In the original Incredible camping experiment, a week-long camping trip was shown to cause people to fall sleep & wake earlier, feel better, and advanced their melatonin secretion. In the new Camping Experiment, they showed that 70% of this is accomplished within the first 2 days!
Some of the #FakeNews headlines attributed the improved sleep quality to sleeping in a tent. “Cute.” More likely, this was driven by absence of artificial light.
Proposal: How about fasting from artificial light one day per week? Or maybe just one night per week?
During normal daily non-camping living, we get way more exposure to light: mainly at night (the worst time), and a lot of blue (the worst kind):
All light at night isn’t bad: moonlight and campfire are A-OK.
In the absence of artificial light at night, our circadian rhythms are much more rapidly entrained:
^note the robust shifts in melatonin in the absence of artificial light
Do an artificial light fast a couple nights per week: a 70% improvement in circadian rhythms is worth it. Or at least get wise about hot blue blockers.