So viewing bright light in the late evening hours and nighttime hours is really not good for your sleep quality and your ability to fall and stay asleep . So for most people , a simple rule of thumb is going to be avoid bright artificial lights of all colors and in particular overhead bright artificial lights between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. That's right between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. Avoid those bright artificial lights as much as possible . Use only as much light as is absolutely necessary .
Now , Melatonin , a lot of people think of as a supplement , but melatonin is naturally released as the evening comes about and into the nighttime hours , it's a hormone that makes you feel sleepy and allows you to fall asleep . So viewing bright light in the late evening hours and nighttime hours is really not good for your sleep quality and your ability to fall and stay asleep . So for most people , a simple rule of thumb is going to be avoid bright artificial lights of all colors and in particular overhead bright artificial lights between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. That's right between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. Avoid those bright artificial lights as much as possible .
So this is a beautiful adaptive mechanism that allows these cells to respond to overhead light from sunlight in the early part of the day and throughout the day . But in the evening , if you have bright artificial lights on , and those bright artificial lights are overhead lights , it's going to more closely mimic what sunlight does in the evening time . And that turns out to be a bad thing if your goal is to eventually go to sleep .
And then throughout the night , there are a number of things that you're going to want to do and there are a number of things that you are going to want to avoid doing in order to optimize your sleep . First of all , you're going to want to avoid bright artificial lights of any color . Yes , of any color .
So what that means is that once the sun goes down , which of course is going to happen at different times of year in different places on earth . But once the sun goes down , you would be wise to try and dim the lights in your indoor environment most days . Right ?
