Why Blue Light Is Messing With Your Sleep

How'd you sleep last night?  

If you're someone who has trouble sleeping or even if you feel like your sleep isn't optimal, there are many, many healthy natural ways you can experiment to help your sleep, before going to pharmaceutical sleep "aids".  
(Not in this post but alcohol and caffeine can be HUGE contributors to poor sleep)

I'm not sure many of these people exist, so I'm going to assume you are exposing yourself to "blue light" after the sun has gone down.  Blue light is a certain wavelength that is emitted from all sorts of sources - the sun, fluorescent or LED lights, and electronic devices for example.   

When we are exposed to this form of light from the sun and other sources, the hormone melatonin is down-regulated.  Melatonin is our sleep hormone, and we've brilliantly evolved over millions of years to signal the body via melatonin when it's time to sleep.  I.e. sun goes down, melatonin goes up as does our sleepiness - sun comes up, melatonin goes down, wakefulness increases.

So what happens if we expose ourselves to other forms of blue light after the sun has gone down?  Unfortunately (or not) our melatonin has not yet had the time (50 years at most?) to evolve to distinguish between the sun and electronic devices - slight sarcasm ;)  So what happens is our melatonin "thinks" the iPhone is the sun and down-regulates, effecting our tiredness and ability to fall asleep.

Ever feel tired around sun down, then spend an hour or two watching T.V., staring at a computer screen and/or on your phone - and then try and go to bed and wonder why you can't fall asleep?  That could very well be explained by this idea here.  

If you'd like to read an elaboration on this idea and what you can do (red lights, blue blockers etc.) please CLICK HERE "Why Blue Light Is Messing With Your Sleep"

CAPTION CONTEST!
"MelatoninFIt"

Workout:

For time:
Two times through the following four couplets with two minutes rest between couplets:
10 maneaters (25/35# DBs)
30 double unders

10/15 cal assault bike
10 KBSs (53/70)

30 m prowler push (90/180)
10 DB bench press (45/70s)

15/20 calorie row
15 meter front rack walking lunge (30/40# DBs)