Daylight

What is a day without light?

Just a day, without light? Whether it’s bright sunny or foggy outside, it still is a day.

We all wake up to a morning lit up with electricity in our rooms and have a day under the fancy bulbs and tube lights glowing towards the end of the day, and throughout the night.

We work, walk, eat and sleep under the enormous artificial lightings, that sometimes we barely know the difference between day and night. On one hand, we are blessed with science. It has created a world where nights are brighter, and human activities are carried out endlessly.

However, researches show that in modern cities humans spend about 90% of their times indoors under unnatural lights. Which means the biological need of the body to be exposed to daily cycles of light and dark is not fulfilled. The cycle of light and dark regulates the circadian system of the body and enhances our energy. So think about some of us whose curtains remain drawn all the time. Some of us barely see the sunshine in a week.

I recently learned one reason why I feel tired most of the time. I cannot blame anyone else for this but myself. I leave my curtains drawn all day because I hate the sun glaring relentlessly through the windows. It’s during night time when I open them because I like the way the window glasses turn glossy black and the way everything is silenced. I realized that I am not exposed to an appropriate amount of light and darkness which, according to some studies, is dangerous. Without proper light, we lose hours of sleep daily and this causes imbalance in our sleep-wake cycles.

This leads to Chronic Sleep Debt. I am in a huge debt of sleep. There isn’t a single day I am not tired and sometimes I am just tired doing nothing. After learning about how important daylight is, I am no more blaming the healthy schedule(which otherwise was crazy), I am following. Humans are capable of working eighteen hours a day, which is in fact as long as I sleep some weekends and still wake up with a lazy mood.

Our days may be brighter with electricity but it is not enough. I am hoping that this article has told you a little bit about how important daylight is. And if not, I hope it has moved you to study more and deep about it.