To keep our brains and bodies working, we need to get enough sleep. But light in the room can keep you from getting that important sleep.
This is because circadian rhythms are controlled by light and dark.
When it’s light out, our bodies tell us to wake up. When it’s dark, they tell us to go to sleep.
Scientists have found that people who use eye masks to bed report feeling more refreshed upon waking up.
According to experts who tested the claim, just filtering off light, whether it from street lighting, electronic devices, or the sun, can help prevent drowsiness.
It is an “effective and inexpensive” approach,” according to study author Viviana Greco.
Experts from Cardiff University did two similar experiments to find out if wearing an eye mask makes a difference.
In the first, 89 people between the ages of 18 and 35 spent a week sleeping with eye masks on.
During the second week, they did not bring it to bed.
So that the study wouldn’t be messed up, volunteers were asked to sleep at home and go to bed at their usual time.
Ms. Greco and her team suspected that the early dawn during summer would make the eye mask more effective, and therefore, they conducted the study during this season.
Three separate tests to gauge participants’ cognitive abilities were administered to them in the mornings of the sixth and seventh days.
Findings indicated that during the masking week, individuals performed better on a word-pair association test.
Also, their response speeds were around 10 milliseconds faster.
In the third test, however, when participants had to rapidly push keys on a computer keyboard while tapping a sequence with their hand, the masks had no discernible impact.
In a second trial, 35 participants between the ages of 18 and 35 wore a sleep-monitoring device.
In order for Ms. Greco’s team to record the light intensity when participants woke up, they were also instructed to place a light meter on their pillows.
Participants wore a mask for two of the nights, and for the other two, a mask with cutouts so that it can’t block any light.
According to the data published in the journal Sleep, sleep diaries did not reveal any differences between mask wearers and non-mask wearers in terms of sleep duration or self-assessed quality.
The findings of the trial showed “improved reaction times and improved memory performance,” according to the author.
As the authors put it, “the implications of our results are significant on many daytime tasks like driving a car or any educational or cultural context that requires learning.”
Researchers speculate that increased slow wave activity in the brain when wearing a eye mask may account for their results.
Although while the team wasn’t able to capture slow wave sleep, it’s common knowledge that this kind of sleep helps replenish the brain’s capacity to encode information.
According to studies, this period of sleep, which may make up to a fifth of total sleep duration, helps to repair connections between brain cells that might fray while you’re awake.
According to experts, this procedure enhances learning.
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