Sleep habits in the land of the midnight sun

Image by trondsjovoll from Pixabay

I listened to a long podcast about the importance of sleep and to keep a solid routine for your circadian rhythm. It was nothing new under the sun, except for a couple of eye-opening facts such that shift workers die 15 years earlier on average (!). A proper sleep habit with enough hours in bed gives massive, massive health benefits and reduced risks for just about everything. It all sounds great on paper, but to apply it up here in the north of Sweden is slightly frustrating…

I live in Umeå, which is by no means the worst place to live with regards to dark winters and midnight sun. It gets a lot more dramatic the further north you go. But needless to say, I experience a significant decrease in energy and mood every winter. When the days are shortest the last week before Christmas, the sun barely scrapes the horizon before going down again. And if combined with a late onset of snow, you get an infinite supply of darkness. It is pitch black when you wake up and it is pitch black when you get back from work, and then the cycle repeats. Very depressive. It is increasingly difficult to get out of bed in the morning and I feel very tired. The only chance of sunlight is to cherish the lunch hour and perhaps grab an extra-long lunch with a long walk, if your hour bank allows it.

In the summer the complete opposite occurs. Days get longer and longer until the sun just about never sets. But I have noticed that even now in April, it is considerably easy to get out of bed very early. I also feel more energized and sharper. I am convinced that I have the sun to thank for this phenomenon. Apparently, one of the best things you can do for yourself in the morning, is to get as much sunlight as possible. This is beyond easy during the current part of the year, because now the sun usually rises before me. I usually go down to the beach and embrace the sunlight in the morning every day, and it truly feels great.

In the evening, the best we can do for ourselves is to not get exposed to strong light before bed. This alters the chemical stuff going on inside our bodies and help us prepare for sleep. Turn off screens and dampen and disable lighting a couple of hours before bed will bring massive benefits. Even those small green or red LED lights from phone chargers and whatnot that cannot be turned off, will have a measurable quality reduction of sleep. That tells us something about how important this issue is. We are pre-programmed to follow the sun’s day/night cycle.

But still, even if I entered some kind of monk-mode self-control, I cannot help living in the north of Sweden with its massive changes in the daylight hours during a typical year. Strong bedroom curtains that block external light is important during summer months. But to be in a dark place an hour or two before bed, is a bit delusional when you live in the land of the midnight sun. It would only work certain parameters.

A nice little life-hack that was not mentioned in the podcast with the sleep researcher, is to use red lights. You can find them as replacement “smart” RGB bulbs or LED light strips in electric stores. I remember from my earlier hobby as a stargazer, that a headlamp with red light is fantastic for night orientation. When you are in a dark place, your eyes will familiarize with the darkness and “change some settings in the eye” to optimize for night vision. That change takes some time. However, turn on a bright light in such a case, and our fancy noise measurement is lost. But the red light is at the edge of the visible wavelength spectrum. And thus, you can use red light for headlamps, flashlights while keeping you prepared night vision.

Anyways, I am sure that I need to optimize and orient my life more towards sleep. The key takeaway on how to achieve a proper sleep routine is to always get out of bed the same time every day, no matter how yesterday was for you. Do that, and you will naturally be so tired in the evening that any night-owl ideas will seem reasonable.