THE bottom line of the years of studies on insomnia is the role of the sun, particularly its sunshine, in the therapy of insomniacs.
First, let me tell you an amazing fact in our biological life, particularly in our rhythms of sleep and wakefulness within the 24-hour cycle daily. Reading neurology books in the 1990s never told me about this fact.
In the last decade, however, scientists have confirmed that this “internal clock” of ours is located in a small bundle of nerves inside our brain called the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). It receives sunlight signals from outside the body through the retina. It uses the signals as a guide on whether to bring the body to sleep or to wakefulness through hormones and nerves.
Interestingly, the presence of vitamin D in the brain controls these SCN influence on setting the body to sleep or wakefulness. In fact, blood studies noted that the level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the plasma form of vitamin D, moves up and down in relation to the internal clock, which may have caused the circadian variations in a day.
Consequently, normal levels of vitamin D in the body due to adequate exposure to the sunlight also determines the normal rhythm in our sleep and wakefulness during the entire day. This means that adequate sunshine exposure results to adequate and timely sleep behavior… unless the person wilfully disturbs this natural rhythm with his activities.
In effect, insomnia, unless already a habitual behavior, can be corrected through adequate and consistent exposure to the sunlight every day. People like Banana Yoshimoto (“That’s the advantage of insomnia… those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime. You get a lot done”) will not mind the habit.
However, if insomnia is already a habitual issue, it is the habit that must be changed, which sunlight exposure can also support.
Walt Whitman once said: “Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch.” For the insomniacs, I have to say that “some people” as well, need “so much sunshine to the square inch.”