Do you know that a 60 year old person would have spent 20 years sleeping ? !

Are you aware that your sleep influenced the quality of your health, hence your life ? !

Why is sleep good?  Find out how important it is to understand the phenomena of sleeping !

Danger of Light On

Not many of us realised the effect of sleeping in total darkness.  In fact, it has always been a practice to have at least the bed side lamp switched on when sleeping.  Some would just leave the toilet lamp on during sleeping.  This is especially so as far as children are concerned.

However, it is very distressful to know that children sleeping with the artificial light on fall under the very high risk of contracting leukemia.  Studies have shown that for the last 40 years, the number of children contracting leukemia has doubled.

In fact, 500 children below the age of 15 have been diagnosed with leukemia every year.  Out of this figure, 100 children have actually died.  Don’t you think this is an alarming figure?   It is sure very alarming!

What is the cause of this tragedy?

How should we address this alarm?

Does it have anything to do with our sleeping habits?

Causes Cancer Disease

Recent studies by scientists from the West and Israel discovered that sleeping with the artificial light on at night, activates the cancer cells.  Even a short period of light exposure is enough to activate these cancer cells.

According to Prof. Russell Reiter of Texas University, an exposure of light, one time for just one minute will be detected by the brain as if the body has been exposed to the light for a whole day.

Besides that, Dr Rachel Ben Sclomo of University of Haifa, emphasized that it is advisable not to switch on the light when you wake up in the middle of the night as this has effect on a person’s biology, due to its sensitive mechanism.

So, what causes the danger behind sleeping with the light on or in other words how does sleeping with the light on at night affect our body chemistry?

Lynne Eldridge MD, a health activist and also a writer on “Avoiding Cancer One Day at A Time” stated that a blind woman has 80% less risk of breast cancer compared to other women.  It is believed that the failure of light to penetrate the eyes, increases the body immunity.

How is this so?

Have you heard of Melatonin?

What is Melatonin?

Natural Sleeping Aids Melatonin

Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland.  It is an immunity hormone that is capable of fighting and preventing many illnesses including breast and prostrate cancer.  It is important to ensure constant melatonin production as the decreased in the production of melatonin will in fact weakened the immunity system.

Moreover, melatonin helps to control our ‘sleep and awake’ button.

Besides that, melatonin is also claimed to have anti-ageing properties.

What are the factors that influenced the production of melatonin?

Many of us might not be aware of how melatonin is produced.

Studies have revealed that the production of melatonin has great connection with the condition we sleep.

Biologist Joan Robert found the secret of melatonin production through some studies.  According to her, it should be highly noted that this melatonin hormone is produced during our night sleep.

However, this melatonin hormone could not be produced with the presence of light.  In fact, the presence of light will actually stop the production of melatonin.

In other words, the body will only be able to produce melatonin hormone when there is absolutely no light when sleeping.  This means that for the body to produce this melatonin hormone, we have to sleep in total darkness.

 

Improve Quality Sleep

Sleeping without the light on, not only saves the energy, but most importantly increases the health.

As such, it is not advisable to sleep while watching the TV.  Lights or rays that are transmitted from the TVs or computers, affect the production of melatonin hormone, hence weakened our immunity system.

Besides that, light affects and diminishes our quality sleep.  This is because light is a stimulator to the brain.  As a matter of fact, light will penetrate our eyes although in sleeping mode thus enters the stimulator cell which the brain will then respond.

In other words, even though the eyes are closed, but if there is light, the brain will respond.  Therefore, the brain is active.  This affect the quality of our sleep.

Why quality sleep (at night) is crucial?

Sleep and Health Benefits

Quality sleep (at night) optimizes the detoxification process.  It neutralizes the toxin that contaminates the body.  Body detoxification reaches maximum optimization during sleep.  This mechanism has a close tie with the production of antioxidant for neutralizing toxin.

Moreover, in quality sleep, liver detoxification is at its optimum especially in the formation of amino acid glutathione as antioxidant that neutralizes stress oxidation and free radicals.

Why is sleep good?  Well, having known the effect of quality sleep and its consequences, it is only wise for us to be mindful of our sleep.  By nature, our body is in-built with an internal clock that will work superb if monitored properly.   We should be more organized with our life so that we can live a healthy life naturally.

 

Should you have any views, suggestions or comments, feel free to pen them in the comments box. Looking forward to your response.

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Your friend in health,

Norleila