ON BEING OUTDOORS, DREAMING AND KEEPING REGULAR HOURS

Last night I came across a few lines from Thomas Jefferson (US president, diplomat, architect, lawyer, philosopher – why don’t they make them like that now??) written over 200 years ago and was struck by how they chimed with a few medical studies I’d just read:

‘Walking is the best possible exercise,’ he wrote, ‘A little walk of half an hour in the morning, when you first rise, is advisable. It shakes off sleep and produces other good effects… Rise at a fixed and an early hour, and go to bed at a fixed and an early hour also.’

I’ve been banging on about a 30 minute walk within an hour of waking for as long as I can remember (now proven to set our circadian clocks, halt production of melatonin, get oxygen circulating to the brain and so on).  And I’ve written about sleep regularity too.

But a report published in January provided yet more evidence for what Jefferson knew instinctively – that regularity of sleep matters. In fact this study found that regularity was more important than duration. In other words, more important than how long we sleep is that we keep consistent hours. As the researchers wrote, regular hours are ‘a more important marker of health than sleep duration… our findings challenge the long-standing assumption that sleep duration is the most important index of sleep for human health. ’ The researchers noted that ‘top scorers’ went to sleep and got up within a consistent one-hour window. ‘Bottom scorers’ were more likely to operate within a 3-hour window.

Just bear that in mind when Netflix throws you tempting new episodes/films beyond your usual bedtime!

Jefferson also advised an afternoon walk ‘not because it is the best time to exercise … but because it is the best time to spare from your studies.’ In other words, take an afternoon walk to get away from work and chores, to rest (as Susan suggested last week).

His final injunction? ‘Habituate yourself to walk very far.’

Jefferson was effectively advising his people to get outside for at least an hour a day, and more if possible. And here’s the thing: this week I’ve been examining two very intriguing reports that suggest daylight activates unknown compounds that are vital for good health.  Scientists are attempting to untangle why our bodies need outdoor light.  Some assume it’s the Vitamin D.  But other researchers are now questioning this assumption. More importantly, this study identified a minimum amount of daily outdoors light.

After examining the records of 454,000 British people aged 40 – 70, the researchers found that people spending over an hour a day outside had a significantly lower rate of heart failure.  It didn’t matter if they were walking or not (although moving is always better, if you can).

Even sitting outside had an effect. Those who were consistently outside for less than an hour a day had a significantly higher risk of heart failure. The authors decided this wasn’t only due to Vitamin D, and speculated that light could trigger compounds like ‘B‐type natriuretic peptide and C‐reactive protein’, which might affect heart health. The other report, incidentally, found that older women had improved fertility the more time they spent in natural daylight.

Whatever it is, we clearly need to be outside for over an hour a day, just as our ancestors were until very recently.

I was interviewed recently for an American radio programme that I thought was about insomnia.  When the producers sent me a link I realised my interview on the Night Self was part of a longer programme on dreaming. The first interviewee, Dr Rubin Naiman, is a sleep and dream expert who maintains that we’re suffering from a collective shortage of dream (REM) sleep. Dreaming, he says, is an antidepressant (something Matthew Walker also maintains). And thanks to our hyper-aroused culture and the vast quantities of medication we take (over the counter and prescription), many of us may not be dreaming enough.

To have more REM/dream sleep, the first thing we have to do – according to Dr Naiman – is review any medications we’re taking that prevent this (although obviously talk to your doctor first!).  These range from alcohol, anticholinergics and benzodiazepines to antidepressants, many of which are known dream/REM suppressors (actually REM suppressors are often used to help those plagued by nightmares so they can have a useful function). Dr Naiman also suggests dream journaling or joining a ‘dream community group’ (who knew such things existed?), arguing that the more we embrace our dreams, the more dream sleep we will have. If you’ve tried either of these activities and noticed any difference to your sleep or wellbeing, please leave a comment.

You can catch the programme here.

And what about sleep regularity? Here are the findings, borrowed from the substack of Dr Martin Moore-Ede who summarises with the words ‘the secret to a long life …sunlight, sleeping at night in a pitch dark bedroom and, above all, regularity.’

1. People who stayed indoors under twilight levels of lighting and rarely ventured outside into bright sunlight died at a 30% greater rate, than those exposed to the most daily sunlight. Even though there were more skin cancers, the lengthened lifespan of those exposed to more sunlight overwhelmed any increased skin cancer risk. And the effect of staying indoors and avoiding sunlight was as large as the increased risk of early death in people who smoked.
2. People who slept with the lights on in their bedroom died at a 30% faster rate, as compared to those who slept in pitch darkness. And deaths from cardiovascular (e.g. heart attacks) and metabolic (e.g. diabetes) diseases were increased by 40%.
3. People who sleep at irregular times die much sooner than those sleeping on a regular nightly schedule. Those sleeping on a regular schedule had up to a 48% reduced risk of early death from all causes and up to a 57% lower risk of early death from cardiac and metabolic diseases. Indeed the regularity of sleep had a much bigger effect than how many hours people slept.

I expect many of these things are linked – if we maximize time outdoors, preferably moving, and then sleep in the dark with a regular sleep schedule, we will be more likely to dream. If we dream, we will – says Naiman – enjoy better health and wellbeing.

There’s still time to grab one of the last few tickets to hear me talking in Colchester on Saturday 2^nd March (11am at Red Lion Books) or in Dorset on the 19 March, or Somerset on the 20 March.

You can hear me on BBC Radio Ramblings here or, if you have the Times Radio app, there’s still (but only just) time to catch me discussing the Night Self with Ed Vaizey (Friday 23^rd, 9pm the Ed Vaizey show).

Happy dreaming!

Annabel