Top Tweets for #sleepHygiene

My sleep transformed when I committed to being outside at sunrise every day. It gave my body clock a consistent morning signal, which helps determine when my brain prepares for sleep hours later. Sunlight reaching your eyes activates specialized retinal cells that communicate with the suprachiasmatic nucleus, your brain’s master clock. That clock coordinates the daily rhythm of alertness, body temperature and nighttime melatonin release. Getting that timing right matters because exhaustion and readiness for sleep are different things. You build sleep pressure throughout the day, but your body clock also generates a wakefulness signal. When that clock runs late, you’re exhausted in bed while your brain is still promoting wakefulness. Morning sunlight helps bring a delayed clock earlier, moving the evening melatonin rise and biological sleep window earlier with it. For me, committing to sunrise made that morning exposure consistent. Instead of getting my first substantial daylight whenever I happened to leave the house, I was outside receiving it at the beginning of every day.