Can the summer solstice affect your sleep?
Did you know summer solstice can actually affect your sleep?
Here’s how:
Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year, when the Earth’s tilt positions it closest to the sun. In the Northern Hemisphere it falls on June 20th at 10:42 EDT. We consider it the first day of summer, a time of vacations and days lazing by the water or picnics in the park with friends.
Melatonin
But for those with sleep challenges, the solstice can be a mixed blessing. More daylight hours for fun in the sun also leads to decreased levels of melatonin, the hormone that regulates the sleep/wake cycle, allowing you to fall asleep more easily and sleep more deeply. Your body naturally produces melatonin in the hours of darkness, and decreases production as the light intensifies. So if you already have issues falling asleep you may notice the longer days leading up to and after the solstice only add to the difficulty of achieving the holy grail of sleepless humans everywhere: sleeping deeply and waking refreshed and ready to enjoy the warm sunny day ahead.
Light Exposure
Another factor causing headaches for the sleepless during longer summer days: increased, prolonged light exposure. In order for your body to align with its natural circadian rhythms, which tells it when to sleep and when its time to rev up the engines and start the day, it needs to have a balance of darkness and light: complete darkness for a few hours before sleep, natural direct light exposure in the early morning. When the sun sets late in the evening and rises earlier on those glorious summer mornings around the solstice, it leaves us with fewer hours of natural darkness to rest. This can leave the more sensitive among us feeling wired when we should feel tired, and cause us to stumble through the day bleary eyed and half asleep.
So, is there anything you can do to neutralize this dilemma, get some sleep and still soak up every last drop of joy offered by these precious summer days?
Anything available to allow sleep challenged humans to get enough rest during these days of increased light exposure so they can go out there and gorge themselves on the first strawberries of the season as Swedish tradition dictates or dance around bonfires on mid-summer’s Eve, honoring rituals seeded in pre-history?
Why, yes, there is!
Here are a few easy solutions for sleepless nights during the summer solstice challenge:
- Get some black-out curtains to create a dark cozy cave you can retreat to for rest. This gives you some control over how much light you are exposed to on a daily basis, so that you can go to sleep earlier or sleep later.
- Natural fiber bedding made of fabrics such as cotton or bamboo neutralizes any static electricity buildup so that your energy field stays coherent.
- Declutter your sleeping space so that this area looks and feels calm, balanced and serene.
- Change all light bulbs in your home to incandescent rather than LED. LED bulbs emit frequencies that can disrupt your biofield, making it more difficult to relax.
- Do not sleep with any devices nearby. Turn off all routers and switch your phone to airplane mode. Limit your use of laptops, cell phones, computers, tablets, and tv’s before bed, shutting them down at least two hours before you hit the pillow.
- Use the time before sleep to practice calming breathing techniques and meditations that allow you to release tension and encourage deep relaxation. (You can find many examples of these on line.)
- Do not eat at least three hours before bed. Cut down on caffeine consumption, or if you are a brave soul, try eliminating it all together. If you just have to have it, make sure you indulge before noon.
- Listen to calming music or nature sounds: classical recordings, birdsong, ocean waves, falling rain to help you relax. My personal favorite nature sound recordings are birdsong. We evolved to relax and feel safe when the birds feel safe enough to sing. It signals to us there are no predators nearby and the environment is a nurturing one.
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