, sleep and cortisol levels.”
“If our suspicions are confirmed, such a lamp would be a solution for many people. Nowadays we spend a large part of the day indoors and therefore receive less of this type of near-infrared light. It affects our health.”
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