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Specifically, exposure to light at night can throw your circadian rhythm out of whack, which raises the risk of inflammation. This increases the odds you’ll develop a host of different diseases.
A circadian rhythm is an entrainable, endogenous, biological activity that has a period of roughly twenty-four hours. This internal time-keeping mechanism is centralized in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of humans, and allows for the internal physiological mechanisms underlying sleep and alertness to become synchronized to external environmental cues, like the light-dark cycle. [4]
All living animals have an internal clock, the circadian rhythm, which is close to 24 hours' duration. For humans, the average duration is 24 hours and 20 minutes, and individually some people have more or less than 24 hours. Everyday exposure to the morning light resets the circadian rhythm to 24 hours, so that there is no drifting. [27]
DSPD is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, characterised by a mismatch between a person's internal biological clock and societal norms. [2] Chronotherapy uses the human phase response to light or melatonin. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has recommended chronotherapy for the treatment of circadian rhythm and sleep disorders. [3]
A formerly popular treatment, phase delay chronotherapy, is intended to reset the circadian clock by manipulating bedtimes. It consists of going to bed two or more hours later each day for several days until the desired bedtime is reached, and it often must be repeated every few weeks or months to maintain results.
These difficulties are not primarily caused by a circadian rhythm disorder. In the case of a circadian rhythm disorder treatments such as phototherapy or chronobiologic interventions might be more suitable. However many primary insomnia patients also show some degree of a chronobiologic dysregulation, so a combination of CBT-I and ...
Chronotherapy, also called chronotherapeutics [1] or chronotherapeutic drug delivery, [2] refers to the coordination of therapeutic treatments with an individual's circadian or other rhythmic cycles. This may be done to maximize effectiveness of a specific treatment, minimize possible side effects, or both. [3] [4]
Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder (ASPD), also known as the advanced sleep-phase type (ASPT) of circadian rhythm sleep disorder, is a condition that is characterized by a recurrent pattern of early evening (e.g. 7-9 PM) sleepiness and very early morning awakening (e.g. 2-4 AM).