Ah, November. The lengthening nights, the falling back into standard time, the chill in the air, the blessed rain. For many, the harvest time has passed. Plants are drawing their energy down, down into the Earth for necessary rest. Our bodies are signaled, too, that it is time to pull our energies inward, to get more sleep. To be with the beautiful dark, the night. To rest.
This is not so easy in our plugged-in, 24/7, capitalist-consumerist society. Even as I write this, I feel a quickening and a tension. For my agrarian ancestors in the far north, there were no doubt many challenges that came with winter, but they did not include navigating the physiologically confusing, opposing pulls of going inward to a quiet restful time and continuing the same level of engagement, productivity and stimulation well past sundown, year-round.
Resting when it is dark is essential for our health. Our bodies perform an infinite number of physiological processes every day and, like other aspects of nature, these processes are often cyclical. We have a “clock” in our body, set by the signals of light and dark, that stimulates the pineal gland in our brain—our “circadian rhythm.” While we often think of our circadian rhythm as governing our sleeping and waking, the natural cycles of light and dark direct much more than this. Our hormone levels, DNA repair processes, hunger and satiety signals, energy metabolism and immune system functions are also directly affected, as certain genes are switched on or off under conditions of light or dark.
Being exposed to light at night has major health impacts. Disrupting our body’s circadian rhythm with light when it is dark has been shown to lead to an increased risk of diabetes, obesity and even breast cancer. This is especially true for people who do shift work, and particularly those who alternate between night shifts and daytime work. Yet even sleeping in a room with a light or television on is associated with obesity and blood sugar problems (like insulin resistance, or pre-diabetes) that can over time progress to full-blown diabetes.
Even our mood and overall sense of wellbeing are directly connected to our circadian rhythm and cycles of light and dark. At one end of this spectrum is the condition known as seasonal affective disorder, in which a person experiences a dip in their mood with the coming of winter. With the lengthening days in the spring, the mood lifts. Though this can be effectively treated with anti-depressants for a few months of the year, for many it can be treated by supporting one’s own circadian rhythm by getting sunlight on one’s face every morning (or using a therapeutic lightbox of 10,000-luxe intensity) and refraining from excess screen time after sundown. But even for people who do not suffer from seasonal depression, having one’s circadian rhythm shifted by nighttime light can lead to irritability, changes in mood, difficulty sleeping and problems with focus, learning and memory.
How do we pull ourselves back into attunement with cycles of light and dark, work and rest, stimulation and inner reflection? Do the structures we find ourselves in even allow this? (Ahem, I’m looking at you, health care system.) If not, is there an opportunity to advocate for rest? Are there ways to say no to some activities to make time and space for deeper connection with self and loved ones? Are there sources of digital distraction, online rabbit holes of time-wasting you can avoid? If you are a night owl who has historically stayed up late writing emails or working on projects, can you experiment with rising at dawn and doing this work early? Speaking from personal experience, doing so has saved me time, as mental energy, clarity and efficiency are much better in the early hours than the wee late ones.
This is another invitation for us to re-examine the human-created structures in which we find ourselves. Few among us created the structures we’ve inherited, though we may be complicit in perpetuating, upholding or otherwise supporting structures that exhaust and deny us the ability to truly rest. As we reconsider how we have shaped our society for the profit of corporations (including the pharmaceutical industry and insurance companies), let us remember that our collective wealth is in our health. To be truly healthy, we must ensure there is time to rest and reconnect with natural cycles.
Our circadian rhythm is entraining us to the rhythms of the natural world. It is truly perilous to our health and wellbeing to deny ourselves this evolutionarily driven pleasure—for it is a pleasure to reconnect to the dark, to quietude, to stillness and to reflection. For most of us, acculturated as we are to constant stimulation, distraction and busyness, it takes a little getting used to. But as with a meditation practice, the benefits and pleasures reinforce the practice. Why not wind down in the evening by bundling up and sitting out under the stars, listening to the sounds of the night, noticing the phase of the moon and the constellations that are visible in this time of year, and then going to sleep (skipping that last check of email, the news or social media)? This will deeply nourish your body, mind and spirit. It will resituate us in the natural order of things, no longer divorced from the natural cycle of light and dark by our electrified reality. Enjoying candle-lit dinners, keeping the lights low, listening to relaxing music or the rare sound of silence—this grounding attunement to a restful evening works wonders on the nervous systems and sleep patterns for young and old alike. In this time of longer nights, may we hold the darkness as beautiful and supportive of our need to rest. May we say yes to the opportunity.
Anna O’Malley is a family and community medicine physician. She founded and directs Natura Institute for Ecology and Medicine in the Commonweal Garden.