Getting a good night’s sleep means not only banishing your smartphone from the bedside table but also keeping the bathroom light off while cleaning your teeth, a London scientist has advised.
Maintaining darkness when visiting the loo at night helps too, according to the inventor of a new smart sensor for monitoring exposure to light.
Lys, a £75 lapel device which launches today, gives the wearer targets for the level of healthy light needed to balance natural circadian rhythms. It was developed by Imperial College London masters graduate Christina Blach Petersen, who is raising £50,000 in a Kickstarter campaign.
Lys, meaning “light” in Danish, tracks lux and colour levels and then sends the data to an app via Bluetooth, which sets a real-time “daylight goal” similar to daily step challenges on fitness devices.
The £2 coin-sized sensor is designed to track light in the same way as the photoreceptors in human eyes.
Ms Blach Petersen, a 28-year-old Dane from Notting Hill, came up with the idea after feeling the effects of fluorescent studio lighting.
She said people should avoid blue light in the run-up to bedtime. She recommends getting at least 30 minutes of “high intensity natural light” at the beginning of the day, and looking out of the window to “wake up your system”. All participants who completed a trial of Lys earlier this year found the average time it took for them to fall asleep dropped from 27 minutes to 16 minutes and their daytime energy levels increased.
Ms Blach Petersen said: “At night you want to produce melatonin to sleep better and during the day you want to tell your body to be active and alert.
“Melatonin production is linked to cellular repair, memory consolidation and information processing during the night. During the night you should avoid blue light two to three hours before going to sleep. If your bathroom has bright white or blue then turn it off while you brush your teeth before bed.”