Do you love to crawl into bed and watch some Netflix before falling asleep? Or do you love falling asleep with the TV on and have your TV set on a timer to turn off after a certain duration of time? Maybe you are someone that likes to catch up on your Instagram stories before heading to bed. Or you always find yourself in bed on your laptop working right up until the very minute you go to bed. If either of these scenarios sound like you, then you could be at a higher risk of gaining weight due to these habits alone.
A new finding discovers that exposure to artificial light while sleeping at night may be a risk factor for weight gain. This is the first of its kind so additional research is necessary but what if more research finds the same to be true? Would you change your nightly habits?
Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) used questionnaire data from approximately 44,000 women who were asked whether they slept with no light, a small nightlight, light outside of the room, a light on in the room or TV on in the room. Findings suggest that those who slept with a light on in the room or the TV on in the room were 17% more likely to have gained 11 pounds or more weight over the study’s length of 5 years. Those that slept with small night lights didn’t seem to have an effect.
We have talked about before how poor sleep can affect our weight, so this is no surprise that the artificial (or blue) light messing with our sleep causing the same issue. Getting a crappy night’s sleep can increase our appetite, cause sugar cravings, slow down our metabolism, as well as leave you not feeling refreshed in the morning but leave you feeling stressed, depressed, and anxious. Add on more than one day of this and your body really gets stressed out. Stressed out enough that even your gut’s microbiome gets thrown off.
Here are 3 Ways to Stop the Blue Light Weight Gain:
- Put your electronic devices away 60 minutes before bed or just turn them off.
- If you must use your phone, turn on its night mode function.
- If you find that you fall asleep better with a TV on, then invest in some blue light filtering glasses to wear while you watch the TV to fall asleep to.
- To really block out all light potential, wear an eye mask.
