The Sun As A Sleep Aid
Think back to when you were 5-10 years old. It’s summertime… You just spent 3 hours at the beach, frolicking in the water, playing in the sand, and having a good time with friends and family. You finally make it back to the hotel room and you feel an overwhelming sense of tiredness sweep over you. Then you drift off into what feels like one of the best naps of your life before waking up and saying “Wow that was a GREAT nap”.
We’ve ALL experienced something like this at one point. Maybe it wasn’t at the beach, but instead, it was a long day of mowing lawns, riding bikes, or just generally being outside in the sun.
Today, Maddie and I spent the afternoon getting our garden started in the backyard. It didn’t seem like much at the moment, but by the time we finished, we were feeling really tired. We ran a few more errands but when we got back home, we PASSED OUT. It was one of those naps that I described above, where the overwhelming drowsiness just hits you and there’s nothing you can do to avoid the inevitable slumber.
So, it got me thinking: Why does this happen?
Before I dive into my findings, I’ll talk about my guesses as to why I think we get so tired in the sun.
My Guesses for Why This Happens
Guess #1: Most people aren’t actually as physical as they think they are. Sure, we do an hour of exercise every day. Maybe we take our dogs on a couple of walks. But think about it, that workout is probably inside, in a temperature-controlled environment (I’ll add that Maddie and I’s workouts are in our outdoor gym, but the point still stands for most people).
Beyond these brief stints of activity, most people are probably seated in a chair in front of a computer screen for the rest of their day. So, there isn’t much activity that would warrant such exhaustion as I described above.
Guess #2: This goes along with and in addition to the above - We humans are meant to be outside being physical throughout the sunlight hours of the day. Our early ancestors very likely hunted and gathered ONLY during this time.
Heck, even our more recent ancestors (before electricity) labored throughout the day and probably had a very good night’s sleep from the hard, physical work they had to do farming or while working in the factories.
Today, it’s no secret that people are starved of good, restful sleep and maybe it has something to do with the fact that we are placed in a chair with artificial light flooding our systems. Think about it, how many minutes per day do you actually get the sun on you?
My Findings
Finding #1: “A lot of tiredness stems from dehydration and vasodilation,” says Dr. Ashwin Rao, a family and sports medicine doctor at the Sports Medicine Center at the University of Washington.
Vasodilation is when the blood vessels in your skin dilate to allow more blood to flow to your body’s surface. This helps your body dissipate your core temperature and maintain its regular temperature. But when your body does this, it also means there is less blood available to flow to other parts of your body.
Of course, when you are hot or doing any sort of physical activity, your body moves some core fluid to the surface of your body, AKA sweat, to cool you down. This loss of fluids can begin to lead to dehydration.
So, while you are outside doing something that is very well physically demanding, your body is working very hard in the background to stabilize your internal temperature to make sure you don’t collapse from heat stroke.
Finding #2: My guesses were correct. Being in the sun does a good job of staving off the production of the sleep hormone melatonin. This effect is more noticeable and pronounced when you spend your waking hours in nature rather than under the fluorescent lights of an office. I’ve experienced this while on hunting trips when I’m walking the mountains all day and as soon as the sun sets, my body begins to shut down.
Take action:
If you find that you stay up all night or are not getting the best sleep, the solution might be easier than you think - spend more time outside and in the sun.
Your body will begin to reset pretty quickly back to its normal cycle of hormone production that’s been disturbed by the lack of natural light and overstimulation of artificial light. You’ll feel like a kid after a long day at the beach again, and I don’t think anyone will mind feeling like that.
-Sebastian