Dave Asprey, the American biohacker, author and entrepreneur, has been adamant for years that even tiny amounts of light – like the pinhead-sized red light that comes from a television screen to indicate it’s off – can ruin your sleep.
The biohacker is now delighted that an extensive new study supports his view, and he took to Instagram to share the results of the study.
“Small amount[s] of light raised the blood sugar and heart rate of healthy young people.”
Asprey also shared a few awesome tips that’ll give you the best deep sleep you’ve ever had – every single night – and they all involve getting rid of all lights in your room before you sleep; even the street light that leaks in through your curtains or blinds.
“Unplug or tape over every source of light in your room. Get real light-blocking curtains. [And] put velcro around the edges of your curtains so zero light gets in.”
Asprey has explained in a past Instagram post why artificial lights – or as Asprey calls them ‘junk lights’ – mess with your sleep and cause bad health which is why it’s so important to eliminate any source of light in your bedroom before sleeping and have a completely dark room – which Asprey calls a ‘sleep cave.’
“All of those [artificial lights] mess with your mitochondria. And here’s something almost no one knows about: Our cells make light. Just like an LED light bulb. They just make little tiny bits of it.”
“And at night, our cells talk to each other with light. [But] then, if it’s bright though, the light from a single LED bulb can overwhelm the light that your body uses to communicate with itself and then all the repair processes that were supposed to happen at night, they don’t work. And instead of working as a system, your body works as a bunch of little different things that can’t talk to each other.”
“This is why having a sleep cave is so terribly important. For your mitochondrial function, for your brain and for not getting every kind of disease that you can name.”
If you’re wondering what mitochondria are, put simply, they’re a part of your cells that turn your food into fuel and give you energy. So, they are extremely important and it’s wild to think that just by sleeping with a few small lights on, you could ruin their process as well as your body’s natural repair mechanism.
As Asprey advises, not only will you help your mitochondria and repair processes by turning your room into a sleep cave, you may also double your deep sleep; he does.
“I double my deep sleep when I completely avoid junk light… Go into your bedroom and look for every LED that’s on at night and cover them up!”
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