I have been struggling recently to get my bedroom dark enough, so I was interested to see an article this week about how we have too much light in our bedrooms.
Changes in curtain trends and more streetlights and car headlights are being blamed for our rooms being lighter at night.
It has become increasingly difficult to find dark, heavy fabric curtains to block out the light. Cheaper and more short-term/disposable options seem to be more common. I have resorted to putting up curtains and blinds in my bedroom and it is still not dark enough for me.
Alex Goddard, curator at London’s Geffrye Museum, explained in an interview with the BBC: “In the Victorian period it was all the rage to have very heavy, fulsome curtains. People liked really luxuriant fabric. Now they don’t as it’s hard to clean.”
Scientists believe these lighter bedrooms could be to blame for obesity problems. The research, for the Institute of Cancer Research, looked at the waistlines of 113,000 women and concluded that there was a link between a lack of darkness and a weight problem.
It’s not clear why this would be the case, and some experts have treated the theory with caution.
Prof Jim Horne, former head of Loughborough University’s Sleep Research Centre, told the BBC: “One has to look at whether sleeping in the dark is a surrogate for something else. Do people who sleep in light rooms have a fear of the dark? Are they more agitated generally?”
Maybe we all need to start wearing eye guards at night to stay thin? It could be known as the Dark Night Diet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27661394