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That is because both Dr. Inside the Aquarius habitat. Crew members experience some of the same challenges that they would encounter during space flight and are also required to participate in daily extravehicular activities EVAs which simulate the microgravity in space due to the weightlessness of being underwater. Living underwater for more than hours causes the body to become saturated with dissolved gas, which is why we refer to the NEEMO environment as living in saturation. This research is therefore not only applicable to space missions, but also to divers professional and recreational , those operating below sea level e. The effects of these environments are difficult to study, and little is known about how chronic exposure may impact human health. NASA NEEMO allows researchers to study the effects of multi day adaptations to extreme environments in real-world conditions, providing insight into the potential impact of these types of environments, mitigation strategies, and ultimately how to improve the health and safety of humans in similar conditions, including spaceflight! Using the results across two NASA NEEMO missions and , our research teams, in collaboration with Rutgers University, Larkin Hospital and National University of Ireland Galway sought to investigate how the human body may respond both mentally and physically to chronic exposure to hyperbaric saturation in a real-world operation. They also underwent intense training for a few days before mission started matching the physical and mental intensity of the mission , which could have influenced these results. How did living under water affect heart rate, autonomic activity, body temperature, and blood flow? The Effect of Body Composition on Sleep

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Although it is environmentally friendly, blue light can affect your sleep and potentially cause disease. Until the advent of artificial lighting, the sun was the major source of lighting, and people spent their evenings in relative darkness.

Now, in much of the world, evenings are illuminated, and we take our easy access to all those lumens pretty much for granted. But we may be paying a price for basking in all that light.

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At night, light throws the body's biological clock—the circadian rhythm —out of whack. Sleep suffers. Worse, research shows that it may contribute to the causation of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Not all colors of light have the same effect. Blue wavelengths—which are beneficial during daylight hours because they boost attention, reaction times, and mood—seem The Effect of Body Composition on Sleep be the most disruptive at night. And the proliferation of electronics with screens, as well as energy-efficient lighting, is increasing our exposure to blue wavelengths, especially after sundown. Everyone has slightly different circadian rhythms, but the average length is 24 and one-quarter hours. The circadian rhythm of people who stay up late is slightly longer, while the rhythms of earlier birds fall short of 24 hours. Charles Czeisler of Harvard Medical School showed, inthat daylight keeps a person's internal clock aligned with the environment.

Some studies suggest a link between exposure to light at night, such as working the night shift, to diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. That's not proof that nighttime light exposure causes these conditions; nor is it clear why it could be bad for us. A Harvard study shed a little bit of light on the possible connection to diabetes and possibly obesity. The researchers put 10 people on a schedule that gradually shifted the timing of their circadian rhythms. Their blood sugar levels increased, throwing them into a prediabetic state, and levels of leptin, a hormone that leaves people feeling full after a meal, went down. Exposure to light suppresses the secretion of melatonin, just click for source hormone that influences circadian rhythms.

Even dim light can interfere with a person's circadian rhythm and melatonin secretion. A mere eight lux—a level of brightness exceeded by most table lamps and about twice that of a night light—has an effect, notes Stephen Lockley, a Harvard sleep researcher. Light at night is part of the reason so many people don't get enough sleepsays Lockley, and researchers have linked short sleep to increased risk The Effect of Body Composition on Sleep depression, as well as diabetes and cardiovascular problems.

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While light of any kind can suppress the secretion of melatonin, blue light at night does so more powerfully. Harvard researchers and their colleagues conducted an experiment comparing the effects of 6. The blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much 3 hours vs.

In another study of blue light, researchers at the University of Toronto compared the melatonin levels of people exposed to bright indoor light who were wearing blue-light—blocking goggles to people exposed to regular dim light without wearing goggles.

The fact that the levels of the hormone were about the same in the two groups strengthens the hypothesis that blue light is a potent suppressor of melatonin. It also suggests that shift workers and Copmosition owls could perhaps protect themselves if they wore eyewear that blocks blue light. Inexpensive sunglasses with orange-tinted lenses block blue light, but they also block other colors, so they're not suitable for use indoors at night. If blue light does have adverse health effects, then environmental concerns, and the The Effect of Body Composition on Sleep for energy-efficient lighting, could be at odds with personal health. Those curlicue compact fluorescent lightbulbs and LED lights are much more energy-efficient than the old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbs we grew up with. But they also tend to produce more blue light. The physics of fluorescent lights can't be changed, but coatings inside the bulbs can be so they produce a warmer, less blue light.

LED lights are more efficient than fluorescent lights, but they also produce a fair amount of light in the blue spectrum. Richard Hansler, a light researcher Te John Carroll University in Cleveland, notes that ordinary incandescent lights also produce some blue light, although less than most fluorescent lightbulbs. Disclaimer: As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content.]